Page 81 of Grave Love
Why haven’t I died yet?
Quickly, I drive down the road, coming back down to earth.
Blaze is looking after me now, and it’s like I’ve transformed from being Mrs. Richmond’s burden into Blaze’s burden. I don’t want that. I’m his little corpse, and one day, he’ll wake up and realize I’m better off dead.
And I can’t leave that ending up to anyone else.
This is what’s best for everyone. Including Blaze.
I exit the highway, then park in a strip mall. I dial the number on the doctor’s business card and tear a sliver of chapped skin from my bottom lip.
“This is Doctor Barwick,” a male voice says.
I pause. When Blaze finds out I’m calling the doctor, he’ll be pissed. He’ll never forgive me.
But I’ll already be dead.
It’s my choice.
“This is Ren Kono. We met today?” I pause. I’m not sure what I can or can’t say over the phone line. “Your business card says you’re near 30A. You still have that medicine?”
“Sure. Let’s meet up. I’ll text you an address.”
As I punch in the location into my phone’s GPS, the device vibrates: a call from Blaze. I silence it, then text him quickly:Quick errand, see you soon.
In Rosemary Beach, the tree branches frame the street, twisting with thin strings of lights, like a road winding through the woods of a storybook fantasy. I park at the outdoor mall, finding the ice cream shop the doctor mentioned.
Wealthy families in shirts more expensive than my car pass by me without a second glance, like I’m trash on the side of the road, not meant for this neighborhood. I always feel out of place here. I used to not care—my grandmother even bought me expensive clothes here sometimes—but once I was a teenager, she told me that she had backed out of an offer to buy property here, so that she could keep working at the school until I was ready to take over.
It was always my fault she couldn’t have the life she wanted. And I won’t let that happen with Blaze.
A man in salmon shorts and a white golf shirt strolls down the sidewalk. Our eyes meet, and he nods at me. His facial structure is jagged, so similar to Blaze’s, and yet they have such opposite styles. Blaze wears plain black clothes. You’d never catch him in a golf shirt.
Just like me, Blaze would never belong in a place like this.
The doctor hands me a small paper bag with an ice cream parlor logo on the front. The contents shift as I take it. My phone vibrates again.
Don’t keep me waiting,Blaze texts.
I stow my phone without replying, then open the bag. A plastic bag containing the lozenges. A pill bottle next to it.
I steel myself. Whateverweare—whatever Blaze has planned forusnow—isnotgoing to work. People like me bring others down, and there’s nothing we can do to claw our way out of hell. To make life better for anyone. We deserve nothing. Wearenothing.
And Blaze has already given me way too much.
My eyes well up with tears as I stare at the bag’s contents, sorrow squeezing my chest. I can’t control it. Someday, I’ll screw it up. I’ll ruin things for Blaze, and I don’t want to wait for that day to come. The only way I can berightfor him is to be his next victim. The willing one. His practice run. The one that helps him find his rhythm here.
He doesn’t needme.He needs a good victim. And to be a good victim, I have to die.
“When are you going to do it?” the doctor asks softly, breaking into my thoughts.
Before I meet Blaze,I think.I have to do it soon, or he’ll stop me.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Do you want me to be there?”
I shake my head. Logically, all humans want to be surrounded by their loved ones when life inevitably ends. This doctor isn’t my loved one.
