By Makayla Palm
“You
don’t have to do this,” he said as he zipped up the back of my black dress. I
was already running late for the funeral. Neither my husband nor I were morning
people, but this was too important for me to miss.
“I have
to. I made him—”
“Do not
say you made him do this. He made that choice. It is not your fault.”
“But it
is. I loved him, then manipulated and crushed him. I have to atone for what
I’ve done.” I slipped on my shoes after touching up my makeup. I slipped some
wipes in my bag—I knew I’d need them later.
“At least
let me come with you.” Barret stood up to grab a button-down shirt from the
closet.
“I want to, but I have to do this on my own.
It wouldn’t feel right to bring you, considering how all of this started.”
“I’m not
going to convince you, am I?”
I shook
my head as I walked out of our bedroom.
“If
anything happens—”
“I will.”
I walked towards the door. “I love you.”
I left
the house and got in my car. I turned the key and the radio turned on. It was
only fitting that Jason Aldean was playing. That was our favorite country
singer. I took a deep breath and started to drive.
I headed
to the Casey’s we used to visit and went inside. I grabbed a Mike’s Lemonade,
the cherry one. He said that one was his favorite. I went and paid for it,
still not used to the fact that I could purchase it. He used to buy one for us
to split. I walked out, sat in my car, and cracked open the can. I took a deep
breath and took a sip. It tasted just the same. It was hard to believe all of
this happened three years ago.
~
I found
my turtles the day we dug out the garden. They were young, barely
hatchlings. I wanted to protect them,
eager to have something to care for. I had been locked in my house for months, the
pandemic ravaging my world as I knew it. I was anxious, uncertain of so much. I
just wanted consistency, and I would go to any length to get it.
I met
Travis at work. He seemed nice enough. He reminded me of one of my favorite
superheroes, in appearance only. He wasn’t extraneously muscular but had this
intense look in his steely blue eyes. He was rigid, a bit awkward, but amiable.
He mentioned his work at a local boarding stable, and I asked him where it was.
That was how we connected. I had some old tack I needed to get rid of, and the
stable was minutes from my house. It was all so convenient.
We ended
up spending the summer together. That barn was my escape, the one thing that
felt normal. We did the evening feedings, the watering, turning out the horses.
The owner asked me what my boyfriend thought of me being at the barn so much,
and I said he approved and thought it was good for me. My boyfriend and I were
at a crossroads. Trapped on two opposite political spectrums and families
amidst a contagious virus, I had little choice but not to see him. It about
broke me, making me squirm in my stable relationship.
Mucking
stalls with Travis in that barn became my safe place, the place where COVID and
politics and family disagreements didn’t matter. We both desired to be better
horsemen. Travis was young in his horseman journey, only having been around
horses for a year. I was returning to my first love; I had had my own horse in
high school. My horse and I competed together, trained together, and bonded
together. He was my escape then. Horses had always been my escape, in some form
or another. There was something to finding a rhythm with a horse that calmed my
spirit, setting me free.
Travis
was along for the ride, knowing all my afflictions. We drove to shows together,
went to get ice cream together. Fall was approaching, so the local special was
the Caramel Apple shake. It became our favorite, something to sip on as we shut
down the local ice cream stand, like we did the day he got fired from his job.
I didn’t question why he was fired then.
My
turtles grew as I nurtured them. One struggled more than the other, but I
didn’t question that either. Einstein struggled to digest the food pellets, but
he liked the lettuce grown from the garden I found him in. Soon Edison had
surpassed Einstein, but they lived amiably together. To my knowledge, if they
were the same sex, they would have a few months before I needed to separate
them. I wasn’t too worried about it at the time. I was more concerned about
their present survival than I was the future.
Those few
months went by, seeming peachy as ever. My first tattoo nestled on my shoulder,
marking my rebellion I didn’t know how else to express. The tension at home
came to a climax, and I ended things with my boyfriend. It didn’t feel right,
but I didn’t know what else to do. Then there was Travis, and in him I found
the consistency I was longing for. There was a contentedness in those
late-night shows and drives home on the windy turns on Cole Hollow Road that
made it seem perfect.
~
I
remember walking in on my turtles, Edison and Einstein in a fatal
confrontation. It was more of an annihilation, to put in more accurately. It
was intentional, the way Edison thrashed Einstein around their feeding tray
like a dog toy. That was the sick part, the intentionality. That’s when I’d hit
my breaking point. I started to cry and reached for my phone. I called the
first person I could think of, the only person I thought I could trust, Travis.
He asked
what was wrong, and I told him about the turtles. He stayed on the phone with
me for an hour or so, knowing that talking would help me calm down. I’ll never
forget what he told me that day.
“I was on
one of my walks that night when I saw it. I’ve never told anyone this before.”
“Yeah?
What happened?” I knew he would walk at night to get away from his father. I
made him text me when he got home because I worried about him walking alone at
night.
“I saw
someone get murdered.”
I
clenched my lips and bit my tongue.
“I was
walking along the street when um, I passed an alley.” He clucked his tongue to
the roof of his mouth, like he did when he was deep in thought.
“I didn’t
hear a gunshot, but I heard the blood spatter. I saw the man, stabbed in the
chest, slump against the wall and slide against the brick as he fell to the
ground. I heard the footsteps running down the alley and a rush of wind, and
that was it.”
“That’s
crazy.”
“Yeah, it
was.” He said it with a tone I couldn’t decipher. Either pausing to remember it
or pausing in awe of it. I guess I wouldn’t know until later.
~
I turned
onto Cole Hollow Road, remembering the twists and turns. I could almost hear
our laughs from the first time I drove this road, when I about drove us off the
road. The celebration of life was at the barn. We all knew that’s what he would
have wanted. I hadn’t seen any of the barn staff in three years, not since I’d
left. I heard about Travis on the news. His dad arrived at their apartment late
one morning with his girlfriend when they found Travis. It was a gruesome scene.
That’s the first time his dad saw his gun.
~
After the
battle between the turtles, I knew I had to choose one to keep, and one to
release into the wild. The look in his eyes was never the same, and he barely
moved from his favorite rock. After attempting to nurse Einstein back to
health, he died three days later. I knew Edison wouldn’t be happy in a
terrarium, and it was apparent he could fend for himself. I took him to a lake close by and let him go.
It was a few weeks later when I put all the
pieces together. Travis’ orientation, for his fourth job in six months, was
being delayed. Again. He told me that he loved me that week, and I was taken
aback. Those words made me realize I was in over my head. He had further
confided in me about violent dreams he had about killing my ex-boyfriend to
make my life easier. He told me he would drive by my house. Not to my house,
but around it, on Cole Hollow Road, to see me even if we weren’t together. He
came in several times to my new workplace to visit. I had started to pull away
from him. We were never intimate, never held hands, but it didn’t matter. He
had fixated himself to me, and I knew I had to get out. I tried not to think
about the unregistered firearm sitting in his dresser drawer.
He texted
me constantly asking me where I was and when I’d see him next. I never
responded and blocked him. He came to visit me at my new workplace once a month
for almost a year. He acted as if he didn’t know me each time. Sometimes he
would talk to me, sometimes he wouldn’t. I knew eventually I’d have to tell him
to stop, and one day I’d had enough. On one of his routine visits, I looked him
dead in the eyes and said, “Travis, we will never date. Not now or any time in
the future.” He stopped showing up, and then I never saw or heard from him
again. I was relieved, hoping to never again hear the name Travis Eugene. He
lied about his name, too, but that was how I knew him.
~
I carried
this regret for years, knowing I wouldn’t have the closure, the solution I
wanted. Then the news came on. I had gotten back with my ex, we had just
married and moved into our new house. A small country house near my parents.
Not ideal, but it was what we could afford. I didn’t know what kind of ending
I’d wanted when I thought about the lack of closure, but it wasn’t this. Travis
needed help—he needed someone to understand him for who he was—a naïve, good-hearted
man who came from a troubled place. He didn’t deserve the way I blindly looked
past his darkness to see what I wanted to see, and then leave him out to dry.
I turned
in to the driveway of the barn, the blue stable on my left. I parked the car,
the knot in my stomach growing. I anticipated what people may say to me,
paralyzing my hand on my car door.
“There’s
the bitch that left Travis.”
“I bet
she’s back with her ex.”
“I can’t
believe she came today. She doesn’t deserve to be here.”
I stepped
out of my car, biting my lip. I walked to the gate enclosing the barn and
pastures, and opened it, bracing myself for beating I deemed myself worthy of.
About the Author
Makayla Palm is a current student majoring in Geology. She typically writes short
stories and fiction that focuses on character development. She has been writing
stories since she could hold a pencil and focuses primarily on pieces that
exemplify different aspects of the human experience and the complexity of
relationships. She is passionate about mental health advocacy, which inspires
the themes of her writing.