Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop (23 page)

“
That doesn’t
reserve the right to not be hurt by someone’s words,” I
said.

Annalise couldn’t look at the
car. “I’m not thirteen, Leon. Don’t talk to me like I am.”

I wondered if part of her had
considered the truth of what Kayt had said. Or if she actually
blamed herself for Lancaster’s death. She knew the boy as little as
I did.

“
How are you
doing with all this, then?”

“
Leon,”
Annalise stopped. “Do you know why I’m coming with you?”

“
Because you
don’t want to be alone in this?”

“
I wanted
them to die,” she locked eyes with me. “I was happy thinking about
anyone who’s ever hurt me suffering and burning. It felt good. For
three years I was stuck in hell just because of a petty legal
system and rapists who were just mad they couldn’t do what they
wanted. I know what it’s like to hate the way Kayt hates now. I
imagined all of them: the judge, the jury, prosecution, defense,
even the legal secretary burning in that city. And I was mad
because their deaths were quick.”

“
Is that what
keeps you going?”

“
You guys
make me forget. Just like, eventually, we’ll make Kayt forget. It
won’t be easy, but at some point tonight, Kayt will realize that
she was doing something without thinking about Lancaster’s death.
And she will hate herself so much for it. We need to let her be
angry for now, under controlled circumstances, like I said. Right
now, we have a purpose, something to run to, and if I had to stop
thinking for a moment – even about stupid ideas and ways to make
myself seem awesome in your eyes – then I would have to stop and
think about the part of me that wanted innocent people
dead.

“
The worst
thing I could do right now is to slow down. I see myself in Kayt.
If I slow down, then I’d have to see what kind of person I am.
Don’t do that to me, Leon. Don’t let Kayt fall into that trap
either. Let her have anger if she wants it. Let her say things
she’ll regret later while we still have a later to
control.”

“
That’s the
secret,” I said.

“
Everyone
faces it eventually. You can’t for a minute believe that running
solves all your problems,” she smiled. “But I appreciate you trying
to apologize for her. Come on, Kayt’s probably calmed down by
now.”

Annalise turned around, took me
by the hand and led me back to Kayt. As we walked on, I saw Kayt in
the back of the car, and put together what Annalise was saying. For
now, she had all the things she needed, and that was what would
shape her future.

“
I have an
idea,” I said.

‘
It won’t work. You have
no
idea what just happened, do you?’ Daniel reappeared in the
distance, but spoke right inside my ear. ‘No idea how to react, you
anti-social mammoth. Of course, how could you react? When have you
ever done anything but run? You lied to Lise, Leon Bishop. She
thinks you’re here on vacation, and she trusts you because you lied
to her – the last thing she’d ever expect is that you’re one of
those people who runs.’

Daniel flashed closer. One
second he was at least a mile away, and then he was within a few
feet. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to ignite my
sense of smell. I could taste his cologne in the back of my throat.
It had grown sour with the hint of sweat, turning the musk of teak
wood left in the sun to rot. My mental representation of him aged
the area around his eyes and mouth with a handful of wrinkles,
whereas the skin in between had stretched to impossible tightness.
Had I been closer, I’m sure I could have looked into his pores.

‘
You’re doing
that right now. Running. Every word you say puts you further from
being able to explain yourself.’ Daniel smiled, and vanished as
Annalise walked through him. I tried pushing him away, and instead
of succeeding, a loud impact stifled my ears. It was as if my
eardrums popped, or the air pressure had changed.

I stopped and staggered to my
side. Annalise caught me, and I quickly regained my composure. She
asked if I was okay, and I nodded. But, what had really happened
was simple. ‘Congratulations, Leon Bishop,’ whispered Daniel.
‘Don’t you wish you hadn’t run from a life that had hardly
crumbled? Instead, enjoy running with the life expectancy of a
moth.’

I pushed the
mental and
auditory stimulation of Daniel
away, and focused on the idea I’d had before Daniel struck.
Annalise and I joined Kayt as Melanie and Davion cleaned up. They
smiled at each other, unsure of where to put the foil and the extra
food, realizing that we hadn’t exactly pulled up to a comfortable
rest area. Davion crossed himself after setting some of the
leftover meat on the ground with the rest of our trash, and buried
it. Melanie found this hilarious and clapped Davion on the back,
doing the same. I felt more uneasy seeing her jubilant than
mad.

“
I’m sorry,
Lise.” Kayt said. She looked straight ahead. The cliffs peaking
over the crests of Sondranos were glowing with the last gasps of
sunset, and their light cast orange on her features.

“
It’s fine,”
Annalise scrambled into the driver’s seat, legs out. “I certainly
understand what you’re feeling. Just remember one thing for me. If
you only remember the bad stuff that’s happened to you, then your
life will be pretty miserable. Try to think of the good things.
Like how you and Lancaster first met.”

I stepped in. I explained to
her the idea of a Present Moment.

Of course, I’ve had time since
that moment, so I feel I’ve already described the purpose and
intent behind a Present Moment as best I can right now. In that
case, I will not put down what I told her. Instead, I will simply
state that I told her what one was and how it could be used. I flew
by the seat of my pants at the time, and I’m not certain I made
sense. But Annalise summed it up for me after I’d finished, partly
because she was also confused by my sudden imagination.

“
You always
relive the worst moments of your life,” she covered for me. “But if
you force yourself to rewrite over those bad memories with the good
ones, and keep playing that image in place of the one you were
thinking before, then you can have that moment in the present,
instead.”

“
You see
Lancaster, right now. Don’t you?” I asked.

Kayt nodded. A tear fell.

“
See him
again, but not as he was. See him in a moment before any of this
occurred. Elaborate on it, stretch the truth a bit to make yourself
smile. Tell us, so we can see it too. Let us remind you of it when
you feel the despair coming.”

Kayt smirked. She wrapped her
fingers together in her lap and crossed her legs. She cleared her
throat and set her head back against the chair.

Lancaster
stands at the door
, holding a box in his
hands. The package is wrapped in coloured paper, and a small
shoelace is tied in a knot, wrapping the box. Kayt answers the door
in her nightgown. The fringe carries down to her shins, and teases
a see-through fabric as it courses up her legs. The see-through
portion resumes around her torso, but well-placed under garments
conceal the rest. Lancaster wants to comment that her skin looks
purple underneath, but holds back. She gasps at his arrival, and
then laughs.

“
I guess I
asked for it, if I answered the door like this,” she
grins.

Lancaster dons a tee-shirt with
a picture of their University half-faded on the front. The ram –
their school mascot – stares out through one solid eye, while the
other can’t decide whether it will look left or up. Kayt laughs at
the shirt. Lancaster grins from ear to ear, and hands her the oddly
wrapped box. She sniffles, pulls a tissue out of her balled hand,
and sneezes. Her eyes water and she staggers her breathing, about
to sneeze again. Lancaster still holds the gift out to her, and
once she’s sure the sneezing is done, she takes it.

“
The
entire
series,” he
says.

“
You know
that’s a good two days’ worth of programming, right?”

“
The average
cold during this season lasts forty-eight hours. You’d know that if
you showed up to class – instead of pretending to be
sick.”

“
Speaking of,
you’re going to get yourself sick being here.”

“
Your point
being?”

“
Don’t you
have work?”

Lancaster
laughs. “I called in sick. They didn’t ask
who
was sick, so I figure it’s
legit.”

In two weeks, Lancaster would
be fired from that job – but it’s not a big deal, he’d say; it was
only food service for a company that underappreciated his talent as
a delivery boy.

Kayt tries to hand the gift
back to Lancaster.

“
I can’t
accept this,” she says.

Lancaster refuses and steps
into the doorway. Inside, he can see the mess from the fight she
had with her mother still dressing the corners of the walls. Kayt’s
mother had drug a chair from the sitting room into her bedroom,
scuffing the walls; Lancaster had heard part of the argument played
out over the phone. She’d always acted younger than her own
daughter, and when Kayt had refused to make dinner the night before
because of her illness, her mother had thrown a fit. Kayt has
pulled her chair into her bedroom, and spent the night in there.
This was a normal occurrence.

Over time, Kayt trained him
with the knowledge to ignore her words and actions – the best thing
to do is treat her mother like she’s the age she never grew out of,
she’d said. That’s why, when Lancaster enters the room, he doesn’t
mention the fight. He can still hear Kayt’s crying and wishing that
she could just leave all of it behind. Her mother is the only
reason she wants to leave the town she’s called home for so long.
He still feels the resentment caused when Kayt insisted that her
mother was right in that ‘she would never amount to anything if she
never stopped thinking about herself.’ Lancaster resents that Kayt
has turned into the caretaker of a fifty year old teenager. This is
the strongest emotion he shares with Kayt. This is before their
failed relationship, before their carnal introduction and
disastrous pregnancy, and well before Kayt would meet Victor. It is
a simpler time, Kayt would say.

As Kayt tells this story, Leon
insists that it’s a time that she should always hold as important,
even if things fall apart afterwards; hold the past close, but
don’t let it startle you into running. Kayt staggers as she
continues. She can tell he’s speaking from something deeper within,
and it only reminds her of Lancaster.

Lancaster bypasses the scuffed
hallway without a word and finds a seat in the living room.
Nobody’s home except for Kayt, who had to stay until she got
better. Even her mother, who left for work without a word, sent a
data message saying she’d be late. Kayt smiles through cold-puffed
eyes and unwraps the video chips. It’s a show they’ve seen before,
Department 13, from the older days when television on Sondranos
didn’t include as many advertisements for self-improvement as it
does these days.

“
How much did
this cost you?”

“
Are you
going to play the discs or what?” Lancaster asks. Kayt takes a
second, smirks, and joins Lancaster on the couch. For the rest of
the day – and the day after that – Kayt never once thinks about the
fight with her mother. She doesn’t remember being sick weeks later.
She just remembers sitting on the couch with Lancaster, while
episodes of Department 13 blur together in one continuous run.
There is a storyline, she knows, but all she remembers is how
comfortable she was on the couch. How comfortable she is, and will
be as long as she remembers how it feels to have known someone who
loved her as much as Lancaster.

Kayt was
interrupted by a
sudden, static shock of
noise. From the car:

“
Attention,
survivors:

“
Rescue is
coming.

“
Verification
from General Jeremiah Carter aboard International Aeronautics
vessel Cooper. Find safety. Arrival is determined to be in nine
hours. Repeat: rescue is coming. Find shelter, and do not engage
the enemy.

Davion
re-joined the group, wide eyed.

“
Did you hear
that?” Davion crossed himself and furrowed his brow. The news
seemed to strike him with more concern than relief. We nodded.
Nobody needed to question if the message was heard, or the
meaning.

Melanie looked shocked, as if
she hadn’t expected anything to happen. “I left it on the emergency
channel in case there were any cars in the vicinity. Or maybe the
Belovore’s would be stupid enough to use our frequencies and we’d
know when they were coming. I didn’t expect,” her words broke as a
smile caressed her cheeks. She knelt to the ground, clasping her
hands together and stifling cries.

“
You did good
Melanie,” Davion said. He wiped dust off his robes, and flattened
them against his chest. “But nine hours is a long time for a race
that destroyed an entire city in five minutes. I suggest we get
moving.”

Annalise climbed into the
passenger side. Daniel appeared just as everyone climbed into the
car. I stepped back and balanced on the cusp of the road and the
side, while the others got in. ‘You know what this is, right?’ he
asked. ‘It’s the long dark night of your self-absorbed soul. Only,
you’ve forgotten that it will mean nothing since you haven’t done
anything worth repenting over. They’ve done all the work. You’ve
only contributed to the death of a young man. Remember the classes
you oh-so-love?’