Liquid Smoke

FIFTY-ONE

Commotion.

People were coming and going. Carter sat next to me on the sofa in Liz’s living room. I was vaguely aware of all this, yet completely removed from it. I wasn’t numb; I could feel a dull pain in my stomach that pulsed with each breath. It was more like I was trying to wake up and couldn’t clear my head.

Wellton was standing in front of me. “Did you hear me?”

I looked up. “What?”

His eyes were blazing in the dark room. “I asked when you last spoke to her.”

“Oh. I … um … this morning. I was here. Then I left.” “Where’d you go?” he asked.

I’d walked out of the house. Told her I’d do the right thing. That I wouldn’t let her down.

“Where did you go?” Wellton repeated, his voice seared with anger.

“I … home, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Easy,” Carter said.

Wellton pointed at Carter. “Shut the hell up. My partner is dead, and I want to know why.”

Carter stood and started yelling at him, but his words faded in the air.

I’d told her I wouldn’t let her down.

But I had.

Why had I even left her? Why hadn’t I seen it?

The ache in my stomach pulsed like a strobe. My arms and legs felt light, like they were attached but I couldn’t control them.

Two officers grabbed Carter and pulled him away from Wellton, and the words in the room exploded back into my head.

“Leave him alone!” Carter was yelling. “He found her! How do you think he feels?”

“She was my partner!” Wellton was screaming back, his hands now on Carter’s shirt.

“And she was more to him!” Carter yelled back, straining against the grasp of the two officers.

I knew they were talking about me, but I couldn’t engage.

I felt Liz’s hands on my face. We were standing in her doorway. Her eyes were right in front of me. I could smell her hair, her skin, feel her breath against my skin, her lips against mine.

Don’t worry about letting me down. Just do what you need to do.

I’d let her down.

I hadn’t done what I needed to do. And now she was gone.