Chapter 3: MY FAULT

Chapter 3: MY FAULT

Present Day

"Lisa come on, don't let go. Don't let go" he pleaded as tears ran down his sandy face. "I'll pull you up on three. One, two, three. Ahhhhhh" he screamed, using the last piece of decent energy his battered body could muster. All to no avail. "Come on. Don't— Help! Somebody help! Please" he screamed, his cracked voice echoing throughout the canyon. "Please" he whispered, trying to clean the tears off his face, but only succeeding in getting specks of sand all over himself. 

"Baby" she finally spoke up, her feet dangling treacherously under her. "It's okay" she sniffed, trying to conceal her tears. "It'll be fine. We'll be fine. Just let me go."

"What?"

"You can't hold me up forever" she mustered a weak smile. "Just let go."

"Are you crazy? No. No. We can do this. On three. One, two, three. Ahhhhhh!" As he pulled this time, the scar under his belly scratched the rough floor, making him grunt in pain and causing his grip to gradually loosen. "No no no no no. Come on. Come on!" He screamed even louder. “Baby you got to trust me on this one. Just don’t let go okay. We can do this. Lisa, please don’t let go” he said, tears dropping down his eyes, his facial expression depicting helplessness. “Remember all the dreams we’ve shared? Baby you’re pregnant with my chi—our child” he corrected. “Not right now baby, you can’t give up. Not right now” he said, more tears flowing down his cheeks. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have suggested this fucked up hike in the first place. Please forgive me Lisa. Please forgive me” he cried, his hands slowly slipping.

"Robert” she smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be watching over you. We’ll both be watching over you. But for now,” the smile on her face immediately faded away, “…let go" she said, freeing herself from his grasp in an instant. 

"Nooooooooo!"

He screamed back into consciousness, jolting himself from a daylight nightmare that covered him with pants and beads of sweat. "Fuck".

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The satisfying thuds of leather boots on autumn leaves pierced through the thickest sounds, easily audible to the naked ear. The mid-twenties looking man, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a blue jean jacket with a white top inside, carefully traced his steps around the murky-looking environment littered with leaves and headstones. He unhurriedly made his way to one particular headstone that had bouquets on bouquets of flowers around it. Some looking fresh and young, others, not so much. He mushed the leaves under his feet like a dog preparing to get a suntan in the scorching weather, then gently took a seat on the ground, his legs crossed under him. 

Reaching out into his jacket, he brought out a bouquet of young and thriving looking roses, then rested it on the headstone. Kinda resembled the other bouquets already on the headstone. He gradually traced the carving on the piece of stone before him that read, "Lisa McDowell Harrison, Nineteen Ninety-Three to Two Thousand and Sixteen."

"Six years sweetheart. Six long years without you and I can't think of anything else to say but… ‘I'm sorry’. I pray every single day that I could go back, and if indeed a life needed to be taken, it should've been mine" He sighed. "But every single day I wake up from the same nightmare and continue living in an even worse one. A reality without you." He bit his lower lip, trying desperately to hold his tears back. 

"You know I found a hobby. I do some painting stuff by the side, just to take my mind off a couple things these days. That, and the fact that it's just really fun seeing something that you can actually call 'your creation'. Would’ve been nice to see our actual creation, but…” he paused, taking a deep sigh. “I might even bring a couple with me tomorrow, who knows" he smirked, trying to hide his tears. 

"I read a lot too. Just tend to lose myself in stories of adventure and chaos and drama. The usual shit. But it seems they all end the same, finding an answer to a question, a subtle strength to a hidden weakness, an inexplicable satisfaction to a lingering want or question. Not going to lie though, they're pretty thrilling. Sometimes I daydream about us being the main characters in our own story of adventure and thrill. Maybe that would be something worth documenting. You never know", he smiled to himself, drawing circles round the pieces of sand and leaves mushed in front of him. 

"You were right. We shouldn't have gone on that trip. It was crazy, it was wild and it… and it was all my fault. I know I'm running out of fresh lines, it's just the same thing every day", he feigned a laugh, tears already dropping down his murky and tired-looking eyes. "But I'm going to keep coming back Lisa. Until the day I die", he looked back up at the headstone. After a couple seconds of minimal silence in-between sobs, he slowly got back on his feet and was about to make his way out, when he turned back, like he had forgotten something. 

" I love you Lisa. Always have, always will. And no. I'm not ever going to let go." 

He looked forward and was about to walk away, when in-between steps, his leg got stuck over a twig causing him to lose balance and knock his head against a different headstone, sending him to sleep in an instant.

After about thirty minutes of nighty night, his eyelids finally glittered open, his murky eyes lurking underneath. The instant pain latched at the side of his head felt like a hangover slept with another hangover, and was about to have a threesome with a chick named migraine. 

"Fuck" he sat up, gradually massaging his swollen head. "Now that's just great" he tried assessing the size of the bump with his wandering hands. "Who the hell puts a headstone so fucking close to another headsto— wait" he said, recognizing the name etched across the large piece of rock. “Mia Arlene Martel” it read. “Nineteen Seventy-Two to Two Thousand and Ten”.

"Aunt Mia?" He said, reaching for the headstone, brushing it lightly with the tip of his thumb. "When the fuck did…" as he brushed the top of the headstone, he felt something way rougher than actual granite, and decided to take an even closer look. It felt like a carving. Like a hidden message covered by dust and years of rotting leaves. He reached into his shoe and drew a pocket knife. Gradually beginning to pick apart every single letter and number from what was definitely a well-hidden message, they gradually began to make sense. 'Sixth, Seventh Driveway, Luther Street' he said, noticing the last of the inscriptions carved into the stone. He quickly drew out his phone and put in the details of what was definitely a location, and a result popped up for ‘Luther Street, Seventh Driveway’. It was just a couple minutes away actually. He could easily just walk it.

"Bingo."