It all starts with goodbye

Chapter 10

I looked at him well. He was a skinny boy with big matted hair.

I also noticed when he smiled that he was missing a tooth in the front. He must have been around twelve years old, no more.

"Do we know each other?" I narrowed my eyes, but I couldn't even get a vague memory as much as I tried to remember him.

"Oh, no. We do not." He smiled again, letting me see that he actually lacked two teeth, although they were growing out already. "I saw when they killed you."

He paused and stared at me as if I could disappear in front of his eyes.

"I mean, you are not a ghost, are you?" he asked me suspiciously, and for a second, I thought about saying yes. However, I reconsidered it because he seemed ready to run without looking back.

"No, I am not a ghost. At least last time I checked, I was not one."

He grabbed a small stone on the ground and threw it on me before I could react.

"Ouch!"

"Great, the stone did not cross, so we can all agree that you are not a ghost." He lifted his chin, proud of his achievement. "I am sorry, I thought you were a ghost."

"Who are you?" And why was I discussing being a ghost with a kid?

"My name is Tom; nice to meet you, sir." He held out his hand to me, which I shook with curiosity. He shook it firmly.

"You can call me John. You mentioned you saw the people who shot me?"

"Oh, yes. That. I live kinda far from here." Tom pointed his thumb behind him, probably the direction in which he had come. "A couple of weeks ago I was riding my bicycle when I heard a loud sound. I rode faster, as fast as I could, but it didn't take a second until I listened to the same sound again.

I hid behind some trees and saw when two men took you to the car and put you in the back seat. I saw a movie where the hero follows the villains, so I followed them on my bicycle without letting them see me.

I think they didn't see me; otherwise, I might be dead right now." Tom waved his hands in the air to emphasize the danger he found himself in. "It was very difficult because the car is fast, you know? But I pedaled even faster until I lost them."

"You followed them on a bicycle, and those morons didn't see you?" All I could think about was how did I allow myself to be almost killed by such losers. A small kid followed them around the city on a bike, for Christ's sake.

"Yes, I did. My mom said this was the most stupid and brave thing she ever heard about. The cops were not very convinced, though, because I lost them in the middle of the way. They were nowhere to be found, but then I saw the same car getting back to town, so I thought I should take the direction where they came from. It took me a lot of days to get here. I was trying to track the car's marks on the floor when you called out to me."

As Tom told me his story, I started to feel dizzy and sick. I staggered, holding my head in my hands.

"Are you okay, Mr. John?"

"Yes," I said, squeezing my head tighter. "Please, continue telling me the story. Did you go to the police?"

"Yes, after a while, I went home. Mom says I have to be home before it gets dark, and she is very serious about this, so I abandoned my search for you and went home. She panicked when I told her what I saw; it was funny. Then she took us there. To the cops, I mean. She even took Gus with us; he's still a year old, and he doesn't talk yet; he just babbles."

"And then?"

"The police didn't believe me." He shrugged. "They say they found the police patrol in the opposite direction and that they were looking for your body there. They also said you were dead. I said you were not, but nobody believed me. Not even my mom."

I stared at him, speechless.

"So I kept on riding my bicycle around here, trying to find you. I lied to Mom and said I was playing with Jeff, my friend. I bet she won't be mad when you show up with me."

I sat on the mossy ground with my head spinning, and although I could hear him, Tom's voice felt far away, like it belonged to a different reality, just as his crazy story.

My memories started to come suddenly, without permission. All so detailed as if I had never forgotten anything.

I remembered Ride and my last conversation with him; I remembered being shot in the shoulder and then in the leg. The pain on the back of my head before falling deep into the nothingness.

And I remembered Raellyn.