Concerning Chance ✔

SEVENTEEN

As if to break the silence amongst us, Max scruffs the sole of his shoe against the pavement. He turns to study the bus timetable on a nearby lamppost. I can't read him; not the way I wish I could.

I shove my hands in my pockets and Lilia crosses her arms.

Regret courses through my veins; I only came here once after Chance's crash. She wanted to take flowers to tie to the railing she'd slammed into; she wanted to bring them for Hope, the way people do at crash sites.

I came with her — she could hardly walk without clutching onto me. Needless to say, it was weeks until she would get in a car again. But when we got here, someone else had already tied a bunch of fresh flowers to the railings, even though Hope was the only fatality of the crash.

Curiosity draws my eyes to the fatal railings right below me, where a bunch of half-wilted lilies droop from a yellow ribbon.

I think back to Chance's letter, to a part she'd crossed out in a later edit — W̶i̶t̶h̶ H̶o̶p̶e̶, I̶ d̶i̶d̶n̶'t̶ n̶e̶e̶d̶ t̶o̶ b̶e̶ d̶r̶i̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ s̶o̶ e̶r̶r̶a̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ s̶h̶e̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ b̶e̶ a̶l̶i̶v̶e̶ i̶f̶ I̶ h̶a̶d̶n̶'t̶ h̶a̶d̶ t̶o̶ s̶w̶e̶r̶v̶e̶ a̶s̶ I̶ d̶i̶d̶. M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ i̶f̶ I̶ h̶a̶d̶n̶'t̶ f̶u̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ u̶p̶ t̶h̶e̶n̶, n̶o̶n̶e̶ o̶f̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶ o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ s̶h̶i̶t̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶'v̶e̶ h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶e̶d̶. 

O̶r̶ m̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ i̶t̶'s̶ a̶l̶l̶ m̶y̶ f̶a̶u̶l̶t̶.

What happened here set everything in motion for the decline in Chance's life. For nothing to have changed at these crossroads, it feels almost blasphemous... wrong and unfair.

After rifling through her bag, Lilia pulls out a lighter and a cigarette. "What?" She shrugs, wide-eyed as Max and I turn to face her. "I need something to calm me down. Your guys' stress is fucking up my energy balance."

She dangles the cancer stick between her lips and, after a couple of flicks of her lighter, she lights it up. Blowing out a billow of grey smoke, Lilia slumps down to sit on the floor, crossing her legs.

I feel at a loss. The desperation for answers that drove me here has... dissipated. Because there's nothing — no trace of Chance. I don't know what exactly I was hoping for; it's not like she left me clues or anything.

This is gonna be a lot harder than I thought.

But I know I have to here — I know I have to come to all these places where Chance's tragedies happened.

Usually, whenever I write about Chance, this weird sort of calmness overcomes me — like the essentiality of writing it takes priority over my emotions. Yet on the bus, I started to worry that going to see all these places where all these things happened to Chance would result in my emotions taking over.

Is that such a bad thing?

"Want a drag?" Lilia's voice snaps me out of my thoughts, even though she's not talking to me.

"Sure." Max sounds indifferent.

"Hey!" Lilia pulls back the offered cigarette when Max reaches for it. "You gotta promise not to finish it like you did last time. These things are fucking expensive, y'know."

"I try not to make promises I can't keep," Max replies cryptically, though it's his next words that really catch my attention. "I'm already breaking one right now."

I look over at him to see him leaning against the lamppost with his leg propped up against the lamppost's thicker base. He's watching me. We both lock eyes with one another, and I hold it even when odd, uncomfortable prickle tears through my chest.