Turning A New Leaf

Sixty Two

It had been a few weeks since the baby shower, everything was going well with Atira's pregnancy, Rocco was about to start a new year of Headstart but Krist found himself struggling emotionally with everything that had happened in the last year. Getting stabbed, Lainey passing, the shit with his brother.

He'd gone to work that Thursday in a funk. The callers that morning were extra and there were so many bitchy old ladies on a fixed income whose bills were going "up and up and up" but refused to give up the cable or even cut back. Can't help those who don't want to be helped.

After about the twentieth screeching old bat, Krist said fuck it and logged out for the day, telling his boss he had a killer headache. It wasn't a total lie because his head was pounding from stress.

He hit the dispensary for a pre-roll and then made a stop at the cemetery to stop by and chill with Lainey. Krist had felt weird visiting her grave initially but Atira had suggested he visit and talk to her as a way to process his grief.

Some days he wondered how he lucked out with Atira, she was one of the most laid-back, supportive women he'd ever met. Lainey would not have been cool with him visiting the grave of an ex, that's for certain. Her jealous ass would have accused him of trying to perform necromancy so he could cheat.

The day was hot already, it was the beginning of August so not unexpected but Krist wasn't a fan. He took off the oversized white shirt he'd been wearing, leaving on his wife beater, grabbed the bouquet he'd purchased at the 7-11, and strode up to her gravesite.

The flowers he had placed by her headstone had wilted and died, he replaced them with the newest ones, wiping away the dried grass that scattered over the stone marker.

He liked to imagine Lainey was probably rolling her eyes at him as he made sure her area was tidy, that had been an ongoing battle between them. Lainey was lax and a little lazy while Krist needed their space clean.

He sparked the joint, crouched beside her, and inhaled. Everyone says time heals but Krist felt like the longer Lainey had been gone, the more her death hurt and the more it ate at him.

When they'd met, he'd been speed-running death, consuming any drugs and alcohol offered to him, oftentimes mixing shit that should have killed him or downright overindulging. Krist would play it off as him being someone who partied hard because he pushed boundaries, not because he was wallowing in a pit of self-loathing while being too much of a chicken shit to full-on attempt to die, but if he happened to overdose then so be it.

Lainey had spent many, many sleepless nights watching over his stupid ass, pleading with him not to die on her, lecturing him about how fucking dumb he was for mixing OxyContin with beer and all the other shit he did.

He wished he could go back to the last time they'd spoken, there was so much that he wished he could have said that even if he wasn't with her, he would always have love for her. Instead, he told her to get clean and stop calling him.

Their conversation replayed in his head regularly, she had been reaching out for help, no doubt about it. When she told him she loved him and for him to have a good life, he should have taken it as a warning that she was thinking about dying.

Lainey had spent her last hours Earthside thinking nobody loved her, that she was alone while he was living happily ever after. It didn't seem fair, Lainey had done things to hurt him but she was not inherently bad. She deserved happiness and love.

Krist had done way more shady shit and treated the people who meant the most to him like shit, stole from them, and was violent, if anyone deserved a shit life it was him. He wasn't trying to feel sorry for himself but good god that guilt felt like a ton of bricks on his back.

Maybe the lingering guilt was karma for everything he'd done wrong to Lainey, Nina, his stillborn son, and his family.

As he went to leave, Fernando had texted him that he had some fire bud and was in Vancouver if he needed something. Krist had weed already but it wasn't as if he would regret buying more. He told him he was at the cemetery, giving him the address.

Fernando pulled into the parking lot maybe fifteen minutes later, like always he could hear the rumble of the bass and exhaust in the Monte Carlo before he actually saw him.

Krist wiped off Lainey's grave marker one last time, straightening her flowers before gathering the wilted bouquet and meeting Fernando.

"What's crackin'?" Fernando asked, his usual jovial attitude gone.

"Same ol shit, different day," He muttered, taking his seat in the Monte Carlo.

"I feel you," He replied, opening a pack of tropical fusion Swishers.

Krist leaned back in the passenger seat, arm behind his head, "Can I ask you something?" Fernando shrugged, "How do you stay in such a good mood even after all the shit you been through?"

"Because I got to. Crying about shit ain't gonna do nothing but make you stuck," Fernando told him licking the blunt paper.

"You ever feel guilty about still being here...like when the same shit happens to other people?"

Fernando cocked his head, "How so?"

"I dunno, like I been thinking a lot lately 'bout why I'm even here still. Like after I got stabbed, I lost all that blood and I'm still here. Or Lainey dying. Shit like that," Krist told him.

Fernando lit the blunt, inhaling, "Don't be thinking like that," he told him, "Everybody got their time, you can't be feeling guilty that your time isn't up but somebody else's was."

Krist nodded, taking the blunt.

Fernando continued, "Trust me, I lost a lot of people in my life and I get in my moments where I think the same shit, like I said though, all that gonna do is make you stuck."

The two sat quietly in the car as they finished the blunt, Clika One's Hide the Pain playing on the stereo.

"Aye, I been meaning to tell you this but always had a grip of people around, I found that dude who stabbed you," Fernando told him.

Krist turned his head, trying to read Fernando's face, "When?"

He stroked his mustache, "Sheeit...a couple days after your wedding. Adriana pointed him out to me. Fool ain't gonna be stabbing nobody anymore," he chuckled.

Krist understood that could mean several things and to leave it as an ambiguous answer, "Good looking out, bro, I owe you one."

"You're good, lil homie, all good."