Roller Skate || Alex Gaskarth a.u.

Chapter 35: Goodbye

Kit

Kit Parker sat at the dock.

In all honesty, most of her days were spent down by the dock, her roller skates and odd striped socks always placed in a heap beside her, feet wading in the water while her kaleidoscope eyes focused on the horizon in the distance. Nobody told her to return to her studies, nobody told her that it was pointless to wait for someone who wasn't coming home.

Nobody tried to talk about him to her anymore.

It had been like this for months now. She'd wake up in Alex's bed at the crack of dawn, then she'd roller skate down to the dock, accompanied by Alex's battered portable cassette player and his headphones that she had bought him for Christmas. Mr.Tibbs had a habit of joining her sometimes, which made her feel happy, but devastated at the same time, for she was sure that Mr.Tibbs was waiting for the brunette boy to return too.

She was surprised at how many boats and ships sailed passed their small harbour each passing day. The record of ships she had counted had been thirty, but those thirty ships didn't really matter to her, for those thirty ships had not brought Alex home to her.

Sometimes, Mrs.Gaskarth would join her. Out of everyone, Kit felt that Mrs.Gaskarth understood her the most. She had lost her one and only son. Her only star in a dull night sky, to put it in a metaphorical way.

But Kit was the same.

They wouldn't talk much at the dock, and of course, Mrs.Gaskarth encouraged Kit to eat and drink for the baby. Alas, Mrs.Gaskarth wasn't there all the time, and sometimes Kit couldn't find the strength to do anything.

Every day dragged by slowly. The grief that had overcome her was too much for her to be able to carry on her scrawny shoulders. She shouldn't have to carry a burden like this at the age of nineteen.

Nineteen.

She had almost forgotten about her birthday during the midst of losing Alex. How could she have celebrated it though? Kit doubted she had enough strength to carry on, let alone have a birthday bash that would require a smile and false happiness.

She tore her gaze away from the horizon as her dark thoughts crept into her mind. She didn't want to think about that anymore. The thoughts of any kind of party was making her feel queasy.

But as Kit felt small, choppy waves lap over her ankles, and as she watched the salty foam swirl around her feet, she began to open her mind. Something she hadn't done in a long time. She paused on the song Longview and removed Alex's headphones, the wind nipping at her ears, an empty silence greeting her like an old friend.

There were things that you couldn't count on in life. It was as simple as that. For example, you just couldn't count on the sun to shine in a clear blue every single day of the year. Rain was sure to fall sometime, and overcast afternoons were almost a constant annoyance. You couldn't count on the weather, for it changed too frequently.

So, perhaps, you couldn't count on a brunette boy with dark, hazel eyes, a nose ring and a crooked smile to come home like he had promised. Life just wouldn't let you have your way.

Yes, you could hope and you could pray, and maybe that would be enough, but it was the luck of the draw really. Kit had never really understood the concept of how death worked, and who decided your faith, but then again, she never would have thought that she would have to ponder the ways of death.

But that wasn't the point.

The point was, Alex Gaskarth had not returned home when she had counted on him to do so. She beat herself up day by day, upset because she had taken the punk rock kid for granted. People like Alex were hard to come by, and the fact that she had let him go....it was something that Kit would never forgive herself for. It was unfair how her and Alex's story had ended. It was one of those endings that Kit had hated as a kid, that she still hated as a teenager.

There were also things that Kit didn't understand in life. Why did the trees have to lose their leaves in autumn? Why did humanity fight over power? Why did water freeze from the top down?

Why Alex had to die, Kit would never know. It was one of those unanswerable questions, one of those unsolvable puzzles. It was something that even Einstein himself couldn't explain. It was just his time.

Everyone had a time, she supposed. It was as if the whole world was one big waiting room. Nobody knew when they were going to be called.

But as the sun came out from behind the clouds, and the waves started to ease off, Kit rubbed her lower abdomen to feel the slight swell of her belly.

Perhaps it was time to move on. Was there any point of spending her whole life waiting for a boy who wasn't going to come home?

She stared at her feet in the water.

She couldn't live like this anymore. If she was the one who had died, Alex wouldn't have acted like this.

So slowly, she lifted her feet out of the water, the warm autumn breeze greeting her as she stood up. Beside her, Mr.Tibbs meowed curiously, tilting his head to the side as if to say "What are you doing? Alex hasn't come home yet."

She grabbed her roller skates with her mismatched socks stuffed inside them, and carried them in her hands, deciding to walk barefooted.

"You know, Mister Tibbs, for a while, I contemplated jumping into the sea. The idea of letting the salty water drown everything I am was so appealing. The fact that it would bring me to Alex was even more appealing." she said with a deep sigh, taking baby steps.

"But now, after spending countless hours sitting on this decaying dock, I'm coming to the conclusion that jumping into the water...well...it's kind of selfish, isn't it? Alex didn't get a chance to live," she paused, a small smile creeping on to her face. "but I do. And technically he'll still be a part of me, you know? I mean, we have a kid to look after."

Mr.Tibbs meowed again, green eyes wide. His sandpaper tongue licked her right ankle.

"So I guess this is it, isn't it Alex?" she laughed, looking back at the setting sun. The wes orange mixed in with pink, magenta, coral, all the colours that were full of promise. "A kid to raise, and a broken heart to repair. Thanks for making this easy, asshole."

She closed her eyes and stopped walking, imagined Alex laughing at her, wherever he was.

Of course this wasn't going to be easy, Parker. Get a grip on yourself. I'm still watching over you, silly.

She laughed at loud, her eyes searching the sky of dusk, locking on the brightest and only star in the sky.

She began to walk again, bare feet pattering across the dock silently. Her shadow disappearing as the sun was swallowed by the sea.

The she paused, remembering something.

Slowly, Kit turned around, raised her arm, and saluted, nearly jokingly, out toward the sea.

Her eyes locked on the spot where she had watched Alex disappear.

Her lips parted slightly.

And then, a single sentence escaped her lips.

"So long Soldier."

~

a/n: LAST CHAPTER. KICK ME IN THE FACE.

YAUgauasjAJHWUShao

who's ready for the epilogue ayyyeeeee ;)