Aim to Participate: An Anthology

Sin

"Kyler, hold still. You're hurt." I reach for the cut on his palm that I know he has.

"Chandler, stop. Leave it alone. I'm fine!" He snaps at me and jerks his hand away. I pause. He's never acted like this.

But then, I've never seen him cut.

A little noise draws my concerned gaze to the floor.

Pitch black.

"Kyler let me clean your hand. Before anyone else sees it." I feel the ice in my voice, and let the indifference overrun my body.

He senses it too, and he gives me his hand. We take a seat on some of the sturdier boxes in the truck. Neither of us speak while I tend to his wound. He tries a few times, but I silence him. When I finish wrapping, I stand and gesture to the open end of the moving truck.

"What?" It takes everything in me not to react to the way his face falls.

"Leave." I intone.

"Don't you want to know-"

"Kyler." I place my hand gently on his cheek, a final gesture of affection. "I said leave. I never, ever want to see you again."

"Chandler-"

I shove his chest - pushing him toward the open end - with the most stoic look that I can manage.

"Where will I go?"

"I suggest far." I say in the coldest tone possible.

"I love you."

I do not respond. My chest tightens and I go back to work. Eventually, I hear his car start and the sound of gravel crunching under wheels. I peek out of the end of the truck and watch him go even though I know I shouldn't.

Once he is out of sight, the tightness that has spread through my whole body releases. The deep scream rips through my throat as I kick over a pile of boxes and slam my hand on a glass table. Hot tears threaten my eyes as I take some of Kyler's blackened gauze and wrap my hand with it.

I am not cut.

I do not have black blood.

But the person passing the end of the truck hadn't seen which of us got cut before he ran off.

The sirens can be heard in the distance. I pull out the ring box from my pocket and admire it for my last seconds. He was my world. I could not bear to see that world destroyed.

"Where is he?"

I set the ring down and step out of the truck. Peace falls over me, Kyler is away. He's safe.

"I'm right here."

This is my only sin.