forsaken cowboy /avriel 90th summer

1.
heat sick.

summer's hot, hotter than it's ever been as far as I know. There was a fire in the woods couple nights back and now the sky is red from the smoke and the sun trying to shine through. Sometimes no sun at all, just orange grey smog. I've been counting the days, we keep all the windows closed so the taste of smoke doesn't come into the house.

Billie's stuff is still here but it's not like she could take all of it when she left. There're too many things. Stood in the hallway last night, just outside the door to her room and if I turned on the light and shut the door it was like she was in there.

'psychopath'

Don't think I'm ever gonna see her again, not her fault, mine.

I feel better since I told her and Duke about Mom and Dad, I'm better now. There's no lie between us, just the facts. That's ruined now though, the between us.

Pretty sure they hate me.

Duke and Billie, I remember being six and mom made me hold their hands on the way to the park.

'my treasures are your treasures.'

That's what she said, I remember that. Some weird french phrase that didn't translate right. Doesn't matter, I understood.

But I fucked it up, same way I always do.

sorry mom.

2.
they put the fire out three days ago and for the first time in awhile the sky is kind of blue, still hazy but there. That's good, for a moment I thought it wasn't going to be blue again.

i don't know if Duke's here.

haven't seen him since Theo's funeral but that doesn't mean much. Easy to avoid each other in a victor house, the floorboards don't creak like in our old place and it's three times the size.

i don't get that.

'victor' denotes one. don't need a big house for one, guess i'm supposed to fuck someone, have kids, fill up the house or something. Think Mace did that maybe, dunno. Can't do that, I don't think I could do that, i'd have to love someone, seems like a bad idea.

mom, dad, blade, ariel and areto, all dead. billie and duke, dunno.

seems like a bad idea.

3.
can't sleep, probably the heat. I just lie there in the dark and wait instead, sometimes i think my eyes shut but i can't turn my mind off. Thought about the sleeping pills gloria gave me two summers ago but they're probably expired now.

hmmm.

4.
went looking in the closet, found some things, did not find the pills cause it got too hot to keep looking:

1. dad's old jacket
2. my report cards from school
3. 14 nails, 6 screws, 2 allan keys
4. victor crown
5. set of rusted knives
6. clothes

dunno why they let me keep the knives. seems like a bad idea to let a kid whose just killed three people have knives. sat there for a bit in the dark and ran my fingers over the bumps of the rust.

still blood on them, don't think that's the reason for the rust though, the knives were rusted when I got them.

because i wasn't even supposed to make it out of the arena anyway, doesn't matter if the knives are good or bad if a kid from Nine's holding them.

flip the knife in my hand, one two three times. feels good somehow, like it's supposed to be there.

"psychopath!"

drop the knife, lands on the ground, big loud noise, i freeze.

but then i remember, they're both gone.

5.
scout left this morning, saw it walking down the front path from my bedroom window. sometimes scout leaves but he? she? (dunno.) Scout always comes back.

but maybe i'm too boring lately, i don't go into town anymore. i don't go into the woods, don't even go into the tool shed to work anymore.

i'm tired.

it's the heat, it's just the heat, i lie but both of us know I'm lying, i've been tired for a long, long time, even before Scout knew me, I was tired.

don't know how, but maybe scout knew that, stuck around anyway.

6.
we have chickens now.

three AM and there are six chickens running around the backyard, trying to get as far from scout as they can and scout just standing there in the walkway, chirping. it's enough noise that colgate's gotta be hearing it but maybe he doesn't care.

i don't know where the chickens came from, but scout was gone a long time, hoping far enough away that no one's going to come looking.

asked scout why but scout just rattled in answer.

don't know why i even ask, am i fucking stupid? kodamas don't talk.

7.
keep waiting for my phone to ring but it hasn't in a long time. used to annoy me, answering it and just hearing nothing on the other end. couldn't be anyone but eden but he never said shit. Not fair, of me i know, kid can't speak anyway, just nice of him to call but now he doesn't call at all.

he's probably dead by now.

eurydice doesn't need a dog that bites.

I miss him, I think I'm losing my mind anyway but i miss him. can't stop thinking about the train to the capitol, can't stop thinking about the platform and the way my stomach dropped when it was isaac at the station and not him.

should have been happy but i was fucking miserable that i didn't get to see him and isaac was that book kid at the dinner, not fucking annoying like icarus or loud like some of the others but man could that kid look down his nose at people.

dead now though anyway.

maybe eden too. Hate that idea, hate thinking about him hurt, like the sword through his chest in four.

habit formed, i press my thumb against the back of my hand, where my thumb meets my palm.

dunno what that means but i feel a little better thinking about eden, makes me want to sleep, to eat, to make things again.

but there's a problem.

8.
the dark is coming.

i knew about it two days ago, saw it in the trees while i was sitting on the porch. way, way back, in the back of the woods, where vision starts to get hazy, i could see it on the horizon line, moving slow but coming.

sometimes i think i never made it out of the arena, sometimes i think they just made it bigger.

should have known, people like me, we don't win.

I've been looking over my shoulder, waiting for the knife in the dark but the dark is coming first I guess.

Today it's at the tree line, can't see anything past the first row of trees, just falls away into the black-dark. Finally come to reclaim me, swallow me whole.

told Scout it could leave, the dark didn't ever want it.

But it stays and we wait together.

9.
i'm stupid.

not saying this because i want your pity, it's just the honest truth. I like the truth best now, i like to say things out loud. I tell scout things i never told anyone before, I tell it things i couldn't tell billie and duke.

like, i'm stupid. not very brave either, actually always afraid.

flinch when i hear a loud noise, flinch when someone moves too quick near me, can't even get close to duke when he's cutting things in the kitchen.

scent of blood makes me feel sick, get nightmares all the time, can't sleep.

the closer the dark gets, it's at the front gate now, the more i talk. scout just sits there beside me and I hold a knife in my lap, and sometimes it's in my hand. but the handle becomes a trigger and the end a smoking barrel, it's the gun i got three years back when i started working for the gang.

because they said billie and duke were next if i didn't.

I tell scout about all the bombs i'd build, about the safes i'd crack. i didn't care anymore about who died from the things i did, who fell into debt and starved because of me.

billie's right, i'm a psychopath.

i deserve to be alone, i deserve the dark.

10.
Dark's at the porch steps now. Direct overhead of me, there's starlight but it all goes out just a foot away, funny how that is.

at first i thought this might be a dream but i don't remember shutting my eyes. if it's a dream then time is passing too slowly, and it's aching. Painful my–

My feet are in the dark.

11.
harvested some eggs from the chickens this morning. i built them a house because they were afraid of the dark, got a heat lamp from a box of things we brought from our old house.

It's nice, routine now to go visit the chickens in the morning.

lie in bed, the sun rises, the birds start chirping. I go downstairs, shoes on, go out the back into the yard and i say hi to the chickens.

didn't name them, duke and billie always name things. i'm not good at it. I named scout but that was my only good name.

i like the chickens but they're fucking dumb. They can't do things on their own like scout can so i have to take care of them. i try harder to sleep at night so i won't be too tired to clean their house or say hello to them in the mornings.

last night got at least a couple hours in before Aspen stabbed me through my heart and i woke up, sheets all damp.

but i'm trying for the chickens, not their fault they're here.

12.
dad's watch laid out in neat little rows of parts in front of me but i don't remember taking it apart. can't remember how to put it all back together either.

kitchen door open, dark outside but not that kind of dark. When i last looked up it was sunny.

the clock from the hall is in pieces beside me to my left, the digital clock from my bedroom taken apart and categorized to my right.

I move to stand, i fall.

My foot is behind me, detached and gutted, insides laid out around it like an offering.

the house is silent, the lights all out.

alone in the dark again.