Chambly

It been a little over a week since IKEA, and still Sep hadn’t made his way back to the rainbow. Something about the darkness of the IKEA had made him believe that he was braver than he really was, that he could side step the fear of returning to the day when he had by accident slipped in the pool of blood, before everything had been perfect like it was now.  

He told himself that when he left the house that evening, that he was going to the rainbow, and yet, there he was, driving listlessly through the town, wondering why he couldn’t bring himself to return.

The sky grew dark, and his eyes strained to focus on the road ahead.

Just then his headlights illuminated something, no, someone as they crossed in front of his car. Sep skidded, and the someone seemed to skid with him, their body floating up as he screeched to a halt.

Frantically, he rushed out of the car, he keys still dangling and swaying in the ignition from the force of the stop.

There, just under the wide breadth of of white light from his car lay Chambly, the quiet girl from Winthrop Place.

His first thought: dead people don’t look like they’re sleeping. Her eyes were open and glassy and her face was smeared with the blood that ran–

The blood.

There it was: his second coherent thought. He was standing in a pool of blood. Just as afraid as he had been the first time over a year ago. Except this time, he was the murderer. The blood was smeared on the soles of his shoes, but it was on his hands too, because he had killed her.

He stood there numbly as other cars stopped and sirens came wailing. Only then, when he was surrounded by the onlookers and the police, could he think a third thought. He had barely known her. The girl in the muddy blood streaked pajama pants, was only a name to him. She was only Chambly, and yet he was sure that she was so much more. So much more than the body that lay at his feet, so much more than the 2 syllables he hiccuped when the police asked him her identity. So much more, he was sure.