Thecouplehourswe’d been on the road heading towards our first stop had been consumed by silence.
Agent Reyes was still fuming and probably picturing the ways he could run me over while we drove, and I was busy thinking about Heaven.
I wasn’t religious, but my brother was. Jonathan went to bible camp and confirmation camp and a bunch of other camps when we were growing up while I stayed home and practiced gymnastics.
How he got into religion, I still didn’t know, but he was always humming some church song around the house and would lay with me at night when I couldn’t sleep and tell me stories from the Bible.
His favorite was when Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the dead.
The story went that Lazarus’ sister Martha came to Jesus and begged him to ask God to revive her brother. Lazarus had already been dead in the tomb for four days when Jesus got there, and he told the sister that if she believed in him, her brother would rise again. Martha believed and wept over her brother, as did his friends. Seeing the pain Lazarus’ death caused, Jesus wept too, and that’s why Jonathan loved the story so much.
He loved the idea that Jesus felt our pain. The son of God knew what it felt like to grieve and be inflicted with the splinter of heartbreak, and Johnny thought that was the coolest thing. His pastor or priest or what-the-fuck-ever told him that because of this story, we had proof that Jesus knew our suffering as humans and would spare us from it if we believed in him.
Jonathan always told me not to worry when our mom got so drunk she’d pass out in her own vomit or about the times at gymnastics when bad things happened. He always found the silver lining because of that damn story.
I wondered if he was thinking of that story as he was dying.
I wondered a lot about his last thoughts and what they were. Was he praying to his savior? Or was he thinking about me and my parents and his girlfriend, Suzy, and how he’d never see us again in such an unexpected and horrific way? Was he even thinking anything at all, or were his thoughts an ant pile of chaos that were wiped out in seconds?
Jonathan didn’t get to know that his last thoughts were his last thoughts until it was too late.
But I did.
Planning your own death was so relieving, like the peace of dying had already set into your bones. Each moment as we drove on and on was content and quiet, almost like sinking underwater. I felt the soft petals of water flower over and through my lightweight fingers, could picture the sunlight eclipsing the further I sank as I said goodbye to the earth.
I didn’t personally believe in Johnny’s version of a pearly-white Heaven, but I believed that Johnny believed it, which was enough for me. His spirit was still around, watching me and waiting for me to join him. When the wind blew my tears away at his funeral, I believed it. When the sky cried when I was sad, I believed it.
He was waiting for me, and I was trying. I was trying to get back to him in a way that wouldn’t offend the rules of his religion, but dying without doing it yourself was surprisingly complicated.
And I might have been a coward before, but I’d never been more determined to swan dive as I was now.
I would find my way back to Johnny.
I just had to ditch this moody giant of a man first.
“There’s a gas station at the next exit.” I nodded at one of the passing road signs. “Can we pull off so I can pee and get some snacks?”
Agent Reyes' eyes rolled from the road in front of him to the exit sign passing on our right. With a graveled noise in the pit of his throat, he slapped on his turning signal and pulled off the exit.
Perfect.
A parade of fast food signs blurred by as we drove down a couple rural streets before pulling into the gas station. A few customers were scattered around the building, but not enough to risk an eye-witness were I to try for an escape here.
A thick wall of kale-colored forest loomed behind the gas station as we parked in front of it, the leaves flickering a welcoming sign with my name on it. A smile twitched on the sides of my lips.
That’s where I’ll go, I thought.
That’s where I’ll die.
Nestled in the brush, dying as pale as the clouds that would be my only audience. Maybe some animals would find me, and the circle of life would continue, and I really was okay with that. I gave jackshit to this world while I was alive, so I might as well contribute something when I go.
Death by starvation hadn’t really been my first choice, but I was running out of time and running out of options. A girl with a death wish couldn’t be picky.
Agent Reyes turned the car off, and I jumped out. Wind hit my face as soon as I emerged, and my eyes sank shut.
Hi Johnny.
The smell of exhaust and dewy evergreen pirouetted through my nose, and the tip of it tingled. That tingle spread over my skin until the gentle breeze was tickling my whole body, and for the first time in ages, a genuine smile tugged on my lips.