Collared(89)

I could tell my family was worried when I left the apartment as soon as the interview was over. I didn’t wait for the crew to pack up and leave even. I’d thanked the reporter, shaken her hand, and left. It’s my birthday, and a rebirth doesn’t just happen on its own. It doesn’t come from one interview—it comes at a much steeper price.

It’s one I’m willing to pay.

Being a sunny Sunday morning in summer, the cemetery’s virtually empty of people. I guess the living don’t want to spend this kind of a day with the dead.

My pace doesn’t slow down as I get closer. It doesn’t speed up either. My heart follows the same pattern, as do my lungs. In a way, I made peace with this a while ago, but standing in front of his gravestone and saying it seems important.

When I stop in front of Earl Rae Jackson’s gravestone, I look around for those dried weeds. I know they’ve been chopped up by a lawn mower or become a part of the soil by now, but I can’t help but feel that they’re still here.

My neck still burns when I think about him. Dr. Argent said it’s a phantom pain I’ll probably live with most of my life. Kind of like the scar I’ll always bear there. But while some scars can never be removed, some can.

Those ones are the ones I’m concerned about when I think of the man whose body is decaying below my feet. Those scars are the reason I’ve come here.

Earl Rae might have taken away ten years of my life. He might have permanently violated my views on safety and trust and human nature. He might have given me nightmares I’m too afraid of to talk to Dr. Argent about. He might have taken me away from the people I loved. He might have broken me so I couldn’t even remember what free felt like when I had it.

He might have taken ten years.

But he couldn’t have another minute of my life.

I glance at his gravestone for the last time.

“Good-bye,” I say, before walking away and leaving Earl Rae Jackson where he belongs.

Six feet under. Behind me.





I’VE MADE IT just in time. It’s eleven thirty on the dot, and I’ve managed to make it through an interview that’s going to be internationally streamed and say what I needed to at the cemetery.

I hadn’t been sure I was going to be able to make it today, but it wouldn’t have been right to miss the one thing I’m actually looking forward to on the first birthday I’ve celebrated in a decade.

St. Marks is always packed no matter what service is being held, but the second Sunday morning one is sometimes a standing-room-only ordeal. Thankfully, today some kind old couple notices me searching for a seat and squeezes together a little tighter and waves me over.

“Thank you,” I whisper because the choir’s lining up in the front.

“That dress is just lovely, honey.” The elderly woman pats my knee when I settle beside them. “Pretty enough to wear on a wedding day.”

I smooth my hands down it. “Well, I am in a church.”

“And there is a priest.” The woman points at the front where a familiar figure is climbing the stairs toward the altar.

Instead of going another round that could make me blush any more than I already am, I smile and turn around in my seat.

Torrin moves behind the altar, and his hands rest on the sides of it. He looks natural, at ease, like he could be having a conversation with his old soccer teammates about the upcoming game. He’s so good at this. Good at what he does and how he influences people into action.

It’s part of what makes it hard to come most of the Sundays I do. If he weren’t so great at this, it would be easy. Easy to tell him and easier to let him make his decision based on that.

It’s not easy though because if I tell him what I want to, I know what he’ll do. I know the consequences. Wouldn’t it be one of the most selfish things I could do? Taking away a person who affects so many lives because I want him to crawl into bed with me every night and hold my hand when we walk into the grocery store?

Torrin’s still in my life. We’re still friends. We still get to see each other and be around each other and call each other. Sure, we have to be careful we don’t see each other “too” much or, when we are together, get “too” close, but I still get to see him.

I already have him in my life . . . but I want more. I want everything that comes with that promise he made me one night on the sidewalk in front of our houses.

I want it . . . but I’m not ready for it—not until I finish collecting those missing pieces. And in the meantime, a city of people need him.

As Torrin starts to speak, I lean in like those extra two inches will make all the difference in the twenty feet keeping us apart. I don’t usually sit so close. I make it a point not to sit in the front row or the back row. I sit in the middle so I blend in. To the other churchgoers and to him. I never succeed though, at least with him.

He always seems to know where I am before he moves behind the altar. Today he’s giving a sermon about the pain humans can cause us but that God heals all wounds. I don’t usually listen all that closely—I come to be close to him; in the same room, sharing the same air—but today, when he talks about the physical wounds we humans can inflict on one another, he rubs that right cheek of his and pauses, practically smirking in my direction.

I roll my eyes at him, and he gets on with the sermon. This is why I come. For these kinds of moments. The ones no one else catches but mean everything to us.