Blue
It might as well be propane, followed immediately by a lit match, that hits me full in the face.
I come roaring out of my seat before my eyes are even fully open, my skin burning, in full flashback mode.
Knocking the bottle out of Keegan’s hand, I automatically grab her throat before I realize who it is, where I am.
“Blue.” She doesn’t even raise her voice or try to wrench my hands away. “Blue, it’s me.”
And I go from blazing hot to ice cold, just like that. “Keegan.” I can do nothing more than whisper. “Keegan.”
I drop my arms and hang my head, grabbing the seat back in front of me to steady myself. I’m shaken to my core. I almost fucking strangled her.
“What are you doing here?” I growl after a few moments, still trying to catch my breath. “What the fuck are you doing on this bus?”
She raises her chin and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m going with you, Blue. If you’re determined to do this, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Keegan.” I place my hands on her shoulders. My heart is still pounding in my ears. “You can’t.”
“Everything all right back there?” the driver calls, and some mangy-looking dude next to us laughs.
“I guess her boyfriend really is on the bus,” the dude says sardonically.
I wipe a finger across my eyes to clear the water that’s blurring them. “Why did you throw water on me?”
She goes, in an instant, from speaking quietly to yelling. “Because I’m so mad at you!” She pounds her fists against my chest.
“Because I am so fucking mad at you! How could you take off like that, Blue? How could you just sneak out of town and leave me with some stupid piece of paper? How could you?”
She keeps pummeling me, and I let her. I want her to.
But then she collapses against me and buries her face in my neck. “I can’t do this without you,” she sobs. “I can’t do my life without you. Don’t you know that by now? You’ve changed me too much. I don’t want to do it without you. You have to take me with you. I can help you.”
I wrap my hand around her arm and begin to pull her toward the front of the bus.
“No!” She yanks her arm out of my grasp. “I’m staying on. You can’t make me get off this bus.”
“Keegan!” I clench her arm again, my fingers digging into her skin. I don’t want to hurt her. But I have to get her off the bus.
She pulls back again, but this time I hold on.
“Hey!” the driver yells. “What the hell is going on back there?”
I start to drag Keegan down the aisle with me.
“Dammit, Blue! Let go of me!”
She keeps kicking me, but I manage to get her to the front and stand panting in front of the driver. I’m still holding Keegan in an iron grip while she struggles to break free.
“If you two can’t settle your little domestic dispute in the next minute, you’re both off this bus,” the driver says, eyeing us with disdain.
I fish around in my pocket for my wallet, then pull out a bill with one hand. I lift the bill up so I can see it in the dim light. A fifty. I shove it toward the driver.
“Please,” I say to him in a low voice. “Five minutes. I just need five minutes with her outside, and then I’ll get back on.” I thrust the fifty at him again. “Please. Five minutes.”
Keegan’s stopped struggling, and tears are running down her cheeks. It breaks my heart. I release her arm.
“Keegan,” I whisper urgently to her, “come talk to me outside for five minutes. Please. If you still want to come with me after that, I won’t try to stop you.”
She stands there glaring at me. Then, finally, she nods, and I inch the fifty-dollar bill toward the driver with my fingers.
He glances back at the other passengers, then swiftly crumples the bill in his hand. “Five minutes, and this bus leaves,” he snaps.
I take Keegan’s hand, leading her off the bus and over to the side of the station.
As soon as we get out of sight, I pull her into my arms, my fingers on her face, and I kiss her desperately, greedily. I push my lips against hers so hard she stumbles back against the wall of the building.
Then I shove my tongue into her mouth, exploring, memorizing. She moans and matches her tongue to mine, her lips to mine. She grabs my face and kisses me back so hard, so completely, that for a second, I weaken.
Maybe there’s a way.
No. There is no other way.
We rest our heads together for a few precious moments. Then we kiss again, this time softly. I can taste tears, but I don’t know if they are mine or hers.
“I know what you’re doing, Blue,” she says, clutching my hand until it hurts. “You’re saying goodbye. You bastard, you’re saying goodbye to me.”
“Listen to me.” I close my other hand around the back of her neck. “You’ve got to listen to me. There’s no way for you to go with me. Not now. They won’t let you on the base. You’d be stuck out there, and I couldn’t be with you. There’s nothing you can do for me right now.”
“Bullshit! That’s not true. You don’t have to turn yourself in. We can still take Virginia’s deal.”
She’s furiously wipes her tears away. “Blue, please, just don’t get back on the bus. My car is right there. Come with me. Dammit, just come with me!”
“I can’t. I have to do this, Keegan. I couldn’t live with myself if I ran away and let you give up everything you’ve worked for. And the truth about what I did is going to come out sooner or later. It’s inevitable. I need to face up to it.”
I glance over at the bus, feeling desperate. I have to talk sense into her, and I have to do it fast.
“There’s nothing you can do for me right now,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “But there is something you can do for yourself, like I told you in my note. Use your gift. Be a journalist. Don’t give it up. Not for me. Not for anybody.”
We both jump as we hear the driver yelling. “This bus is leaving!”
Jabbing my eyes to clear them, I focus on each feature of Keegan’s face, locking them into my memory. “I have to go now, Keegan, okay? You have to go back to Ikana. Okay?”
She shakes off my hands and steps back, staring over my shoulder into the night. She won’t look at me.
“I love you,” I say, pleading with her. “I will contact you as soon as I can, let you know what’s happening. I promise.”
She turns to look at me for just a moment, her eyes full of rage and pain.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, walking away from her. I hate myself. I fucking loath myself at that moment. She deserves better.
I’ve got one foot on the first bus step when I think of something that makes me turn to see if she’s followed me. She’s standing a few feet away, watching me with an expression of such agony that my legs go weak.
I grab the railing and start to just get on the bus. But then I turn back to her.
“Can you...um...can you take care of Max? Maybe take him to my mother’s or...keep him at the house if you want.”
She nods, slowly, but she doesn’t say anything, just makes these gulping sounds as sobs convulse her body.
"I love you.” I mouth the last words because I can’t summon my voice at that moment. I step on to the bus and look back as the doors close in my face.
~~~
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