See You Soon

DESI

After a mile of walking hand-in-hand, saying little, we realized it was a really long way back to St. Mary’s. And an even longer walk to anywhere else we might want to go. Michael pulled me onto a bus stop bench and put his arm around me.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

I’d been mulling it over since leaving the hospital and still didn’t have a good answer. “With Longinus gone and Cornelius…” I didn’t know exactly what had happened, but I knew he no longer lived, could feel his absence in the world around me, could feel the hole he’d left behind.

“I know. That’s what I was thinking, too.”

We fell into silence for a while longer and watched a bus approach from down the street. When it pulled up in front of us, the doors opened. “You gettin’ on?” asked the sour-faced driver.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. She glowered at me, closed the door and drove off.

“Guess we can’t really sit here all day,” I said.

“Guess not.”