The Memory Of Us

Epilogue

Khalil tugged his jacket tighter around his form, flipping his hood upwards and over his short cropped black hair as he neared the procession of people all dressed in similarly depressing black attire.

There weren't many attendees at the funeral, much of the town opting to watch from their T.V's the funeral of the youngest Mendes. As Khalil had walked over to the cemetery, he passed many a shop window with T.V's blasting the funeral ceremony, wide-eyed onlookers watching with the same gusto as they would reality T.V.

It made him sick.

None of them really knew Mina like he did, not even her grandma, or her mom, or her dad, and it angered him that they all were all crying as if they did. His only consolation was the report that had come earlier in the day that her mother had gotten fifteen years though, if Khalil was being honest, he thought that was much too short for all the suffering she had put her daughter through.

Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his pants as he lingered as close to the edge of the crowd as possible, close enough that he could see the hideous casket Mina's grandmother had picked out for her but far enough away that the current speakers' words were lost upon his ears.

"She'll kick you out if she sees you."

Khalil stiffened at Noah's whispered words, he hadn't even heard her sneak up on him, the wet grass underfoot muffling her steps.

"Are you going to snitch?" He asked snarkily, his eyes trained forward though his words were plainly directed at the girl on his left.

Noah scoffed at his words before surprising him by saying, "You deserve to be here too, maybe even more than some of these idiots," before adding in an even quieter whisper, "Maybe even more than me."

Khalil pursed his lips into a tight line, his body stiffening even more at her confession. He didn't know what to say, luckily, Noah filled the silence for him. "I know what everyone says, but what happened wasn't your fault." She said "Once MJ's mind is made up about something, it can't be changed. She would have gone to the rec center with or without you-"

"I shot her." Khalil surprised himself by revealing, some sick and twisted part of him hoping Noah would be filled with overwhelming anger at his revelation, revealing his presence to Mina's grandma and the rest of the crowd, the former who would either immediately call the police and have him arrested or begin beating him once more like she had at the recreation center. Either way, Khalil wanted to be punished, he wanted to suffer, and he was anxiously awaiting Noah's outburst.

But as he finally turned to look over at her, to his dismay, there was no anger nor hatred. In fact, the only emotion he recognized was the one he had grown to hate the most. Pity.

Her green eyes,which had never looked at him with anything other than disgust, were now soft and unrecognizable. Unable to bear it, Khalil forced his eyes forward once more to find the speaker returning to his seat and another man in a matte black, three-piece suit rising and making his way over to a shiny, silver metal crank beside Mina's casket. He began to turn it and, slowly, Mina's body began to lower into the ground.

"I pulled the trigger." Khalil enunciated, tears brimming in the corners of his eyes as he watched Mina sink lower and lower into the ground by the second and the longer he watched, the more desperate he became for any sort of reaction from Noah. He needed a distraction from the pain that was aching in his chest.

Instinctively, he reached up a hand to clutch his heart, swallowing hard as she said, "You and Sahil are free to use that information against me when you go to the police to have me arrested."

Khalil could practically hear Noah blinking silently in response and, for a moment, he wasn't sure she was going to speak again.

He started slightly when her voice pierced the air once more. "Today is a day of mourning." She said finally. Confusio washed over Khalil's features, his eyes narrowing as he watched Min disappear completely beneath the ground now, and he didn't bother to wipe the tears that were cascading down his cheeks.

"Today is a day of mourning." She repeated. "No one is going to the police, not today at least."

Khalil nodded silently, stumbling backwards slightly as Noah landed a fist to his chest in an attempt to garner his attention. He coughed as quietly as possible before turning his attention to hers once more. "No one's going to come looking for you today, Khalil." She said, enunciating each word more slowly than the last as if she were trying to convey some secret message that he was to decrypt.

"They should." He responded dryly. "I deserve to suffer for what I've done. Especially for this." He said, gesturing to the funeral that was slowly making its way to a close around him.

"I don't think Mina was in agreement."

"What are you trying to get at, Noah?"

She sighed heavily, her eyes darting nervously around her before returning to his once more. "There's a train station not too far from here, about a fifteen minute walk if I remember correctly."

Khalil stared at her quizzically.

Blowing out another breath, this time through her teeth she exclaimed as quietly as possible, "Buy a ticket, Khalil!"

"No, I understood what you were insinuating the first time." Khalil said. "I just don't understand why."

"There's nothing to understand." She said firmly, tugging her winter knit dress down slightly as a gust of wind blew around them. "Now, I'm going to walk away and, hopefully, I don't see you again." She turned on her heel, prepared to walk away, but Khalil grasped her upper arm, holding her in place.

Noah stared at the place in which their skin was connected before looking back up at him once more. Now it was her turn to appear quizzical. Khalil yanked his hand away as if he had been burned.

"Um-" He hesitated for a moment, before swiftly pulling the dog tag around his neck free and shoving it into Noah's hand. "Can you do me a favor?" He didn't wait for her to confirm. "Can you put this with Mina?"

Noah stared down at the piece of metal like it was a foreign object but, regardless, she nodded. "Sure." She said in agreement, and Khalil mimicked her nod in satisfaction, but Noah called out to him just as he turned to leave.

"Hey, Khalil?"

"What?" He hummed.

"It's better to have been loved than to have gone your entire life without ever experiencing what you and Mina had at all."

"No." He shook his head. "It's better to never have to experience the pain of losing the one you love most in the world and knowing that that love is what caused you to lose them." He said. And, with that, he turned on his heel and headed towards the train station.