The Last of Us

13 | The Hour of Us

In the weeks that followed, Cindy's story found a voice. Picketers lined the sidewalk outside the Paradise police department accompanied by national headlines of Toxic Masculinity, Slut-shaming and End-bullying.

Streetlights were placed on County road and a levy put on all large transport vehicles coming into town to encourage them back to the turnpikes.

However, there was a part of Cindy's story that remained untold. One day, I would pen it for her, but not yet. Only once all fates were sealed and all eventualities known, would I commit them to ink and bind us together. I would build her a world in those pages to live in. But a promise was a promise, and I believed in keeping them. Her secret would never be known.

Arriving at the church on the day of Cindy's funeral, Dad gave me an awkward one-armed hug as we exited the car.

The Ackerman's had requested a private service. We made our way inside and over to a pew. Laurie sat with her parents. She had dropped out of school and her family were relocating to Dallas. Danial Garry was being held in Hopewood Juvenile detention unit awaiting sentencing. Perhaps he'd end up like his father, or maybe this would end up being the fork in the road that would change the trajectory of his entire life for the better. I wished for the latter.

David Ackerman sat alone with a sleeping toddler curled on his lap. More somber than the last time I had seen him, the spark was absent from his eyes.

"Nick, may I have a moment, please," Penny Ackerman called out before I could sit.

I paused. Since my police interview, I was stuck battling two incompatible truths; Penny Ackerman was responsible for her daughter's death, and someone needed to pay; an open wound unable to heal. Yet, she was already suffering a penalty worse than incarceration.

I turned and greeted her with a half-smile. "Hello, Mrs. Ackerman, I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you; I hear you were with my daughter when she passed."

"I'm sorry I couldn't help her, Mrs. Ackerman."

She nodded. "Nick, to know she was not alone is one of the few aspects that comforts me. The police said you'd suffered some short-term memory loss; post-traumatic stress because of witnessing the accident. If I can ever be of any help to you..."

I shook my head. "You have my condolences, Mrs. Ackerman." I turned to leave; this was a conversation I felt unqualified to have.

"Nick," Penny's voice strained and her hand caught my shoulder, "do you remember anything more about the vehicle that hit her? Anything that may help us find who did this?"

Penny's mascara creased under her eyes as they flashed with desperation. Grief was a process and only grief tells you when you're done; it was obvious Penny wasn't escaping a life-sentence. Nothing I could say would change that, so I gave her the only other peace I could.

"It was so fast." I squeezed Penny's hand.

"Thank you, Nick".

A snotty toddler pulled at her pant leg. She scooped him up into a tight embrace. Without a doubt, this was the right thing to do, and in that moment, came my peace.

Needing a moment to compose, I left through the fire exit, loosening my shirt collar. Cindy weaved in and out of the tombstones and over to the memorial bench. Sitting down, she smoothed out her red dress dotted with tiny white daisies.

I walked over to the bench and sat beside her.

"Nick, when I'm gone, I want you to remember something; If on days, you don't remember laughing, or if you find you've yelled more than you've loved, stop. Time isn't a given and you can't waste a second of it."

There was no sorrow in Cindy's voice. Whether she was real didn't matter to me anymore. Cindy appeared primed for whatever awaited her next, and so was I. The brief hour we spent together on the night she died, the secret hour of us, would live as long as I did.

"I will. Will you be okay?" I asked.

"Sure will, I'm fucking famous now!" She laughed. "I don't want to be rose-tinted about the past, adolescence sucked but there is a certain beauty in it. I mean it, Nick, take care of you, and thanks."

I caught Cindy's familiar smirk, and as I did, she fragmented, a bit at a time, until the wind stole her; it reminded me of a painter blowing remnants of charcoal dust off their finished masterpiece. The lingering shadow of her smile would stay emblazoned in my mind into old age.

I continued to watch her evaporate into the clouds; like stars, the sky would have been incomplete without her.

The End
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