stone cold sober, chapter 7

7

         They took the one and a half hour train to Nurhaven because the hour express was too expensive. Nathan never once doubted that the city was where he intended to build a life with Kate after they graduated next spring. It was meant to be. They were meant to be.
         He watched patches of dirt fly by. The closer they came to the city, the less snow he saw. Nurhaven must be even more beautiful in summer, he decided and he felt ecstatic at the prospect of being there for it.
         Nathan had mapped out their daily schedule, starting with a nice breakfast in the Bohemian part of town before looking at apartments nearby. His parents had offered to help out and considering the prices, he knew he would have to take them up on it.
         He could work at his uncle’s shop while applying for jobs. Kate had been sending the Nurhaven Chronicle’ extracts of her writing, one bit on local businesses going bankrupt another on her first encounter with an mp3-player. He didn’t know if the editor liked it but Harold Winters had asked her to meet him in Nurhaven the following week, tomorrow.
         For the first time in his life, Nathan was sure everything would be all right. He loved this girl. She gave meaning to his life.



         The job interview at the ‘Chronicle’ was all Kate could think about. It was there, looming above her, in her, around her every thought. There was little she could do to stop herself from going crazy, from staying up at night, not that she ever slept much. Her heart beat accelerated and her palms became instantly sweaty just thinking about it. It drove her mind through the roof that she would have to greet someone with her clammy hand; that she would have to speak when there was no breath left in her lungs; that her words would get stuck in her throat or come out before her brain had time to process them; that she would have to pretend not to notice how nervous she appeared, and how their smiles faded at her obvious display of fear. Her voice would be so thin she would not be able to hear it above her heartbeat, and yet, Kate could not disappoint Nathan.
         He said she would grow with the experience and that her fear would subside. No it would not. Once Kate overcame a fear another waited in the gates, sprinting towards her, crashing into her soft spots, invading her. Fear huddled inside her mind, countless dark oily patches eating away at her self-confidence like metastasised cancer.
         Kate felt panic spread so far and wide that it drowned out a clear vision of a time after the interview. The train was packed and Kate turned up the sound in her headphones. She watched a group of school children on a class trip. Their mouths opened and closed constantly, ‘yap, yap, yap’, Kate’s mind added.
         She soon became bored of watching them and let her eyes wander on. There was a gentleman helping an Indian woman to store her luggage above her seat, someone tripped over a plastic bag in the aisle, and Quinn Bergen was having a tough time finding a seat.
         Kate felt a jolt ride up her spine when she saw Quinn appear behind the school children. He was lugging around what looked to be his entire possession, two suitcases, one large and one small, a backpack, and two plastic bags. He didn’t look up and he didn’t see Kate staring at him.
         Her breath caught in her throat and her heart beat so fast it drummed in accord with the music from her headphones. Quinn lowered himself onto the floor at the other end of the compartment. His body was covered by the luggage but she could still see his face, his frown--which had grown more mature--his lips eating a sandwich, his hand scratching his stubbly cheek, his eyes racing across the pages of a worn paperback.
         Every thought of an interview seemed drowned out by the elongated pain. Seeing Quinn, above all, reminded Kate that she had no right to be happy with anyone else.



         Nathan assumed that Kate was having one of her moments and he fervently wished that it would not ruin his meticulously planned weekend. When she continued to ignore him and failed to react to his smiles, he knew something was off. She was too focused for it to be fear of the interview. Nathan followed her gaze and his mouth went dry.
         On the floor of the overbooked train sat a guy with light brown hair and an ordinary face, but there was no mistaking his girlfriend’s interest. She was seeing something Nathan did not.
         This was their weekend, their future together. It took a few seconds for Nathan’s jealousy to turn to anger. His hair stood on end. He nudged Kate with his foot, indicating for her to take her headphones off.
         “What’s wrong?” he asked with a weary voice.
         Kate shook her head, never taking her eyes off the guy in the corner.
         “Who is he?” But then it occurred to Nathan that he was asking the wrong question. “Who are you?” he added hoarsely.



         Kate wondered how her brain once again allowed her to dive headfirst into disaster, especially since it had taken years to tuck away Quinn’s first dismissal.
         She felt Nathan’s eyes on her, but there was nothing in her that she could share with him. Kate knew she owed Nathan an explanation, just not now. It’s funny, she realised, how little we think of the people who adore us as opposed to the ones who don’t return our affection.
         She hated Quinn a little for not loving her, but most of all she felt longing more intense than she had ever felt before. She wanted to run her fingers over his body, through his hair and feel his muscles jump at her touch. She wanted to feel his lips on parts of her body she could only see with a mirror and she wanted Quinn to kiss her until she felt it would last a lifetime.
         “Who is he?” Nathan repeated.
         “Someone I know from back home.”
         “Were you in love with him or something?”
         Kate nodded.
         Nathan breathed a laugh. “Are you still?”
         Screeching children drowned out bits of their conversation, and Kate took her time answering. She acknowledged the angry confusion in Nathan’s face and it made goose bumps rise under her sleeves. Kate wanted to reach out and run her finger over his shiny eyebrow. “Yes,” she said instead.
         Only when they stepped off the train did Kate realise that she should have lied.
         Someone inside her wanted to jump back on, wanted to relieve the pressure from the overstretched rubber band that bound her to Quinn. She breathed in and out quickly, trying not to cry as the train left the station without her. She felt empty, felt the regret.



         Two days later they found Nathan’s body curled up naked in a ditch outside of town. At first the police thought the scattered clothes indicated a sexual crime or so they told Kate when they came to question her. Then rumours shifted towards a case of insanity.
         The police later confirmed that it wasn’t unusual of hypothermal deaths to be associated with paradoxical undressing. Just the thought of his body freezing to the ground, made Kate want to throw up. It was her fault. She knew it was her fault. She had killed him.
         Pretty Roy stopped by a few days after the funeral. He was unshaven and tired. Kate felt sorry for him, he did not deserve to suffer. She did.
         “I had no idea he was going to--“. Roy inhaled sharply. “I mean, when he told us he understood people who did, I thought he was being open-minded and shit. A ‘cool way to go’, that’s what he said, right? Not, that it was his way. It was just something we discussed sitting around smoking a spliff. How would you go about killing someone? What’s the best way to die? Is there life after death? He had an opinion on everything, why not this?”
         Kate turned her face to the window. It had stopped snowing and she wanted Roy out of her room, out of her life.
         “I spoke to his parents yesterday,” he said. “They send their best and hope that you understand. It’s not that they don’t want to get to know you, but they--you know?” He smiled, avoiding her eyes whenever she wasn’t avoiding his.
         “I understand.”
         “They told me that they were tired of coping with what they called his ‘uncontrollable lack of lustre’--Nathan would have gotten a kick out of that wording. Don’t you think?” Roy ran one hand through his hair. “Do you have a beer?”
         Kate shook her head.
         “They sent him to a shrink when he was twelve. Did you know he also saw Dr Himble? Can you imagine? Nate talking to a shrink?” Roy got up and peeled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He fished out a cigarette and stared at it for a while before lighting up. Kate considered telling him that she would get into trouble if someone found out, but she didn’t.
         Roy went to the window and blew smoke at the ice crystals that had formed there. “They said--his parents said, that he tried to kill himself before.” Roy let his head drop against the glass. “So many times, they had to have him monitored ‘round the clock. They didn’t even know that he was happy here. That he had friends. That he had a future.” Roy turned around to look at her, and Kate knew that this was it. This was what he had come for.
         “What happened?” he asked, his eyes opaque with loss.
         “I killed him.”
         Roy’s upper lip twitched. “What did you do?”
         “I took away his future,” Kate said and her voice was steady. She wanted to say more and she wanted to tell Roy how she would trade her own life for Nathan’s, but she didn’t trust him enough.
         “His mother looks just like him, did you know that?” Roy turned back to the window. “She said that she knew it was going to happen someday. She didn’t even cry when she told me that. Sending him to Drover, all by himself, with no one to watch over him, it was their way of letting go, she said.”

Read the next chapter "stone cold sober, chapter 8"  or start at the beginning "stone cold sober, Prologue"