Cement and Broken Promises

Revenge. It's such a sweet word don’t you think? Taste the syllables, roll them over your tongue like a fine wine. Isn’t it just the most wonderful thing you have ever heard...
I know that might come as a bit of a shock to some people if they ever found out who wrote these sentences; and besides, I don’t think I like the sound of jail bars slamming behind me, so we'll just say I'm an average-sized girl at an average-sized high school. I can’t tell you the name of the town either, or the state. All I'll say is that there's a large river behind my house, and it runs right out to the ocean. Okay, not right to the ocean, but close enough (Or maybe it does and I'm just throwing you off so you couldn’t find him if you went looking. That’s the thing about me. You just never know.).
It didn’t start out the way it ended. I've never wanted revenge on anyone in my life, no matter how much they've screwed me over. But John is, was, different. Oh so different. He took my heart and stuck it in a vice-grip, squeezed it so tight I thought I would explode, then laughed as I struggled to release it. He took my body, my mind, my everything, and try as I might I couldn’t get them back...Matter of fact I still don’t have them. Perhaps they're down there being washed by the waves, buried with the boy that I once loved. But I'm getting sentimental, and ahead of myself.

It began in August. School had just started, and I remember it being one of those days where the humidity is so high you can see the drops hanging in the air if you stare just right. One of those days where you don’t really expect anything to happen, but you secretly hope something will. A sleepy kind of day, y'know?
I was sitting on the porch of my house holding my phone, hoping for someone to call and want to go swimming. I remember I wanted to go, but for some reason even with the phone in my hand it never occurred to me to call Marnie or Slim and ask myself. No one called though, and so I went inside to find some lemonade and pout over the pitifullness of my forgotten state. And it was then that my doorbell rang.
I walked to the door holding the phone in one hand and the lemonade in the other, trying to catch the condensation from the glass before it hit the rug, and generally looking like a complete ditz. Not the impression you want to give to the boy you secretly want to marry, but I didn’t know that then. Completely clueless, I open the door to stare into the greenest eyes I have ever seen in my life. All I can think is 'OMIGOD, John is standing at your front door. SAY SOMETHING!' Which of course caused me to go totally blank and stand there with my mouth open, saying none of the stupid/witty things that come to mind.
Granted, in the months after, I got to say all the things I had wanted to say that evening in August...months after that slid by like sweet syrup, when I had everything I wanted. The perfect boyfriend, one I could share anything with, love with all my heart, one who I thought loved me in return as much as I did him… We spent every second together all that year. It was John-and-Kallie. Not two words, one.
But if you really look at it, none of this is relevant to what happened to him, so I'll move on quickly through the next 11 months, 1 week, 3 days, and 6 hours to the July of this year. In brief: We went out for 9 months (I could tell you the weeks, days, hours, and probably seconds for that too, but there’s no point in it,) I fell hopelessly in love, and then he broke up with me for no apparent reason that anyone could see. ("It doesn't feel right anymore.") Last day of my junior year, the only year I was ever truly happy. In two weeks, he was going out with Anne, the one girl he knew I absolutely hated. (Yes, I hated her before she started going out with him.) And by the middle of summer, the plan was in place.
I hadn't thought of actually carrying it out until end of July. I was still under the stupid and misguided impression that if I played my cards right, John would come crawling back to me when Anne turned out to be the bitch she was, and that after some crying and guilt-tripping I would take him back and all would be well in the world. Then there would be no need for this plan born in the interminable summer nights when it was so dark that it seemed anything was possible. And even once I decided it was worth it, I spent more sleepless nights bracing myself for the ride, going over my reasons over and over again, wondering what would happen if I DID get caught.
Every time I wavered, I would bring up the faces of John and his friends laughing, always laughing...

"Hey look, its Kallie. Remember Kallie, John?"
John blushing, but still looking past me as if I didn’t exist.
"Hey John, you know how Anne won’t put out? Maybe you should ask Kallie out again. She'd give you what you wanted."
A little stupid joke, right? No harm meant, no harm done? It should have been, would have been if I had just walked away then, brushed past them all and finished buying my pop without a word. Should have done that.
"Fuck off, Steve." My face getting more and more red until it was past crimson, an almost scarlet color, red as the Coca-Cola logo of the sign behind me. My eyes beginning to tear as the guys laughed at poor little Kallie. Stupid little girl.
"Oh, so she actually does talk. You know, I was so sure she only opened her mouth to let things IN, but I guess I was wrong..." Hands slapped in high-fives at the crude witticism. "Oh well. I guess she can’t teach Anne anything after all."
Stupid little Kallie. Look at her getting all mad over nothing. Isn’t this the most fun?
"I said fuck off, Steve. Or do you not understand English?" The others drawing closer now as they wait for the blood to be split, like hungry vultures circling what they know will soon be a fresh carcass. All laughing except John.
"I understand English alright..." A gleam entering the blue eyes as he sees the chance to finish me once and for all. I'll show you to talk back to me, mouthy little bitch. "So Kallie, do you service all the guys under the gym bleachers or was that just a one time deal? If I pay you for it, will you do for me what you did for my boy here?"
John going redder and redder as he remembers the incident we both swore never to tell, absolutely refusing to look at me now, refusing to see the shocked and pleading look I sent him, refusing to stick up for the girl he used to love, until he is shades deeper than the roses he sent me for Valentines Day, the day that happened.
"Don’t drop your jaw Kallie, did you think he really kept it a secret? We all know."
All the guys laughing harder than ever as tears begin to fill my eyes. "So Kallie, will you? I'll give you $50 for it. No? $100? Oh come on, you know you want to...John, she KNOWS you, man. Help me out here." Eyebrows raised just in case John didn’t catch the innuendo the first time around. All attention on John now, put in the spotlights of 6 pairs of waiting eyes. " Aw, J, don’t blush. Its all good."
Me suddenly begging, hoping that he doesn’t hate me that much, that he won’t do this to me. "John..."
Him looking at me for the first time, the blush receding from his face to be replaced by anger. And I could see the decision in his eyes, watch him deciding to finish me and give everyone the show they wanted to see.
"I wouldn’t bother, Steve-O. She's not worth the $50." Take that, you stupid cunt. " As a matter of fact", the words drawn out slowly in that drawl he did when he moved in for the kill shot, "she's not even any good free".
Laughter, surrounding me from every corner, echoing off the wall and filling the store. Heavy, mocking, horrible laughter. Anne coming up. John taking one last scathing glance before walking up to the girl he was just ridiculing along with me, putting his arm around her waist, and walking off with the others trailing behind. Anne's little look of triumph. Stupid little Kallie. Did you really think you would win? You can’t beat us. You never could.

It was easy enough to do once the decision was finally made. I had everything I needed right at home. The cement, the truck, the river.
It was so dark. I decided to do it on the night he asked me out, on the anniversary we never got around to celebrating. I don’t think he even realized at first the significance of the date. The roses sent to him, same exact kind as the ones sent to me on Valentines Day, didn’t even ring a bell until it was too late, until he woke up in a flat-bed truck by the riverside. But he still read the note on them, sent to him by a 'secret admirer'.
It was so cheesy I cringed, but John always was a hopeless romantic.
He was also stupid enough to meet the person out on Tallis, where all the druggie kids go to smoke and the preppies go to make out. (The government hasn’t ever gotten around to fixing the street lights). Poor guy fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He even took the time to come out on his bike instead of by car, just like the note said.
Poor, poor little John. See what happens when you hurt those that love you?
I barely even saw him coming up the road in the pitch blackness that was that night. I think I heard him first, heard him huffing and puffing.
I waited until he was nearly on me, then called softly. "John. Over here."
He hesitated a little too long, and I was almost afraid that I had been wrong, that he had recognized my voice and was going to tell me to ‘Fuck Off’ and ride home. But he walked quickly to the shadows.
And to the 2 by 4 he never saw coming.
It was a hollow sound, wood against bone. The shock of the rebound almost shattered my arms, but I held on. I had to. I couldn’t let him get back up. This was another time when it could be all up, and there was no way I could allow that.
He went down with the first blow. I remember smelling the sickly-sweet scent of fresh blood, watching in slow motion as he fell with a deadened thud on the pine needles and grass beneath us. Waiting a moment before binding his hands and feet together behind him, tying him tight with the knots he himself had taught me. My eyes were tearing up, but I held it all back. No time Kallie, no time. Later. Later you'll be expected to mourn.
I pulled him slowly towards the little blue family flat-bed, rarely used unless my dad went hunting. The back was still covered in blood, the floor hidden in brush and debris; the perfect place to lay a bloody teenager while the rest was being prepared.
I laid him on the end of the truck. I couldn’t get him the rest of the way up, so had to be content to leave him hanging off the end of the bed, his legs laying limp like some grotesque rag doll left too long alone. And I began to prepare the cement.
I don’t know if I've mentioned it, but my dad is the biggest contractor in the whole state. I've grown up leveling cement and laying foundations. So it took about a minute before I had the 3 bags of heavy cement mixed.
I can’t bear the smell of wet cement now. It reminds me too much of dark secrets and lost love.
I dragged John the rest of the way into the truck, and then rolled him into the cardboard box I had prepared. It wasn’t the best thing to use, but I needed something that would never be missed, and who would miss a dark brown cardboard box with the words Sony TV Inc. written on it in light blue letters? One that was scheduled for the dump the next morning anyway.
Or maybe it was just Sony TV. I can’t remember now. Oh thank god, I can’t remember. Why?
I poured the cement in on top of him, slowly and carefully the way my father does. There would be no second tries on this one. He groaned as the weight hit him, and I should have hit him with the board again, but there was no time.
Covering him was the hardest part. I covered him from the neck down with the sloppy, grayish mixture, tears streaming down my face no matter how hard I tried to stem the flow. The cement gleamed in the night like some deadly snake skin, reflecting the moonlight filtering in through the trees and absorbing my tears as I leveled the concrete, making sure there were no air bubbles, no mistakes. There was no turning back now.
It only took about half-an-hour from the time I hit him with the 2 by 4 to the time I jumped down off the back of the truck and shut the tailgate, but it seemed like an eternity. I drove with him down long back roads, looked for turnoffs that I had no clue existed before I met the boy now unconscious behind me. And then I found the one spot I had never forgotten, will never forget until the end of my days. I slowed beneath under-hanging branches, watched carefully for the potholes I knew were there although my headlights had been off since I left Tallis.
It’s not really that long of a road. There's three turns and after the last one you hit the river. Literally. You just turn a corner and all of a sudden it’s right there. There's a little place to park, and a grove of trees, and then the bank slopes sharply to the deepest place in the whole river for about 50 miles. Or so John said, and neither of us could ever touch bottom.
I parked the truck so that the rear bumper was facing the river and got out, shut my door softly. There was no one for miles, but somehow I couldn't make any noise. It would have just been wrong...
I heard John moaning in the back, and it almost started the tears again, but this time I wouldn’t allow it. I had to be strong, proud, triumphant. This time I had to be the one laughing as I walked away.
He screamed as I opened the tailgate, and I think the sound scared him more than it did me. Climbing into the truck, I walked around the box in the center, careful to not let him see me, and pulled out two more boards, set them as a ramp down to the bank. They were slippery as I could make them. I needed him to slide quietly into the water without anything but his own forward momentum.
John was deathly silent now, and I knew what he was thinking as sure as if it was me. Things had taken on a nightmarish quality for him, and at the same time now reminded him somewhat of a murder mystery. He was now the hero in danger, and he had to outwit his opponent and save himself from the evil madman in charge.
I hate to break it to you babe, but heroes are all relative. And they don’t always win.

"It's not that cold. Come on."
"I don’t think so."
"Kallie..." Moonlight reflected in the river and his eyes. Moonlight playing in his hair, gamboling in the water he splashed at me as I sat on the bank. "Come on."
"John!" Me shrieking as water hits me. Relenting and taking off my clothes, diving in.
Us splashing, laughing. Him picking me up and spinning me in circles, 'I love you Kallie', kissing me before dropping me in the warm water.
Laying on the bank, moonlight filtering through the treetops. Dappling us with light. Watching the stars, talking about anything. Soft words and feather kisses.
Sudden urgency. Breathing now turned heavier, hands and lips and tongues exploring and touching and tasting...
I shook my head, drove the memories away. I knew why I had chosen this spot, and so would he. Two people lost their virginity on this bank, swore to be true forever. But none of that mattered now.
Now was the time to exact my revenge, to end it all forever.
I climbed back up and stood there quietly. He was thoroughly panicked now, I could hear it in his breathing, and I almost wanted to laugh at how close it sounded to the other breathing done on this bank before. But now wasn’t the time. Now I had to get him in the water.
Remember how scared you are of drowning, John? Remember your worst fear?
I walked the step and a half to the box and peered inside, my face framed in the darkness. I had a momentary flash of how I must appear to him, my hair flying around my face, my eyes hooded and shining with unshed tears like some vengeful Indian goddess.
"Kallie...?"
I didn’t answer, didn’t trust myself to. I merely began to push the box towards the ramp, straining as I struggled to send 200 solid pounds of cement into the river.
"Kallie?"
I positioned the box so one last shove would send it sliding down the bank. All I needed was one last little push...
"KALLIE!" He knew it was me by now, had recognized the ghost silhouetted against the trees above. I'm sure he recognized the place too.
"Kallie, I don’t know what you think you're doing, but this is crazy. What the hell do you think you're doing? This is a load of shit and you know it! Kallie, listen to me."
Not this time, John. This time I listen to me and me alone. This time I win.
Just one last little push...
"Kallie. Kallie, babe. Sweetie, what do you think you're doing?"
I think that endearing tone really drove home why I was out there. ‘Kallie, babe?’ Where was that 'Kallie, babe' when you were humiliating me in the middle of the drugstore? Don’t you dare 'Kallie' me!
I stood above him one last time, memorizing the face I would never see again except in dreams. How could love have taken us here...? No matter now.
My voice wasn’t as strong as I wanted it to be when I said my last words. I didn’t scream like I was tempted to, or break into tears and say how much I loved him, though God knows I wanted to do that too.
I said 14 words. Two small sentences. One little phrase.
"You know what, John? This is the last service you’ll ever get for free."
And then I pushed.
The box hit the water with a small splash. For an instant time slowed, and it almost seemed as if the box floated in the inky black and gray of the water, still and silent as a coffin in a grave. Then I watched as time returned to normal and it sunk beneath the waves with scarcely a ripple to mark its passing. Bubbles rose once, twice, as he tried to scream, and then there was nothing.
Nothing at all.
I don’t know how long I stood there by the water, looking at the ripples and crying silent tears before I jumped off the truck, threw the 2 by 4's in the river, and sped off down the road. Branches hit the windshield and jounced me till I was battered all over, but I didn’t care. John was dead, and nothing else mattered anymore.
It was done.

Two days later a missing persons alert was filed on John. They're looking for him still, I guess, because sometimes I'll see one of those 'Have You Seen This Child' posters in a grocery store or a movie theater. He would have turned 19 this last September, so technically they have no reason to search...
It's been a year and a half since I sent John to his death in a cardboard box filled with cement and broken promises. I went down there on the anniversary of his 'disappearance' and stared at the waves for awhile. I took Marnie with me, but of course I didn’t tell her anything. You're the only one who knows, and that’s because I had to tell someone and I know you'll understand.
Isn't revenge the sweetest thing?