Page 26 of Savage for You
Killer: You don’t have to. I know you’re busy getting ready for the season.
Me: Baby, I could be on the other side of the country, but I will always make time for my girl.
Killer: Ok. You sure?
Me: Always, baby.
Killer: Pinky promise?
Me: Why pinky promise?
Killer: Because a pinky promise is the most sacred promise.
Me: I pinky promise.
ten
Montana
Dickface: I’m thinking about you today.
Me: Not today satan.
Dickface: Can I see you today? I’m back in Minnesota. I came to spend today with you.
Me: *left on read*
Dickface: baby girl?
It’s been one year—12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds.
I throw my phone on my bed. It’s barely eight am, way too early for his Jedi master bullshit. I have cried so much more today than I did when I first found out my parents were killed. I feel like a zombie today—like I’m moving in slow motion but everything around me is moving at regular speed. Kim Kardashian's cry face has nothing on mine.
I need to go out for a run to get shit off my mind. Rocky will be here soon, so I guess that’s what I'll do before he gets here. Run until my sweat and tears mix, and I can no longer tell the difference. Run through all the pain I feel from losing the best people in my life. Run until I feel the burn that I love so fucking much because this pain is one that I can control.
When I start my run, I don’t know where I’m heading, but my feet lead me to the one place my heart knows it needs to be at this moment. The cemetery. I haven’t been here since the day they buried the empty coffins placing yellow Chrysanthemum’s on my mom's. They were her favorite flowers because my dad got them for her on their first date. They are my favorite too.
“Why? Why did you have to die? I wasn’t ready to lose you yet.” I sniff.
“What am I supposed to do without you two?”
When that asshole, Vernon Grady, hit them while drunk, his family spoke on his behalf and pleaded that he was a great man who made a mistake, and they only wanted him to get a slap on the wrist. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I hired the best lawyers, and I wanted the book thrown at him, while his family requested mandatory rehab.
Fuck that.
I remember getting the call like it was yesterday.
It was 10 o'clock at night when I received a call from Uncle Atlas. I was studying with Holly, and early 2000s music was softly playing in the background. "I hope you aren't butt dialing me…again," I chuckled, knowing it wouldn't be the first time.
There was a silence on the other side of the phone. "Hello?" I heard a sniff, "M-Montana, there's been an accident."
"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling a wave of panic rising within me.
"Yo-your parents…they… th-they didn't make it," Uncle Atlas stammered.
The phone dropped from my hand, and I made a sound that I didn't even recognize. Holly rushed to my side, grabbed my phone, and started talking to Uncle Atlas. She hung up and cried with me, holding me until I fell asleep.
I shake my head out of the flashback. It wasn’t Vernon’s first offense, and he took the two people who mattered the most to me. Did he care that he got behind the wheel of the car drunk? No. He ruined my life. So, I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn’t ever get behind the wheel again.