I Heard Their Hearts Before Mine Stopped Chapter 09

I Heard Their Hearts Before Mine Stopped Chapter 09

All that remained was the sound of rain hitting the ground.

When autumn came, the rainy season finally ended. Fox Run River ran clear again, winding slowly around Wrenfield and into the distance.

My ashes were buried at Wrenfield Hills Cemetery.

The spot was high enough to overlook the town and would never flood.

Gavin came every Sunday morning. He wore a clean shirt faded from washing and carried an elegant cake box.

It came from the most popular bakery in Wrenfield.

He knelt before my headstone and wiped the photo with a clean handkerchief. In it, I wore my school hoodie and smiled, my eyes gently crinkled.

“Lena, I did not have to queue today. I reached the bakery before it opened.” He cut a piece of cake and set it gently in front of the headstone. “Try it. See if it tastes like the one you wanted back then.”

The wind rustled through the trees.

Gavin sat there until sunset stretched his shadow across the grass. He no longer broke down sobbing. He simply watched Fox Run River.

Some mistakes can never be corrected. Some wounds are like nails driven into wood. Pull them out, and the deep holes remain.

The rest of their lives would be spent in endless regret and punishment. A punishment worse than death.

—

I floated above, watching the sunlight slowly move off my headstone.

My soul grew more and more transparent. The resentment that had kept me bound here was finally scattering with the autumn wind.

I no longer had to hear the hypocrisy in their thoughts or bend myself around their favoritism. I was free.

Before I completely faded, I drifted back one last time to the small bedroom I used to have.

The room had been emptied. A thin layer of moss grew in the corner.

In the middle of an old desk was a deep scratch.

At five years old I had drawn a family portrait there with a pencil.

It showed Dad, Mom, Gavin, and me. After Sadie was born, I tried to erase myself from the picture. Because I was little and pressed too hard, the pencil tip gouged a dark, permanent mark into the wood that could never be smoothed away.

That mark remained in the empty room, silently proving that I had once existed.

Later that year, the first heavy snow fell on Wrenfield.

Dad crouched beside the fire. Chilblains covered his hands, and the cracked skin bled. He fed old newspapers to the flames. Orange light flickered across his wrinkled face.

The door was pushed open from outside.

Gavin walked in wearing a black down jacket, snow thick on his shoulders. He set a meal container on the cold wooden table with a dull thug.