Pensacola’s far more crowded than the little Pete’s seen of Lemoore. Definitely more crowded than his own hometown in Texas. And somehow, it feels like a real city, a blare of noise overwhelming him at every turn.
Even the streets seem different. Much wider than he’s used to. Smoothly paved, crisscrossing everywhere. Pete watches the cars bolting past: a Corvette Stingray, an Aston Martin Vantage, a Chevy Camaro. Their windows gleaming golden under the bright winter sun.
Buildings with glass windows reach towards the tall blue skies, laced only by a few wispy clouds hovering in the distance.
He doesn’t know where he’s going. There’s too many streets, too many cars, too many sounds: the music twisting out of radios, the voices talking intently at one another, all blurring together into one.
There’s too many people. Men in sharp suits carrying leather briefcases. Women wearing dark sunglasses and rustling skirts.
All important-looking people, who walk past him quickly. As if on urgent business.
And all of a sudden Pete finds himself wishing that he was wearing something better than the sweatshirt and trousers he’d taken to borrowing from Tom’s wardrobe, once his own clothes stopped fitting him. That he was a couple of inches taller. That he had shinier hair and prettier teeth.
He finds himself wishing that he didn’t feel like a stranger in his own body, most of the time.
“You don’t know, Pete,” his mother had once told him, turning her tired gaze to the window. Her small pale hand tapping the space above her heart. “What it feels like. In here. You just don’t know.”
At the time, he’d wished he could know. What it felt like. What was in her heart. Wished he could erase the sadness lining her delicate face. Bleeding into her pretty eyes.
But maybe, Pete’d been better off not knowing, after all.
He blinks up at the sky, at the blanket of blue tingeing his sight. Thinks about pretty things. About how they don’t last in this world.
A stray cat with big green eyes slinks by. Pauses. Looks up at Pete expectantly. He leans over the swell of his abdomen to pet the soft spot between her ears. Feels the smile tingling at the corner of his mouth when she runs her prickly tongue over his fingertips. Nuzzles her little pink nose into the curve of his palm.
“Hey… you hungry? Let’s see if we can find you some food.”
The feeling inside of him doesn’t linger.
It floats away. Becomes smaller and smaller and then disappears, as the syrupy-sweet warmth of the afternoon settles back into his limbs.
The cat slips away from under his heat-stained palms. Tail swishing in the air as she darts down the sidewalk.
And Pete finds himself stumbling after her, socked feet slipping on the smooth soles of his worn-down shoes.
Warmth tightens in his chest as he runs down the paved concrete. Heat clinging to the afternoon air like crystallized salt. Washing everything with it’s golden touch.
It’s easy like this. To imagine that if he lifted his legs just a little higher, his whole body would float amongst the clouds.
Pete passes a group of little girls skipping rope. An old man with a newspaper tucked under his arm, who smiles at him when he races past. A boy about his age with a pile of heavy books in his hands, probably on his way home from the library.
He sees streets lined with shops selling flowers and pastries and suits and toys. Smells salt and smoke and the bewildering scents of the dozens of people around him.
Sweet notes of someone’s joy mingling in with the sharp bursts of someone else’s nervousness. Excitement and anticipation and worry and relief, all overwhelming him, all at once.
He turns an abrupt corner, his ears buzzing, pulse fluttering in his mouth, eyes darting from one unfamiliar end of the block to the other, when he sees a little kid crouched down on the crosswalk.
It’s an empty road and the few pedestrians who are rushing by, either don’t notice or don’t care to see the boy.
“H-hey,” Pete calls out, voice hoarse, color high in his cheeks. Each breath coming in heavier than the last as he looks up at the crosswalk signal. Sees the neon green numbers blinking down at him. Indicating he has plenty of time to get to the child. To bring him back to the sidewalk. “Are you alright?”
His feet feel swollen inside his sneakers. Protesting every step he takes down the pristine white lines marking the hot concrete, like thick stripes of mint candy.
There’s a sharp stitch in his side from all the running he wasn’t supposed to do. His doctor’s disapproving face growing bigger and bigger in front of his eyes, as the thick humid air makes a wheezing sound at the back of his throat.
Pete presses a shaky palm to the curve of his belly. Feels a furtive kick against his heat-stained fingers, the smallest outline of a foot.
Remembers the softness melting in Tom’s steady blue gaze. The careful press of calloused fingers against the stretched pink of his skin. The barely-contained wonder. The tender press of a mouth against the ever-growing swell of his abdomen. Against the curve of his lips.
The wind rises, blows the shorter uneven bits of his hair outta his blurry eyes.
There’s a voice in his head. A voice that sounds remarkably like Tom’s. Telling him to stop. To turn around. To call for help.
The whites in his vision dance in a frenzy.
But he’s almost there. The boy is right there. Pete’s tired but he can’t stop now.
Big brown eyes blink up at him slowly. He can’t be older than five, maybe six. Pete wonders where his parents are.
The child doesn’t respond. Pete touches his lips — closed — doesn’t know whether he’s spoken aloud.
He notices the thick glasses lying in a crunched heap on the ground. The dark red blood plastered on skinned knees.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Pete tries again, kneeling down as deftly as his body will allow, breathing around the heat crumbling his larynx. Like it’s coming apart and sticking together all at once. “Why don’t we get off this road? And then, you can take me to your parents.”
“I’m B-Bernie, and I w-want my dad.”
The boy is scared. It’s thick in his scent, in the quiver in his chin, in the wetness pooling in his eyes. And it’s an awful feeling. Seeing a child so little, so scared. But it distracts Pete from the heat, the unsteady beat of his heart, the prickly discomfort creeping up his arms and legs.
If he can focus on Bernie’s fear, maybe he can drown out his own.
“Hey Bernie, I’m Pete. And I also want to find your father. Why don’t we go look for him together, huh?”
Bernie sniffles as he holds out his arms. Presses closer, the tip of his damp nose tickling Pete’s ear as he hiccups, “You’re s-scared… I can smell it. Please don’t be scared. After we find my dad, he’ll help us find your dad too.”
A wet laugh punches its way out of his aching chest as he hoists the boy up on his hip. Gently wipes the trails of dust and tears off his round cheeks. “Sure, kid. We’ll do that. Now let’s get off this road, okay?”
Bernie tugs on the sleeves of his shirt, hands stronger than they look. Burrows his wet face into the curve of his neck. Whispers a quiet thank you.
The signal tells him he has another forty-five seconds to get off the crosswalk.
Deck the halls blares out from the open window of a toy store.
The baby inside of him kicks hard, sending little shocks of pain down his spine.
And in the end, it’s far too late by the time he sees the speeding car peeling down the street.
His voice is silent, nowhere in his throat as his whole body curls around the boy in his arms. Around the little life in his belly.
Heaven and earth tumble, he grasps for the wind, and the streets fall away.
And then, there’s the sky — the fluffy white clouds like rabbits dancing across its spotless blue expanse.
He imagines reaching for them, swirling them around a stick, catching sunlight in each pristine wisp. Making tiny little rainbows all of his own.
Pete raises his hand to reach for the light, it feels sticky and warm.
Deafening wails threaten to pierce his eardrums.
There’s a sharp blinding pain in his chest, as though there’s a knife scraping the inside of his esophagus with every wheeze of air struggling to make its way to his lungs, but he can’t focus on that right now because: Where is Bernie?
Distantly, Pete realizes that the screams are coming from above him. That there’s little hands pressed against his chest, a torso huddled against his belly. That the hot tears rolling down his cheeks aren’t his own.
Are you hurt? Please, don’t be hurt. Don’t cry. Please.
The world seems only half real through the inky blackness seeping into his vision. Like a reflection of a reflection. Like something out of a story told long ago. Nearly-forgotten. Moulded by time into something else entirely.
At a glance, Bernie looks mercifully unharmed: moving all of his limbs, his scent untainted by the bitter notes of pain.
Dirt smears his forehead in a wide arc. Pete reaches out a hand to wipe his face, belatedly sees the bright crimson smeared across his own palm.
It dawns on him ever so slowly. As though the whole world has frozen around him. As though time’s come to a complete standstill. Like one of those films on tape that you can pause with the press of your finger.
Bernie’s screaming at the sight of blood. Pete’s blood. That’s soaking right through his clothes. That’s pooling around him.
And all of a sudden, he feels cold. Very cold.
Panicked voices surround him. Suffocating in their proximity. Someone tries to lift Bernie off of him, but the boy refuses to let go, holding onto his neck with a strength that can only be fueled by adrenaline.
There’s a cacophony of sirens in the distance, but Pete can’t move, he can barely breathe.
It’s like being choked by a noose steadily tightening around his neck. He wants to comfort Bernie, to ask for help — Tom, he needs Tom — he can’t stay here — the baby —
He places a weak hand on the swell of his belly, hoping for a kick, a movement, a flutter, anything.
His baby is frighteningly still as the last vestiges of consciousness leave his body, and there’s nothing between the sky and the ground but endless black.
