The Path You Take

Everything was changing. He had left her. She hadn’t seen it coming. Everything had been fine. Now he was gone. She stood there on the front porch, staring at the place that his car had been parked. Now the space was empty. There had been someone else, the entire time they had been together. Someone that she had considered a friend. She was still in shock. There was no idea what to do next. She had been with him for years. Since they were eighteen. The phone was ringing in the background, but answering it never crossed her mind. All she could do was wonder what had gone wrong. What had she done to make this happen? The driveway which was empty, was all she could stare at. It hadn’t hit her yet that he had truly left her. She didn’t know when it would, but that was the least of her worries. What was she going to do now? She had never had a job. He hadn’t let her work. All of these thoughts were spinning around in her head. She didn’t know how to do much of anything. Who was she supposed to confide in? There was really no one that she had been allowed to speak with. One or two people, and that was only if he had approved.

It was another hour before she went into the house. Looking around made her sick. Nothing there was hers. She was going to have to move. She knew that. He would come back, only to tell her to leave. Where would she go. The thoughts and feelings she had had outside on the porch were coming back to her. She hadn’t spoken to her family in years. She was afraid to call them. She could pretty much predict what they were going to say to her. She felt numb. Feeling numb she walked upstairs to the bedroom and looked around. She needed to get her clothes together and leave. Along with feeling numb, she had this weird feeling working at the back of her mind. That she wasn’t safe there.

It didn’t take long before she had all of the essential clothes that she would need. She wasn’t taking it all. Only what she would need. She would leave the rest. Besides that, she didn’t have a car to drive. She didn’t even have her license. She would have to walk. It was spring, and rather warm for early spring. That she thanked God for. Once she was prepared for the long walk to town, she headed out, wondering if that was where he was. Wondering if they knew that he had left her. No one there really talked to her when she went into town with him. She didn’t know anyone anyway. They had moved away from the town that they had grown up in. She thought maybe that was a good place to go. Would they remember her? The girl that had used to be outgoing. Until she had hooked up with the High School Quarterback. Pride of their small town. She became shy and quiet after that. She knew that she had plenty of time to think about it. After all it was a long walk into town. To the bus station she thought. She would find somewhere to start over. Going to their hometown was a bad idea, and something told her that she needed to run.

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Kevin stood looking down into the hole he had dug in the ground. He couldn’t help but feel only partially satisfied. He knew that he would feel wholly satisfied once he had filled that hole. Which would be momentarily. He glanced towards Claire. The woman who was his partner. He watched her with love and something else, something indescribable in his eyes as she hefted what they were burying in the hole he had dug. She carried it over, and he found he also had pride to feel towards her as she tossed the body easily into the seven foot, because he wanted to make her harder to find, hole. She had only been a substitute for the woman that he wanted to kill. But it would be her in time. He pulled Claire to him and kissed her. When she pulled back, they worked together to pile dirt onto the body.

She would never be found