With the band dead, with revenge served cold and bloody she had gone to the logical end.
The graveyard.
It was late or early she never had been very clear on how the wee small hours worked. She just knew that it was sometime before dawn and after midnight. The cemetery was light up by moonlight and the far street lights, the grass was damp and bright like crayons.
There were flowers on Jennifer's grave and she stood there for a moment wondering if she should remove the flowers. Then again the Jennifer the flowers were for was dead...she'd just been gone longer than most people had realised.
"Sandbox..." She whispered her fingers running along the headstone moving on, further in this glorified park filled with dead people was the love of her life and she didn't feel right leaving this place forever without saying goodbye to Chip.
His grave was too close to Jennifer's for her taste but what was she going to do? Dig him up and put him somewhere else? It wasn't like the important parts of Chip Dove where down there anyway.
There were less flowers on his grave and that just wasn't right. She went back to Jen's and took a bunch of flowers and placed them at Chips grave. She falls to her knees at his grave and places a kiss on the headstone. Chip was a good person, she knows that he went to heaven, can feel it in her bones, in her soul. She just knows t because if anyone deserves heaven is Chip.
She wants to just stay there, just let the police arrive and take her away yet again but what's the point since she is utterly alone here.
Needy pushes herself up and starts towards the back of the cemetery, she'll climb the fence and head off into the world to fight demons or some shit. A cloud uncovers the moon and shines against a random headstone and she stops to look at it because it turns out not to be random at all.
Colin Grey.
Everything in her body lurches forward because if it wasn't for her big mouth Colin would still be alive. Jen and Chip's deaths were inevitable in the grand scheme of Jennifer Check becoming a demon, but Colin. He was her fault and looking at his grave all she can think of is seven minutes in heaven in Megan Kulleski's basement.
She had kissed him once. Back when it was just her and Jennifer against the world, early junior high when they still had sleep overs and basically ate lip smackers and Chip was just a boy in her intro to band class.
A class she later dropped upon realising she had no musical inclination.
Seven minutes in heaven, in Megan Kulleski's basement closet. She remembers the smell of moth balls and old fur coats and the stripe of orange light that light up Colin's face.
The nervous tumbling in her stomach, she blurted out how disappointing this was and the look of horror and devastation that flashed across his face, no! No! She had told him quickly, I just always thought Heaven would be more fluffy and smell less like moth balls.
He had laughed and it was amazing. A laugh that reached his eyes and pulled at parts of her she was just starting to realise existed.
She remembers smiling pleased with herself and the almost sudden crashing silence in the closet. His hand was on her, thumb against her neck rubbing softly like he knew what he was doing.
He closed the small distance between them and hovered just too far away to do anything and she licked her lips, eyes focused on his mouth, she's seen Jennifer do it before, it was the trick she used to get boys to kiss her and good gravy it actually worked.
His mouth came down on hers and her heart was in her throat, he tasted of root beer and magic as far as she was concerned.
Her hands moved on there own, touching the collar of his shirt, the soft hot skin of his neck and the soft silky strands of his hair.
He had his tongue in her mouth and it sent a tense kind of thrill through her body.
Four and a half minutes in heaven.
Until Jen had ripped open the door, she'd become bored and she pulled away from him.
She had wondered if he still tasted of Root Beer when he slid into his seat next to her in creative non- fiction several years later.