Thirty. Jude

 

She's still in hospital. She's still unconscious. Cara Imega. She cared about me. She cared about all the things I said, and all the things I didn't say. She cared about what I showed on the outside and what was hidden on the inside. If is such a big word, If she was a nought or I was a Cross . . . If we lived in a different world . . . If I didn't hate Crosses so much . . .

I've kept the picture of her that was in the newspapers the day after she was found. Just a souvenir. It doesn't mean anything. I could throw it away any time if I wanted to. It's just that I'd never seen that photo of her before. She looked like she was almost praying. I wonder what she was thinking when that photo was taken. It was a good photo, a good likeness. She was just like that really.

Calm.

Quiet.

I cashed her cheques in a number of different banks around the city. All on the same day before her bank could put a block on them. Some I made out to cash. Some I had paid into a holding account and as soon as the cheques cleared, I withdrew the money. She was in hospital, not dead, so the banks had no reason not to clear them. And I was careful to backdate them. She'd signed one cheque so it was easy enough to forge her name on the others. And she had quite a bit of cash in that drawer as well. By the end of the week, I was several thousand pounds better off.

I should've been better off all round.

Except that it won't stop raining.

Especially at night when I'm alone again and lonely again and there's not a cloud in the sky.

And deep inside, it feels like I'm never going to see the sun again.