I did get there, the pain running through my ankle had me out of breath. I looked at the dark sky as my lungs heaved. I leaned against the back of one of the containers, no more than a few feet from the confessional itself. I took off my sling bag. Already it was completely soaked. Even its Velcro straps threatened to come undone from the sogginess. I cursed myself and my unusual lack of planning. With everything else, I didn’t want to lose Charlie’s sketches. They were the only part of him that I would really have when everything was said and done. I wanted to cry at the thought of him. Though I may have memories of him, they were false and tainted by lies. And when the time came, they wouldn’t even be mine. I would probably have to share most of them with the F.B.I. He had never really cared for me. That had all been a lie to keep me placid. But maybe I could look back on these someday and lie to myself, pretend like I had mattered to him in some way or another.
My eyes ballooned with tears and I began to laugh at the same time. How completely insane! Here I was in serious bodily danger and I was worried about some stupid sketches? Calm, Addie, calm. Take a deep breath and relax. I had to keep it together for a little while longer. I could lose my mind later when I got home. But until then, what about those these sketches? I clasped my bag as close to me as possible, although I knew it wasn’t doing much good. Even putting it under my shirt probably wouldn’t make much of a difference at this point. My eyes scanned the room for a solution…
In the end I opted to enclose the sketchbook inside the Da Vinci coffee table book in the hopes the inventor would protect my lying love. My hands combed over the various contents of my bag, the few scattered bobby pins at the bottom, some coins, a charger for my phone, the frayed ends of my wallet. All practical parts of a life that was probably about to end.
My eyes wandered over to the confessional again. It was just as dark and ominous as when I had seen it last. I could never forget what Charlie had told me about the sorts of things that had gone on in there and what he truly thought of me. My mind could see it all very clearly now in the cold and the rain. I wanted to banish the images away, but they kept replaying themselves in my head. My tears melded together with the rain and ran together into the sketchbook.
I curled deeper into myself, making myself impossibly small. I had drastically underestimated the cold and how it would affect my time hiding in the hold. I shivered uncontrollably, my teeth chattering until my jaw hurt, my flesh a never-ending row of goosebumps that stung at the touch.
I recited poetry in my head and the capitals of every state, but it did nothing to quench my growing fear. After everything I had been through these last few days, would I now die from hypothermia? I reluctantly removed one of my hands from in-between my knees and examined the numb fingertips. Through strained eyes, I could make out a lovely shade of violet that began at the nail and stretched to the base of the knuckle. I laughed and tried to rub my shoulders. What was better, I wondered: dying sooner or later? Freezing to death or dying by the hands of the man I loved?
The tears were hot on my face compared to the icy rain water I could no longer avoid as the wind blew it in without reprieve. Charlie had been my only protector here, the only one defending me. Even the sweet and oblivious Polo might be accepting to my sudden demise if his close friends had been the ones to cause it. Without Charlie to speak for me, I was as good as dead.
I squeezed my eyes and prayed the rain would stop so I wouldn’t turn into a human Popsicle. Maybe I could hold out and tolerate the cold until they made port at Singapore. It would be a lot more difficult to kill me at one of the busiest ports in the world, wouldn’t it?