5. After

Around four, Matthew realized that Camille was gone. He jerked awake in a cold sweat. Staring up at the ceiling he tried to steady his ragged breathing. He watched as the fan ran in circles, round and round again. He ran his hand over Camille’s side of the bed- it was still warm. It hadn’t been long since she’d been gone.

For as long as he could remember, Matthew and Camille had always been inseparable, despite being two and a half years apart. Camille meant the world to Matthew, and he often wondered if she knew it. All throughout his life, Camille had been his playmate, his partner in crime and his best friend. He shared some of his best memories with her and he knew she’d always have his back.

But Matthew felt guilty. He felt like he’d driven a wedge between them. They were yet to talk about what happened between the night he ran away from home and the morning he returned. Neither one knew what had happened to the other over the course of seventy two hours.

And as he lay there damp with sweat he wonders if perhaps he had been becoming a growing burden on Camille. He’d put her through an immense amount of pain, between talking him off the edge and defending him in front of their father. And although they hadn’t talked about what happened over those three days that he’d disappeared, he knew one thing for certain; that he put her through hell.

He’d had this thought once before. It was between the first and second day that he’d been gone when he stumbled upon the railyard. As he looked out across the distant tracks, he thought about what a burden he’d been on Camille. And it got him thinking- perhaps he was just a waste of space, an unwanted, useless human being. His own father didn’t want him, and his mother didn’t care to fight for him. Perhaps this was supposed to be the defining moment of his life.

The moment he dies.

And all the while, while thoughts ran carelessly about his mind, he found himself lying down on the tracks and closed his eyes. In the distance, he’d heard a train horn. His heart beat faster as the sound of metal cars rushing and rumbling approached him. There was a lump forming in the back of his throat. A part of him wanted to die that night, but another part forced him to open his eyes. When he looked up at the night sky, he saw the stars. But it wasn’t just the stars, it was the Ophiuchus constellation.

And he remembered Camille.