relieving your guilt

I feel like my heart is going to explode out of my chest as we drag the bag out to the backyard. As I walk, I can’t tell whether the weight of my guilt or the weight of the bag was heavier. 

“Can you walk a little quicker- I’m not tryna be here all night,” Holden says to me. He looks up and rolls his eyes, assuming he saw the befuddled expression on my face. 

“What’s the problem,” he says.

Dropping my end of the bag I say, “Why are you acting like we didn’t just commit a crime- I mean is this a normal thing for you?”

“We? Colin, you pulled the trigger. I’m just helping you, don’t go putting the blame on me,” he says scoffing.

“You- you told me to- I didn’t even want to do this, you’re the one who made me come here and-.”

“Look at you trying to act all innocent, why am I not surprised? Don’t act like you didn't want to do this as much as I did, would you rather him have told your parents what you did?”

I look away, avoiding his gaze. 

Holden picks up the bag again, starts walking, and then turns around and says, “If you don’t want to help me then fine, walk away. Just don’t expect me to back you up when the truth comes out.”

He walks a few feet ahead and I hesitantly follow him, picking up the other end of the bag again. 

We reach an empty part of the backyard and Holden drops the bag, running to the small little shed the three of us had built two years before to grab two shovels. He comes back handing me one, and starts digging. 

I stare at him for a bit, still so lost. I mean, what am I doing? Holden pauses and looks up to face me.

“Are you gonna keep standing there or..”

Still silent, I pick up the shovel and start digging. 

An hour later, we finally have a hole deep enough to fit his body. Holden jumps in and looks at me, waiting. 

“Zip open the bag now.”

I stand there, not doing anything. 

“Are you deaf as well as a coward- open the bag Colin.”

I pick up the shovel and jump into the hole alongside him.

“What are you doing-”

“Sorry,” I say before hitting his head with the item in hand. 

He looks at me for a split second, confused, before falling backwards. I pull out the gun from my pocket, the real one. Taking a deep breath I shoot. Once.. twice.. then I pull the trigger one more time for good measure. The gunshots were loud, I could still feel them ringing in my ear but thankfully, no one heard. One good thing about living in a desolate place, I guess. Sighing, I climb back out and stare at the now unzipped bag. 

“You can come out now.”

A hand reaches out the bag, struggling to get the rest of the body out. I give him a hand, pulling him up. 

“Is he dead,” Morgan asks.

“I’m pretty sure,” I say, hands shaking.

Morgan grabs one of my hands, “You did the right thing. Did you see how easily he was going to get rid of me? If you didn’t do what you did, he would’ve probably done the same to you. Holden cared for no one but himself, he deserved it.” 

I nod my head, still carrying the guilt inside but I wasn’t about to show it. I didn’t want to admit it but I felt scared. Of myself, of Morgan, of what would happen if someone found out. As I stood there contemplating, Morgan had already begun covering his body with dirt. 

“..Morgan?”

He looks up, “Yeah?”

“What if someone finds out?”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know though”

He turns to me and says, “The only people that know are us, and neither one of us are gonna snitch right?”

“..right”

“Then we’ll be fine,” he says, trying to give a reassuring smile. 

I give him a hand and when we finally finish covering the body, Morgan begins throwing seeds on top.

Confused, I ask, “What are you doing”

He asks me to fetch him some water and I do, then watch him pour it over the ground. 

“I don’t know, I just found these plant seeds and thought why not plant them right here, fresh fertile soil am I right?” Morgan says, laughing.

I awkwardly smile, not knowing how else to react. 

Morgan takes the gun from me, wipes it, and dumps it into this small pool of water. He then drives me home and leaves.

I walk inside my house quietly, making sure not to wake anyone up. I go upstairs to my room and close the door without making any noise. As I lay in bed I just keep thinking, was that even real? Did that actually happen? Did I really just kill someone? I don’t understand how Morgan could be so calm, while I lie here unable to sleep and even process things correctly. 

The next morning, I hear my mom’s footsteps approaching my door and quickly close my eyes, pretending to be fast asleep. 

“Wake up Colin, food’s ready.”

I hear her footsteps receding and open my eyes. I don’t really feel like eating when I still feel so sick to my stomach. Jumping out of bed, I leave my room, still wearing the same clothes as last night and walk out the front door, ignoring everyone calling after me. I realize I probably shouldn’t be acting so suspicious but I didn’t really care at the moment. Dialing Morgan’s number I get into an Uber. 

“Hello?”

“Colin its 8 in the morning, what do you want?”

“Can you um can you meet me at the park?”

“What park-”

“The one we always go to?”

“Well why do you wanna meet now-”

I can hear him getting up, starting to get serious.

“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

“Of course not...can you just meet me there please?” I respond.

“Fine,” he hangs up.

A few minutes later I arrive at the park and see Morgan waiting there for me. I walk towards him, hesitant on whether I still want to say what I intended to. 

“Well what did you want?”

“I was just- I don’t think I can do this-”

“Do what?”

“You might be fine with all this but I can’t walk around carrying this guilt, acting like nothing happened.”

“Colin get to the point.”

“I wanna come clean.”

Morgan starts laughing hysterically, “You’re not- you’re not being serious are you.” His face suddenly straightens up, “Are you?”

“Why would I be joking about this?”

“Colin don’t be stupid, you know what happens if someone finds out. I think you need to go get some sleep.”

“Morgan- that’s the thing, I can’t sleep. I physically can’t rest until this goes away and it isn’t going to- I’m gonna tell someone” I start walking away but he grabs my hand. 

“Okay look just give me a week. Then we can...come clean together.”

Unsure on whether he means it or not, I nod my head and walk away, going back home.

A week goes by with many questions, having to act surprised when the news of Holden’s death comes out, being interrogated, having to come up with an alibi to cover for myself. Then finally exactly a week later from that day, Morgan calls. He asks to meet at the same backyard Holden was buried and to make sure I wasn’t followed. I didn’t want to go back there but I wanted this to be over so I listened and went. 

“Finally.” He says when he sees me.

“Did we have to meet here?”

“It was the only private place I could think of.”

“...Okay well what are we going to do?”

“Like you said, come clean.”

“Really?” I ask, shocked. I didn't think he would actually agree but I felt relieved. I would take the consequences, anything was better than living with this guilt. 

“Really.” He tells me to follow him and I do so willingly, until I see a hole dug out in the ground similar to the one we had dug for Holden.

“What’s that for?” I ask, confused. My brain wasn’t able to register what was happening yet. 

“You’ll see,” He walks closer to it and I still follow.

“Look inside.”

I bend over to look inside and I feel something on my back but before I could figure out what it was, I fall in. I look around to see Morgan standing there, looking over me, smiling. 

Morgan starts to shovel the dirt inside, right on top of me.

“What are you- what are you doing.”

He keeps throwing dirt inside and I try to get up but fail.

“I’m doing what you asked me to do.”

Fear starts rushing into me as I look up at him in terror. 

“What” is the only thing that comes out of my mouth.

“Relieving you of your guilt.”

 Then it gets dark.