Off the Path

It was all my fault.

He was my last family member, and I caused it. He had sacrificed everything for me. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have let him

“I have to fix this.” My voice was hoarse as a sob broke through the tightening of my throat. My heart pounded against my ribs as if it were trying to escape. I felt like a mouse caught by a snake, coiling around my chest. With each struggling breath, it was getting harder and harder to breathe.

My hands clawed at the rubble like a wild animal, raking against large and small rocks and old concrete as the evening sun painted them orange. I sniffled and tried to stifle the sob as my vision blurred with tears. My hands closed around the mangled ‘WARNING: UNSTABLE’ sign. The edges bit into my palms, stinging, slicing. Dirt and dust coating it, dimming it.

The damn sign! I hurled it with all my might at the EMTs as they stood there, completely useless by their empty gurney. They winced, but didn’t bother to move a step.

Why did they stop helping? Why did they all stop helping? The firefighters, the sheriffs … everyone.

“This is all my fault,” I choked out, grabbing a large rock with both hands and tossing it to the side. My arms burned hotter than a stovetop, but I couldn’t stop.

Just a few more handfuls.

A few more rocks.

“Evangeline…” A man’s voice, low, soft, tear-jerked, caressed my ears. I could hear the pity. The same pity when he told us our parents had passed in the wreck.

“Don’t!” I snapped.

It began in my chest, a sudden collapse inward. Like my ribs were folding around a secret too heavy to hold. My breath stuttered in sharp and shallow drags. As if my lungs were afraid to draw in more air for fear it might carry the echo of what happened.

“I shouldn’t have let him convince me to come here.”

We always stuck to the path. That was the rule. After the accident, after Mom and Dad took a different path, it became sacred. The path was safe. The path was known. The path didn’t collapse around you.

He said it would be fun. Just a quick look. He’d promised, grinning like he used to when he was little and wanted to sneak dessert before dinner. He’d found the old map in the library. “Barely a mile off the trail” he’d said. “We’ll be back before dinner.” I’d laughed. I always laughed when he got that spark in his eye. That spark in his eyes that reminded me so much of Mom. I didn’t want to dim it. I couldn’t.

I should have said no! I should have remembered the twisted metal, the flashing lights, the way Sheriff Jensen had looked at me when he said “They didn’t make it.” I should have remembered that different paths kill.

My hands trembled, failing to grasp the rocks as they slipped through my fingers. The fever of regret climbed up my spine and settled behind my eyes. Heating the free flow of tears that streaked my dust-covered face.

“We shouldn’t have gone off the path,” I half yelled, ignoring the snot draining out of my nose. “We walk it every day. EVERY DAY.”

“Evangeline, please,” he tried to plead with me, but it fell on deaf ears.

“I have to fix this!” With every ounce of energy I had left, I forced my limbs to move faster. I couldn’t feel them anymore … bright red streaks painted the dirt with each swipe of my greedy hands.

Please, God! Please, let me fix this!

Just a few more rocks. He will be there. He WILL be there.

“Evangeline, honey,” strong warm hands reached through my blurred vision and grasped my hands. “Your fingers and hands are bleeding. You have to stop.”

“I can’t,” I cried as a void ripped through my soul, seeping a black cold through me. “I let him talk me into doing something different. I let him talk me into checking the old mine out.”

“Look at me, Evangeline.” I looked into Sheriff Jensen’s round face. His usual bright blue eyes seemed darker with the surrounding evergreens. They glistened as he blinked fast, as if he was trying to force back the tears I let freely cascade down. “You did nothing wrong. It was an old mine shaft…”

“Please Jensen,” I pleaded through sobs, my legs buckling, knees bitten by the uneven ground as I hit it. “Please… I need him. I need to fix this.”

“Evangeline,” the Sheriff, still holding my hands, my eyes never leaving his. “He’s gone.”

“No,” I shook my head. Loose strands of blond hair fell from my bun. “He’s just right there! We just have to dig a… a little further! Please! He has to be there! He’s fine!”

He lingered, shaking his head. A tear, a single tear, glistened down his cheek. A tear that shimmered, bathed in the last orange light of the day.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t sob. I just sank.

The dirt pressed into my knees, into my palms, into the cuts that hadn’t stopped bleeding. My breath came in shallow hiccups, like my body had forgotten how to inhale without hope.

Jensen didn’t say anything. He just held me, the way you hold someone who’s unraveling thread by thread. His badge was warm against my temple, and I hated that it felt safe. I hated how his jacket smelled like pine and ash. His arms firm, unmoving, like the trunks of the evergreens all around us. I pressed my face into his shoulder, trying to disappear into the fabric, into the silence, into anything that wasn’t this.

I wanted to rewind. To un-choose. To go back to the moment he smiled and said “Just a quick look.”

But there was no going back.

Only the path.

And I had stepped off it.

I don’t know how to fix this.