I cast long shadows as I walk between streetlights. I couldn't sleep, or think, or anything, so I am trying to cure my paralysis with a stroll alongside Port Lavaca's only highway, which connects to my motel. The high school's football stadium looms on my left, a monolithic structure. It is metal and cement rising from the surrounding coastlands, a part of the creeping industrial tumor that stretches from the refineries. 

There's some sort of event going on. I can hear it already—the strum of whole chords on an acoustic guitar, amplified over loudspeakers. Trucks fill the gravel field that acts as a parking lot; the rocks grind under my feet with each step. Dull gray aluminum stands are filled on one side by a host of bodies, pale legs jutting from shorts, feet rubbing up against calves to wipe mosquitoes away. 

I walk around, past a chain link fence that separates the field from the parking lot. High school students and their parents stand side by side, arms wrapped around shoulders and waists, mom's hair sprayed curls pressed to daughter's straightened bangs. Each clutches a white candle pushed through a plastic cup. The flames dance, tiny and bright beneath each chin. 

I stop, hook my fingers around the chain link fence, and watch through the gaps. A teenage boy with a guitar stands midfield, singing something sweet. Happy music under lyrics about angels. Wet faces press to short sleeves because hands clutching one another are unable to clear away tears. 

The song ends. A girl steps up to the microphone, sniffs wetly. 

"Kayla was my lab partner in eleventh grade," she begins. I don't hear the rest, because I'm just understanding what this is.

A candlelight vigil for Kayla. A memorial service, because they know she's dead. A stadium full of people who probably think I murdered her. 

Who knows what they'll do if they see me. Christ. 

And, there's so many people; the emotion is so genuine. Kayla's death made an impact. There are probably a thousand people in the stands. And most of these must be acquaintances; they didn't spend time with Kayla while she lived. I'd have seen them.

But, they're coming to terms with the fact that Kayla is gone forever. That each little memory of her, even the passing ones that seem insignificant, will now be buried—only to be revisited on occasion as remnants of something past, something dead. 

Stranger, still: Kayla planned on being here to watch this. This moment, this memorial, would occur even if everything went according to plan—even if Kayla still lived. Her actually being dead is the least important part of the entire process. 

So, where does she really live? How you can bury something that could still be alive, unless the thing you're burying isn't what you thought it was at all?

The breeze rolls one of the white candles, half melted, against the fence. I lean down and pick it up. It fits snugly in my pants pocket. 

*

When I arrive back at the motel, I go to the front office. A middle-aged Mexican woman sits behind the desk.

"Is there a fax for me? I'm Sean Reilly, in room 14." 

She huffs, pushing her arms against the counter to roll her chair across the office. A set of documents rest in a cardboard box-top. The office manager picks them up, wrinkles her nose at the pages.

"These yours? A..." she hesitates, looking at the top of the page. "A plea bargain?"

I take the papers without answering, and walk silently out of the office. 

When I'm a few feet from my room, a door cracks open. A woman's face fills the space: blank slate of a forehead, wide-set blue eyes drinking in what light remains. An interesting face—bizarre, even, but not unattractive. 

I stop. "What do you know about dying?" I ask her. 

"Everything," she answers, smiling. 

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