A/N: Hi guys. This is the final installment to the short The Overpass project. Again, I want to thank the handful of people who decided to read and/or review this story, I really appreciate it. Dunno if this wraps the story up enough, a friend *cough*NAILSTRAIFER*cough* had told me that a couple of my other projects don't end with all the questions answered, and I appreciate his assessment very much. But as for this project, I decided to tie up this loose end and move on to whatever next project I have down the pipeline, as I have not much else to say on the point I wanted to get across with this project. Anyway, I hope you guys have at least enjoyed (or tried to-this one is a little hard to "enjoy", considering the subject matter lol) this fic, and thanks again!
~Naza
Another brisk fall season, another good day for an evening stroll in the park. It was November of the following year, the anniversary of Krystal's passing. The team and I thought about eating out at her favorite restaurant, the one she and I had gone to on this day the previous year. Unfortunately, we were busy with our own lives: I was raising Marcus alone, Falco was busy cultivating his relationship with Katt after reconnecting with her, Slippy with Amanda, and Peppy spending his retirement traveling to check off his bucket list. Instead, we'd meet a week later and we'd have a barbecue at my house and watch the hockey game.
For a while, I had to drive down the Cornelius J. Pepper Turnpike, passing beneath the Corridor No. 114 overpass. No pedestrian footpath had yet been constructed, though a separate adjacent pedestrian catwalk and/or bike path to cross over the highway would be built in a couple of months.
I would later sell our home and move to the other side of town, simply to avoid driving beneath that overpass - one way of coping in a year where I'd tried everything else. I'd made a ten minute slideshow of all of the photos I had of Krystal, and then I refused to watch it. Marcus, amazingly smart as he is, had already learned how to use a PC, and watches it constantly.
I'd formed the habit of browsing online for inspirational quotes to lift my spirits each day. On the anniversary of Krystal's passing, I chose: "Let go, and let The Gods."
That's what I tried to do every day, even as I kept leaving messages to the Corneria City PD and the Highway Patrol Division. I had not received an update since the crash report, and in the months before the anniversary, I began asking for one.
I didn't know whether the case was closed. I did not know that the prosecutor had already decided not to press charges. I found myself constantly worrying about Rodrigo. Did he know that, in trying to hurt himself, he hurt someone else?
After more than two months of leaving messages, I received a call from the highway trooper in charge of the case the week before the anniversary. He told me the investigation was not finished, and offered not an inkling as to when it would be. He made it sound - falsely, I would later learn - that the district attorney had yet to even look at the case.
A day later, the trooper sent me a short email: I'd learned that a reporter had already spoken with the attorney, and it was then did he tell me that the district would not be pressing charges against the boy.
During the whole process, I felt like I was an afterthought. I wasn't looking for charges to be brought. I didn't want that. But it would have been nice to know. What would have been the harm in informing me of your decision?
As the Holidays crept up, I began to realize that the only update on Rodrigo might be a photo that his mother posted a month prior.
She'd taken it down, but I saved the photo.
In it, it was Rodrigo, sitting at the kitchen table in a red V-neck sweater, his expression somewhere between a smile and a wince. Next to him a pair of crutches leaned against a chair, behind the frosted cake on the table, topped with candles in the shape of the number 13. I smiled at this photo.
Here's to you, Rodrigo, living to see another year.
