Leonard grew greener by the moment. He paced back and forth, mist sticking to his clammy forehead, mud seeping through the mesh in his sneakers. He'd put it in an ice box and left it a good ten feet away from him.

"Just don't look. Don't look."

He looked.

"Oh god," he moaned to himself, turning towards the bleachers and drawing his hands inside his jacket, all fingers firmly clenched in safe fists.

Someone sloshed noisily towards him from across the soccer field. She was a frightening figure, purple rain hat pulled down to her nose and muddy galoshes up to her knees, just meeting the acid green raincoat.

"Leonard!" she waved to him.

Leonard, still queasy, raised his arm in greeting and smiled weekly.

"Hi, um, Julie."

"Wet day, huh?" said Julie, drawing up to him. She turned up the brim of her hat, revealing a rather red pointy nose and freckly face. She smiled in a way only the blissfully unaware can smile. "I was going to bring an umbrella but I thought it would be a bit gratuitous."

Leonard gulped, chasing the worst of the nauseating images from his brain. He tried to focus on Julie.

"What's that?" he asked, swallowing most of his voice.

"It's my hat…?" answered Julie, peeling the horrible thing off her head and shaking it out like a dead bird.

"No. That word. Gratoot… what?"

"Gratuitous," annunciated Julie. "It means excessive."

"Right," repeated Leonard, filling knowledge into his brain where worse things once pranced. "Excessive. Too much of. Gratuitous. Red. Blo- Oh god, Julie!" His arms flailed. "You- you won't believe what I've done! I can't believe what I've done! I've ruined everything! I'll get caught! I'm a fugitive! A fully blown fugitive, Julie!"

Julie looked at him suspiciously.

"Oh, Leonard, you haven't shot the president or anything, have you?"

Leonard fought back the tears. They made their way out his nose instead.

"Much worse," he sniffed, turning away.

"You- you killed off the last remaining pandas?" said Julie, awed.

"No. I… I…"

"You what, Leonard?"

Leonard fell quiet. A horrible, chilly gust swept across the field. Julia's raincoat danced around her knees.

"Leonard, what did you do?" she said. She took one step closer, the mud sucking at her boots.

"Julia… are you very squeamish?"

Julia shook her head. "Not unless there's spiders involved."

"But… you always wanted to be a doctor, right? So… medical stuff doesn't bother you?"

"Yeah, but…" Julie's brow furrowed. "Leonard, what are you getting at? Why did you ask me to come here?"

"I'll show you. But… brace yourself, okay?"

"Okay," echoed Julie, mystified.

Leonard, reluctant as a funeral guest, marched forward to the ice box. Julie followed. Leonard knelt down beside it, heedless of the mud the seeped through his knees and the grass stains that would surely blossom on the khakis.

He closed his eyes and opened it.

A pause.

"Holy-"

"I know!"

"Leonard! Are you serious?"

"Of course not. This is an elaborate prank!" Leonard's voice wavered.

"Really?"

"Julie!"

"Okay, okay." Julie turned away and took a moment to collect herself behind her eggplant colored hat. When she turned back, her face was composed, though so pale her freckles stood out like crows on a crisp sky.

"That ring. Leonard, why is Todd's ring on it?"

"Because it is Todd's." Leonard carefully shut the box shut, eyes carefully closed the whole time. "The whole thing."

The misty wind fell disgustingly still.

"Oh. Well…" Julie curled her fingers uncomfortable. "Good of you to put it on ice."

"Yeah."

"Um… were you planning on giving… it… back to him?"

Leonard backed away from the cooler.

"I can't." Leonard's shoulders drooped. "He'll kill me. It was all an accident. A stupid, stupid accident and I've only made things worse."

Julie approached Leonard and put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Leonard, we've got to sort this out-"

"It was all an accident!" he burst out. "It wasn't even my fault. Todd was careless, he wasn't watching closely enough. He was too caught up in making his wooden bicycle. And I was working on that bookshelf, you know?"

He paused.

"It's ruined now, you know?" he said, sad. "Completely stained."

Leonard buried his face in his hands.

"The police will probably confiscate it as evidence, anyway," he mumbled. "Todd freaked out, but he passed out pretty quickly. I almost went crazy. I thought he was going to get up again, grab his tools and give me a taste of my own medicine." Leonard drew a shuddering breath. "I was completely freaked. My mind shut down, you know? So… I grabbed the cooler and put… it… on ice. But, you know, me and Todd. We've never really gotten along. And I kept thinking, 'Oh god, Todd's going to wake up in a minute to kill me.' And of course that made no sense, and of course I should've called an ambulance and tried to stop the bleeding. But what could I do? I ran."

Leonard hung his head, ashamed.

"I was over half a mile away when I realized I was still carrying the damn thing." He thrust a hand in the direction of the ice box. "But I couldn't go back. It would only be worse. He'd have another reason to kill me. First I did it. Then I ran. Making things worse."

"Did you… eventually call an ambulance?" Julia asked in a faint voice.

"No. Someone else did, though. I heard it rushing back in that direction ten minutes later." The stood in silence, Leonard breathing heavily, Julia hardly breathing at all. "I would've though. Eventually."

Julia bit her lip. She really should say something.

"Listen, Leonard, you freaked. It's okay. We all do it. We all mess up."

"I'm a coward. I'm a coward holding this dying… thing… hostage." He snorted. "Oh, I could have done so much better."

"Maybe. But we have to work with the mess we've made, don't we?"

"I'm screwed for life, aren't I?"

"No. No, I don't think so."

And Julia strode forward, picking up the ice box.

"What are you doing?"

Julia's mind was at work. "There's a bus station in town. Just get out of here, and give me a call from wherever you end up."

"But… where are you taking that?"

"The hospital. It hasn't been that long, there's still hope for it. I think Todd will be glad to see it again. You have kept it clean right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Julie, won't you get in trouble?"

"I hope not. But you'll probably be in even more if Todd never sees this again. He'll still have his feet, right?"

"And he's a nasty soccer player," agreed Leonard, smiling a little.

"Now get going."

"Julie. Thanks. And if I'm skipping town, I guess this is goodbye?"

"Don't be an idiot." Julie grimaced. "I'll have to meet up with you- wherever you end up- and make sure you don't do anything else stupid."

Leonard's sagging shoulders lifted once more.

"Julie you really don't have to do that-"

"And I don't really have to do the dishes either. Not since I got a dishwasher, which has been nice." She firmly gripped the ice box and strode back across the field, towards town, towards wherever the hospital was.

"Now scat!" she called over her shoulder.

Leonard watched her walk away. It was incredible really, the way such accidents could tell you who your friends really were.

After a moment's contemplation, Leonard collected himself, and prepared to scat.

----------------

Dear Readers,

I promise you, I am not a psychopath. Really.

E. M. Grinlord