Shane's Redemption To Heaven

The two men walked across the parking lot towards the familiar looking red brick building.

“So this is it?”

“Yep, that’s it,” replied Lyle. He eyed his friend up and down, “You ready?”

Shane swallowed, nodded and followed him inside.

The school was quiet as they stepped through the front doors, but as they made their way down the hallways, students began to emerge from classrooms and lockers. The chatter grew louder, heads turned in their direction. Things had changed since Lyle left. On his first day of school no one looked twice at strangers wearing trench coats and sunglasses on a hot summer day. Now the students thought they were FBI or something.

They made their way to the locker where Lyle had hidden his package eight years earlier. It was still there, untouched by time.

Lyle walked over to the locker and opened it. He reached in, grabbed a small black duffel bag and handed it to Shane who took it without saying a word.

“This is for you, my friend,” he said quietly when Shane turned around to face him with questioning eyes. “I think you’ll know what to do with it. Good luck, my friend. I hope we meet again someday…somewhere else, somewhere better than here.”

Shane nodded slowly and took his hand in a firm handshake before walking away down the hallway alone. He couldn’t turn around now; he had to go forward if he was going to see this thing through. His heart beat faster as he approached the back entrance and pushed open the door into the changing room filled with long wooden benches along the walls separating rows of glass doors leading outside. He heard someone enter behind him and watched as an athletic looking boy with dark hair pulled into a ponytail walked past him towards a set of lockers on the other side of the room. When he got closer, Shane could tell it was Lynn by her blue eyes staring back at him from beneath black rimmed glasses that shined brightly against her pale skin. She smiled broadly at him with her whole face; her eyes lit up like she hadn’t seen him in years instead of days when they parted ways after visiting Lyle at work that morning before school started that morning. He felt his heart skip a beat and his legs suddenly became so heavy he almost fell over backwards when she waved at him before disappearing into one of the changing rooms at the end of her row of lockers on the right side of the room closest to the exit door in front of them both she had disappeared through earlier that morning while he waited just outside watching out for her outside on her walk home from school during those last few months they spent together before she died of cancer eight years ago today…