Grateful? Ashamed? Maybe embarrassed because the only person I can spill my guts to is a glorified hook-
er?”
She slapped me for that, and I deserved it. I just let my head hang there, hyper-extended and twisted right. The hot burn on my cheek felt
necessary. When I finally did look her in the eye, she was disgusted. Her nostrils flared, and her crooked bottom teeth peeked at me from below her top lip.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Just be happy your time isn’t up yet.” Her words dripped with deceit, and it was a long, awkward pause in our conversation.
“Don’t you think I’m guilty of something though? I used to wish that I’d never have to see that place again. And now that it’s been wiped off the map, I never will. All those people are gone... I never wanted to see them die.” Something grabbed my throat from the inside. This poor girl, I had tried to dump all my problems on her, like she could make it all right, like she could understand.
“But they’re dead now.” She said quietly.
“If you could undo that tornado and bring them all back, would you?”
The ultimatum. She was asking me to make the right choice.
But suddenly this wasn’t about right and wrong, this was about me. What kind of person I was on the inside. Because it didn’t matter what I said. There was no “right” way to feel about this situation, no “right” answer would change anything. I could’ve stated the politically correct answer, like I had done before in the news room. It would have been the safe answer. But would it have been the truth? That was all that mattered mattered anymore. And there is no single truth.
So I mourned my mother and father, privately, and I never went back to Sedalia to “officially” pay my respects. What difference does it make where I say this? I thought to myself, alone in a graveyard back in the city. Nobody from Sedalia was buried there, but still I prayed that they would make it to a better place. I prayed that they would all go to Heaven, because if I couldn’t love them, then someone else would have to.
A journalist or two tried to get an interview or a statement, and I gave them the “right” answer. But after that, nothing. Not a peep. I wonder if Layne went to the funerals. Thinking about her right now makes vomit well up in my throat. The other day I saw Lucy in the elevator again. We didn’t speak, but we didn’t need to.
About the Author
Thaddeus Simpson has lived In Omaha, NE for the greater part of his life. He only recently became unhappy with the harsh summer heat and frigid winter weather, and now aspires to live on a tropical, deserted island, provided it has WiFi. His hobbies include reading, dreaming about motorcycles, and dreaming about other things. As far as he knows, people find him stubborn and irritating, and secretly make fun of him behind his back. His friend Ryan once said this of him: "Thadd is the guy who hates the things that normal people might like."
Since an early age, Thadd has enjoyed reading and writing so much that they have become his primary hobbies. His self-professed dream is to be read, and he believes the best way to make that happen is to make everything he writes freely available. Besides, he doesn't even have a degree yet, how can he expect anyone to buy anything from a less-than professional writer?
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