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 Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:01 pm
Taking cue from Aloysia Bloodfur, I think I'll post my most recent Writing Contest submission here for feedback.
Between you and me, what I've received from the judges so far is not nearly as helpful as critique as I know I have chance of getting from this guild. I'd appreciate even a word or two of constructive criticism.
Disclaimer: Since this contest seems as if it may be rather long, I might not have it in me to finish. I will do my best, but only be 85% surprised if this thread is not up-kept.: Contents: Prologue ♥
Round 2: Chapters i-iii : ♥
Round 3: Chapters iv-vi : To Be Written
Round 4: Chapters vii-ix : To Be Written
Round 5: Novella Ending : To Be Written
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:01 pm
And Then You Died
A Novella
Dear Marian,
As always, I send you my love. I want to tell you a story. It wouldn't have been possible if not for you.
I went to the Great Falls Park today (I thought of you when I drove by those grand old mansions you always loved) and strolled down by the Potomac. It was in its usual state, and the foam was beautifully rabid. Had the trees their leaves, I still could have heard the water raging, as quick as lost souls rolling their way toward heaven. A group of schoolchildren (with no matching t-shirts, thank goodness) was wandering back to one of those fancy Coach buses. I dared not cross the bridge with this wave of adolescents aimed in the opposite direction as I, so I sought to rest on the bench we always sat upon, looking out onto the river.
Memories always flock to me when I return to our places, but today I was no shepherd. Lately all my thoughts have been of you, and I have found trouble discerning realities from recollections.
Thus, when I saw a young woman seated on the bench, something I would think rare in this season, my mind tried to tell me she was you. My docile heart believed this for a single instant, perhaps to be happy again. Yet, after a single step, my heart fell. I saw the woman had black hair. She was not whom I had grown up beside. Still, I found myself hobbling toward our place with the cane you gave me leading my careful steps and asked her if she would mind sharing her seat. She glanced at me, brushing hair away from bloodshot, swollen eyes, and nodded. By the time I realized why this stranger so impacted me, even after such disappointment, she had looked away.
First she had reminded me of you, but now she reminded me of myself. She showed the tolls of grief which are no longer evident in my physiognomy, but in my bones. The simple air around her felt hopeless like marrow which has already been sucked out of life, and of life.
Once I had seated myself, cane positioned safely against the bench, I took care to stare straight ahead. I asked her softly if she would mind sharing her troubles. It was a selfish thing to ask, for I think I meant to distract myself. But as she began to speak ▬ quite voluntarily, I might add ▬ I knew someone living in the clouds had willed it.
Some stories need to be told. I found this out for the hundredth time when I met the girl with the sinking posture, seemingly permanent frown lines, and horrors in her mind and soul. This was Jane.
She, too, looked ahead ▬ down, really, at the dirt and soil, with her hands folded to imitate prayer. I sat back to give her space, but could hear very well because her words fell through the cool air, putting a light moratorium on the surrounding life of the sand, weeds, and trees, but not the river. It went about its own business as Jane spoke.
This is what she said.
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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 12:01 pm
Thanks for taking a cue from me.
I don't know if I mentioned this in the original contest or not, but I absolutely adore your prologue. I very rarely read something so well done. I'm not sure why I love it. Maybe because I can clearly feel what the characters are feeling, maybe because it makes me desperate to read more.
Can't wait for the next chapters!
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Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:25 pm
× × × × × × × × CHAPTER 1
Emptiness is nothing.
In my mind I can see all the people I've connected to by convincing them of something, teaching them how to do something, or making them believe. I look at the person they knew I was, and I see girl I thought I was. When I compare her to the person I am now, I can hear all those people laughing at me for saying something so obvious; emptiness is nothing. When the jar of fireflies is empty, it means the child hasn't yet caught anything. There is nothing there. When the refrigerator is empty, it means someone needs to make a trip to the grocery store, because there is nothing to eat. But when a person is empty, it means they don't have the things inside of them that can burn through every layer and every defense they've built up throughout their entire life; the acidic feelings of sadness, rage — and most of all? Guilt, for past actions, and because things are the way they are.
Emptiness, which so many ignorant children complain of, simply means nothing in comparison with those horrible things; I wish I would have known when I first met Hannah. It's not what kills people, or what makes some people chronically happy or sad. They need emotions for that. To kill a person, you need hate. Arrogance. Misunderstandings. Acids to eat away the layers that make us human.
You wouldn't really understand unless I told you everything. I'd have to explain my childhood, my hopes, and all the things which take too much time and energy away from what is important. You would need to understand how I was, at one time, an impressionable child, and that the people around me took every opportunity they had to etch into my brain what they thought was right and program into my mind their own agenda.
I need someone else to understand. Sometimes I can barely comprehend my own thoughts and my own conclusions, like how I got here by this sickening river. I just need someone to listen, and to understand. If I'm not too crazy for saying so, I am obligated to explain everything for that to happen. How else would an old man know what a little southern belle is feeling, so suddenly out of place in the northeast?
I used to love it here, even before I'd ever been. I chose to come here on my own, leaving my father and his Church behind because I saw for myself a larger purpose. When I was growing up, we didn't just post "NO BOYS" signs outside our tree houses; my friends and I posted "NO FUR" and "LET HORSES FREE" signs made of crayons and magic markers. We had a purpose other than avoiding cooties.
I watched commercials almost as avidly as I watched the TV shows my parents let me see on Saturday mornings, because I loved the world where people were always smiling, always having something nice to share with someone else, if only for four easy payments of nineteen-ninety-nine.
Later, when I noticed political campaign advertisements, I knew I wanted to be a part of that world, where the people were always smiling and they always had something nice to share with the rest of America, and maybe the rest of the world. I believed that they made a difference in those commercials, even if it only took thirty seconds.
I began watching the news more on the dining room's television set, and I saw the beautiful domed building that is the United States Capitol Building. They always showed pictures when the cherry trees were in full bloom, and that only made me more disillusioned about what went on the in Washington D.C. Not only did I envision this as the place where, somehow, I would find all of the answers to anything I ever needed to know, but I saw the beautiful veneer of it all. I reveled in the style and class of a place that seemed otherworldly to me — a place where my collection of teddy bears and the sandbox I loved playing in as a kid would never belong. Men and women walking around in suits all day, amid the joggers and tourists. It was nothing like the hallways of my small middle school, where sometimes, the black kids still had to drink out of a different fountain, just because they were afraid of walking through the white hallway.
Hate was still alive. It still is. We are shielded from it, because there are other things that we must worry about: our own sins. The transgressions we've made and how in God's name we are going to repent for them and repair the damage. We must worry about the people we've hurt, the flowers we were given which we let die. The people I fought against with every inch of my heart, only to change my mind.
I almost never changed my mind, especially when I was a child. My mother often smiled at me, telling me how I'd so easily inherited my grandfather's stubbornness and my grandmother's way of convincing people of my point of view. I learned the word "persuasion" through getting another cookie after dinner, or an extra hour of playtime outside when I was a kid. Sometimes, I even got Mama to come out and play with me, and once, when I was older, I convinced her to buy me a puppy; it came in a metal kennel with a big red bow on Christmas morning one year.
I loved that dog. He would greet me when I came home, and smile through his crooked teeth. At night, whether I was warm or cold, I liked him to be lying next to me. Once I didn't have that dog, I easily forgot how nice it was to be able to fall asleep with someone breathing next to you, and to sleep knowing that you'll wake up having that same, comforting life beside you. I forgot that feeling when I stopped living with the my parents, and the dog was no longer my roommate.
Instead, I came to live with my Aunt Mary in Maryland. She often joked that the state was named after her, but that was the only time she really joked. I can't understand anymore why it is so hard to find someone who can make you smile at any time of any day, whether there are bits of hail the size of tennis balls falling outside, or there is perfect snow outside on Christmas for the first time in your life.
Mary was my father's sister, and my main argument I bombarded my father with when I convinced him to let me go to school somewhere else. She was almost as religious as he was — shorted because she'd never wanted to be a priest — and so he trusted her to keep as strict of a leash on my behavior. We both made constant promises: Church at least twice a week. No staying up or going out past nine at night, weekday or weekend. There was absolutely no excuse for behaviorally disobeying an adult (I convinced Father to bend the rule on this, that I could disagree with beliefs from a teacher who thought something completely absurd, like that the freedom to own a gun should be banned, and the Second Amendment to the Constitution rewritten or deleted entirely). The largest restriction on me was that I had to go to high school in a local school for one year, before deciding that a different place would be better for me. My father believed that the farther away from home I was, the more likely I was to stray from the path he followed. His worst fear was that I would become rebellious.
My father won't need to see it now, this change that he feared; he won't hear my words of blasphemy. I will not allow it. It would break his heart, and I've done enough of that sort of thing. There's only one more person in this world who I can think to hurt in any way, and it certainly isn't my dear Father.
He'd regret the decision to send me here. If he hadn't let me come, or if Aunt Mary didn't exist, or if — a million other things, Hannah would still be alive. I would still be whole.
I would have been afraid to say this before, especially where my father could hear me, but had I known what fate would bring, I would have played God. I would have changed everything about the world and myself — everything from the color of my skin to the temperature in Antarctica and to the way that it's sometimes too easy to look into someone's soul through their eyes. I would have set politicians and businessmen straight. There would be no need to argue over abortion rights of violated girls, because there would be no man who would rape a woman allowed to walk the earth.
Do you believe in God? How could you believe in a God who fails to fix these things that even pitiful, narrow-minded creatures like myself can see are wrong?
Back then, there were so many things that I would have changed in the world. There still are, but now it would be pointless to make any of those changes. Hannah's gone. I killed her.
× × × × × × × × CHAPTER 2
Hannah was one of the most beautiful people in the world. I know now that she was the most beautiful person I have ever known. She wasn't even a strikingly beautiful girl on the outside, and I remember getting the impression that heads never turned because she was pretty. It was her personality which was beautiful. The way she saw the world made me want to be able to take my own eyes out and ask to borrow hers, so that maybe I could understand the questions that I'd had since I was small. She seemed to know the answers to all of them.
But, because of me, she didn't get to explain all these answers to any of us. I did a most unnatural and sinful thing, to take this opportunity away from someone who was meant to teach.
"You have to spin the reel like this." Hannah made a delicate movement with her thumb to accompany the first words she ever said to me. I watched out of the corner of my eye, but didn't yet see what she looked like.
"I can get it on my own."
I want you to know that the way Hannah spoke was beautiful, too. She had a splendid way of bringing up words at the right time, so that it seemed she was reading off a script. When I tell you what she said, you can't hear how wonderful it sounded in her voice, her phrases. Only when I relate my own words can I assure you how they went across.
"I can get it on my own," I snapped at her, frustrated that I was being beaten by a camera — an old one at that — and that I did not have nearly as much of a clue what I was doing in the Washington D.C. area as I told my Father I would have.
"But," she said — sweetly, this I know — "you're holding it upside down."
At this point I looked up at her, incredulous that someone would be telling me I was doing something wrong. I had always known what I was doing, and everyone around me knew it, too. I guess things changed from that moment on.
I didn't realize that at the time. Instead, I stared her down, taking in the aspects of her appearance, because I found that when I stare at someone, they are more likely to feel small and vulnerable — the same way as I was feeling, though I denied this to myself and to anyone who would dare mention it.
Hannah's appearance never changed much throughout the entire time I knew her, until that last day. She had short, lush hair that was subtly dyed a shade of auburn. It either hugged the line of her jaw and the side of her face, or was pulled back by clips and pins. She never wore very many other accessories save for a simple ring I noticed a few months after our first encounter in that photography class. She was a small girl who couldn't have been taller than my own eye level, but her presence was sometimes enough to fill up an entire room. Her hands were thin but strong, and the way she held herself showed that the rest of her person was the same. Had she tried, I know she could have been a model, but something about that life would have hurt her.
Mostly, I noticed her collarbone. I found this very strange and compelling, because I'd never before noticed a person's collarbone. I wondered why, this time, I wanted to take a brush and paint along the perfect line, getting lost in every detail. I decided quickly I had inhaled too many fumes from paints and cleaners in the room.
Hannah noticed that I was staring, and not at the bright brown eyes or the blatantly plain nose and she had.
"They'd be watching you, too, if it weren't for this shirt," she said, not entirely joking. When I figured out what she was talking about, I felt myself blush but knew my emotions had never shown very well on the outside. Only my mentality, and thoughts. It was easy to pick up a quick comeback off the fact that I'd noticed a twisted golden rope looped around her neck as some sort of necklace that I imagined a pirate girl might wear.
"You're going to choke yourself, wearing that," I told her, nodding at her neck and not her chest.
"There ain't no reason for me to go 'n choke right now," she said, suddenly trying to mimic my southern style of speech (and adding her own embellishments), "and so I ain't gonna." Smiling at me, Hannah dared to tug on one end of the rope until it constricted around her neck. I shiver when I think of it now, and how close she could have been to dying before I was able to meet her and get to know her.
After all, I don't think I would trade my life in exchange for never having known her, and never having gone through everything we did. I told you I would have changed things, but sometimes humans make empty promises. Sometimes we say one thing and mean another, making decisions entirely based on the moment. One moment I can say I wish this hadn't happened, and the next moment I can say I am glad she showed me how to properly load my film. It doesn't matter, in that moment, what came to be.
"Thanks," I mumbled to her after taking my first picture to test out the film's credibility — not that I knew what went on in the mechanics of a camera. I truly was in a different world.
In her normal voice, Hannah answered "Anytime, love." I cringed at how loud her voice seemed from my position. I had noticed people starting to stare in our direction, and some looked like they were whispering. That was the reason I never asked for help from anyone; once people see you aren't always a knight, you constantly become the damsel. It would damage my credibility if I were to always go around needing help.
In my arrogance, I didn't notice that they were whispering about us, not me.
Still, I avoided all contact with Hannah until the end of the class period, and started out of the room with the other hungry students as soon as lunch began. I stood in the lunch line for what seemed like a long time, itching that no one would offer to help me carry my tray, or find a suitable table for the new girl.
At any rate, I had a place to sit. My Aunt had a son, Benjamin, who was paid an extra ten dollars a week in allowance to help me out (as far as Aunt Mary was concerned), or to pretend he was helping (as far as I was concerned), which only meant that he and his friends gave me a place to sit during lunch. I cannot believe I can tell this to a stranger, but it was my worst fear that I would have no place to go. Understand that I was scared by inconsequential things, like spiders or rainstorms, or the bomb threats that always ended up being fake. Or, perhaps, people gossiping and saying little blasphemies about me.
Despite my own paranoia, when the others were talking badly about someone else, I didn't mind. I knew the good Lord would disapprove, but I sent him small prayers for both thanks and forgiveness whenever I remembered to. This is what I had been taught to do, without thinking, and doing so made me feel better. Less guilty.
But any guilt that can be so easily cast away isn't really guilt, is it?
Word spread quickly for a school the size that it was, and cousin Benny's friends had already magically heard that I had gotten help in Photography class. They weren't interested in me. They wanted to talk about Hannah.
"You were sitting next to her?" asked Phoebe, the girl who sometimes sat a bit too close to Benjamin. "Don't catch some nasty disease!"
"Yeah, girl, you need to watch who you hang with." I didn't remember everyone's names at the time, but soon this, like many other things, wouldn't matter. "Haven't you heard about that girl you were talking to? Hannah?"
"I have been here for three days and no one has offered to educate me," I answered, although class wise I had already learned. It was interesting to me that someone would write a book called "Steal This Book," and that it would come up as class material in a kid's project for history class. I love the possibilities included in it, of convincing someone through a title that something should be done.
"Well, you must hear this one," continued the same girl through bites of the chips she was eating. "Last year, she got herself pregnant — the slut. I don't know who would want to do the dance with her, but anyway, she was pretty visibly pregnant when one day someone set off the alarm in one of the locker rooms. I mean, what else were they going to do? She was in there, all the tiles under the shower full of her blood—"
"Did you see it?" I interrupted, as a part of my pointless quest toward the truth of every matter, and my childish urge to know the most I could about the gossip story.
"No, but I heard about it," she said irritably. "Now let me talk! She was trying to give herself an abortion, there in the freaking locker room freaking showers! Talk about gross! If you ever need to shower, use the west wing...anyway, she disappeared for a while after that, and when she came back she was her before size, and so no one knows what happened to the baby."
"Fetus!" a few of the guys at the end of the table said loudly, which ended the rumor telling of the day. The girl who had been explaining things to me turned around to tell them off, in an absurdly eyelash fluttering way.
I paid barely any attention to this. Always more attracted to the prospect of knowledge and change, I didn't notice nor need the dynamic between boys and girls that was all too common in middle and high school.
Instead, I thought over what I had heard. I automatically judged Hannah to be a weak girl, nothing like what her voice and her stance suggested. What could be so wrong that she would need to turn to having a child out of wedlock to make it better? Did she need herself to feel loved? Whether or not she did, I knew that there was nothing worth going against what the good Lord asked us to do through His word in the Bible. There were other ways to feel loved. I simply didn't need them, because I believed I would go on to make necessary changes to the world. Having someone to keep as my own would only slow me down. For this reason I knew, at the time, that I was a better person than she would ever be.
But every time I think of this, I can only hate myself more.
That day when I heard those things about her, I only had hate for Hannah. Could she not stop at going against the Lord's guidance once? She had tried to kill her own child — I could think of no monster greater than a woman who would attempt such a thing. There were absolutely no excuses which would make it acceptable to commit such transgressions. "Thou shall not kill" was possibly the clearest of anything the Lord asked.
In Photography class the next day, I thought I would simply move seats to avoid sitting next to a murderer. There were none available to switch to. Instead, I did what I would doubtlessly have learned to do if I would have continued on to become a real politician — I ignored her, the girl who needed my help the most.
These days I've come to think that maybe she was reading off a script, slipping me cues at what I was supposed to do to let the act continue. Otherwise, she couldn't have known how to get to me, and I wouldn't have been drawn back to that captivated state that I'd felt, but couldn't understand — like when I'd let myself get lost in that sinfully inspirational collarbone.
× × × × × × × × CHAPTER 3
I knew I couldn't avoid her forever. It's ironic how a small part of me thought — hoped, even — that I could, because now she's the only thing I want to think of.
It was photography class again. I had even considered dropping out, my disdain and dread for having to see her being so great. But Father's standards for my newly relocated education couldn't be met in such ways, and so I stayed.
A few days after our first meeting, Hannah came out of the darkroom holding newly developed prints. I was looking over mine, wallowing in how badly they had turned out, though it mattered about as much as a lonesome twig told to work as a dam in the river. Maybe, I thought, they had turned out bad because I dropped the film — on purpose — when I saw that the first picture happened to be of Hannah.
"Hi there," she said, sitting next to me as always. "I know it's been a few days, and we never got to meet. Formally, that is." She held out a hand like she wanted to create a ridiculously complicated handshake on the spot.
I said nothing. I stared at a photo. It looked to be of Aunt Mary in her kitchen, but I'll bet I was looking at it upside down. Then, I didn't try rotating it to all its angles to discover the truth. Instead, I sat almost motionless as Hannah bombarded me with words, none of which I listened to.
"Look," I said finally, turning to her. She still held out her hand in foolish persistence. "I already know who you are, and if you think that the new girl hasn't heard about what you are, then...well, then I couldn't possibly hate you any more." My heart was beating in my ears, reminding me to keep my voice down. I was already attracting as many stares as the other day. This time, I met them. All of them.
"But, what is your name?"
The question didn't match up with what I'd known would happen, and I stopped. I had to break a gaze to turn back to her — something I'd never do. She looked too earnest for my liking. Apart from what she said, what she did failed to match up with the image of a monster I'd already stamped upon her.
"My name?" I was more hysterical than before; a laugh even escaped my lips, I believe, as I told her.
Later that day, I regretted it. I figured that maybe she planned to save me a seat next to her in Hell, so that it could be photography class all over again. I prayed many extra times that day, asking for a way to deal with this girl. Through all my waking hours of the night I contemplated. Through part of it, I waited for a sign, watching the sky.
When I woke up, the answer came to me. It was like magic, but it was God — that's what I loved about the belief I held. It made miracles possible.
Without that, I wouldn't have been able to push some of my hate aside and talk to Hannah on my own time. It was photography class again, and we were on a lame field trip through the school's grounds to take photos. The student who took the most original photo would receive an A, and the rest would get C's. There was no other point.
Once the class had blown apart into different corners of the yard, I trapped Hannah in conversation by the dumpsters.
"Hannah," I said, proving for the first time I knew her name, "do you believe in God?"
"Do you believe in her?" she asked me, eyes squinted through a camera lens.
"Her?"
"Your God can't be a woman, can she?"
"Well, I..." I stuttered. "There's a way that you can be saved, you know."
Hannah turned on me, but was still looking through the camera lens. She clicked a picture and smiled. "Your God can't be a woman," she restated, without the uncertainty. "Hold your camera up more," she commanded, as if we were working together. I complied so that she would listen to me, but she was the one who kept talking. "If it were so, 'She' would do what a good mother does. She'd feed and clothe her children — no, don't hold it that high — break up their fights. She would protect them from everything."
She put her camera down and turned abruptly.
"We are all protected by a promise," I explained, "because if we—"
Hannah was climbing into the dumpster, which somehow left me speechless. I watched as she dug around until she found an almost actual size poster of some famous athlete with a milk mustache, and held it up next to her. She posed as if she were meeting the guy.
"Take a picture of this!" she commanded, smiling. Again, I obliged. The click of the camera helped me regain my senses, my mission.
"Because if we follow His word in life, we will be protected from death."
"What do you mean?" She started out of the dumpster, but something caught her eye. I couldn't be sure that she was hearing me, and so I spoke louder.
"God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son," I quoted, "that whoever believed in him shall never die—"
"But have eternal life?" she ended. "I sang the John 3:16 song in Sunday School, too." Now, she picked herself out of the trash. "Why would you want to live forever, love? Do you have someone you're living for?"
I hated how she kept turning the conversation away from where I was trying to point it. "We all live our lives for God," I answered.
"Sounds like servant hood to me," she said, and my jaw dropped. No one should speak of Him that way, as far as I was concerned.
"Look, Hannah. If you had the nerve to get yourself pregnant, and then try and kill the child, you've got no other choice but to live a life of servitude. There's no other way you can be saved by—"
"Do you want to meet him?" she asked.
"If I am lucky and deserving, I will meet Him in my own time."
"That's not who I meant," she said, but offered no further explanation. At this point I realized I would need to do more convincing. I continued talking until my voice began to break, and then some more. I gave her no more chances to interrupt.
The next day, when we developed our photos and showed them to the class, I got an A for the picture I'd taken of Hannah, at her direction. I used this to my advantage, telling Hannah that if she would come to Church with me on Sunday, I'd convince the instructor to give her top credit for the work as well. It was only Thursday; she had a day to decide and let me know. She never answered, and I pretended to forget. That time.
I continued on my self-approved mission through the lunch hour. I never noticed when I sat with Benjamin and his friends that there was a small section on the side of the lunch area where columns made it difficult to fit full sized tables. There were desks and small, coffee table sized places to eat upon instead. Hannah usually sat at one, alone, until I continued my own Inquisition.
I thought I knew people, as a species, at the time, and so I agreed to deals to keep her interest in what I had to say. I had so many things to convince her with, but I promised to only talk for half our lunch hour each day of why Hannah should find God. In the other half, Hannah got to ask the questions.
Soon, I was talking less about Hannah finding God, and more about Hannah. She never seemed to tire of listening to me, if only so that she could ask me questions that I would answer truthfully.
I had to tell her about my first memories as children. She reciprocated, and soon we were comparing stories we've heard from the adults who saw them firsthand. We tried to impress each other with facts we'd learned, or famous people who had come from the areas we grew up in. We argued about the benefits and drawbacks of the classes we were taking — all different, save for photography, to which these conversations soon extended.
I almost always remembered at one point how much I hated her, and why. But when I thought of the progress I must have made because I wouldn't fail to make an impact, I would decide to lighten up a bit and enjoy being a teenage girl. After all, I was in Maryland. It wasn't Washington, but it was much closer than being down South.
Benjamin sometimes asked me if I was skipping school, because he hardly saw me anymore during the day. The first time I told him what I had been doing — religious influencing and everything, because I knew he would understand — his eyebrows raised. The next day, I was confronted by Alyssa, the girl who liked to eat only a bag of chips for lunch, and who had told me about Hannah in the first place.
She stood behind me in the lunch line. "What have you been doing?" she asked, shrill and fast. I had forgotten the style and lingo of average teenagers who were not Hannah. At the time I didn't pin that as the reason, but Alyssa's voice grated my nerves extra thin.
"You didn't forget what I told you about her, did you? I mean, if you could forget such a horrible, disgusting thing. I think that you'd better get away from her, and come back by us — besides, there's this new guy that's been sitting there, and he looks just your type..."
"If there's someone new sitting there," I pointed out, "there won't be room for me."
"We could make room for you!" she claimed.
I took it as a challenge, but when I reached my old table it felt too large and unfamiliar. Alyssa parked herself in a seat without a second thought about me, and I stood uselessly. The only person I received greeting from was Benny.
Until Hannah stepped into the scene. I began to wonder if she was stalking me.
"Would you like to go eat?" she asked me. "Hello, everyone!"
Despite her greeting, she received none; only whispers lined the road where she entered.
"Don't do it," I heard. "Sit here," "Eat with us!" and "That's your cousin? You two don't look related at all. Ha!" They were all voices I didn't recognize.
"I think I'm going to go have lunch with Hannah today," I answered, smiling diplomatically. I was practicing, really, for when I would be on television. You had to know how to smile down at a lot of people containing only a small percent of those you knew.
Alyssa grabbed my wrist. "You don't want to sit with a child murderer and a whore," she said.
I felt the air die somehow. Hannah had been holding up energy in the area, but with that comment she lost that focus that helped her fill a room. "I'm going to sit down," she said, turning and walking away.
"Not here, thank God," said Phoebe.
"You should thank God for a lot of things," I pointed out, nodding. At this time Alyssa loosened her hold on me. I also turned and walked away, following the path of whispers Hannah had laid.
When I sat down, capable only of smelling the food I'd gotten, I knew there was no way I could use my time to ask about God, and talk about His grace. The words would be better saved for tomorrow. Instead, I asked her, "Which hurt worse? Child murderer, or..." I couldn't even bring myself to say the word. At the time I refused to swear, for the Lord.
Hannah looked up at me before I could notice she was looking down. There were small, wet glitters in her eyes that made me think of chocolate milk. We had once had a conversation about it — was it chocolate? Was it milk? It was neither, really, but an entirely new thing you could only create by mixing two things as unique.
"I didn't kill him," she said, and her tears welled up. "All the blood..." She blinked more times in the next minute than a strobe light, and I wondered if it was to forget a sight or get rid of the tears. I could tell it did both. "It was from a miscarriage."
I prayed more that night than I'd ever prayed in my entire life — even more than some entire weeks. I begged for forgiveness for my hate of her, which had mostly stemmed from a lie. I asked that I could still hold it against her that she had become pregnant in the first place, but not nearly as much as I prayed for my own sake. I also prayed for her sake, but it was new to me, and challenging. I could only come up with one thing to ask the Lord.
Please, let someone, whom she loves, love her back.
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