So here's the story I wrote for class, by request. I'm a little self-conscious about it because I only had 25 minutes to write it, so don't mock it (or me). The first part is the prompt from the teacher, and then the rest is my part. The line of hyphens marks the change. Without further ado...
The Boyfriend
The last time Kayla saw Doug Marshall he was in his casket, so she was surprised to see her one-time boyfriend strolling across the campus and holding hands with a girl Kayla vaguely recognized as another student in her history class. Tall, tanned, and a little more buffed out than she remembered him, Doug looked anything but dead, but she was sure it was Doug. Kayla even followed the pair until they disappeared into the parking lot to make sure. All the while her heart was beating at a frightening pace and she was sweating as if she had just finished a 10k run. Now she wondered if she were losing her mind. She had been at Doug’s funeral almost a year ago, hugged and tried futilely to console his grieving parents (Doug was an only child), cringed at the overly sentimental obituary in the newspaper, and sadly eliminated his name and address from her telephone book.
Their dating had a brief but memorable episode in Kayla’s busy social life. At first she had found him sexy and charming, then simply strange. His death had been bizarre as well—as had the funeral. She remembered both events vividly now as she contemplated just how she would verify her conviction that Doug was alive, and apparently doing quite well.
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She was the only one who had seen him die. She had watched the bullets—two of them—as they passed out of the gun smoke and into the night air, seemingly in slow motion, before meeting Doug’s stomach and chest. After that, time compensated by moving more quickly than ever before. She was crying, but she could not go to him. She remained rooted to her spot as Doug laid dying, the air still smelling faintly of .45 smoke and the coldness required to take someone’s life without reason.
It was horrifying, scarring.
The funeral was probably standard fare, but Kayla couldn’t tell. Her grandparents were in great health, and never before had she lost someone close to her. Its light-heartedness was unsettling. Family members laughed as they told stories of Doug’s childhood. His friends remembered and spoke proudly of his accomplishments. But Kayla was alone. She hadn’t known his friends well, that was true, and her own family had passed on the opportunity to attend the funeral, but the emptiness she felt was not the lack of people around her. It was the horrible realization that she had changed; that a part of her was missing.
And the feeling wasn’t new. She’d seen Doug several times since then, really, but not in the way she’d just seen him crossing campus. She’d seen him in her dreams. She’d seen him in the picture she kept framed on her desk, and in the tattered photo of him at 8 years old that she kept in her wallet. She’d seen him in the old notes he’d written her. She’d seen him in the restaurants they’d liked, the places they’d been, and in the night when she felt the most alone. But none of those were like this.
Nor could she tell anyone about what she’d seen. Her parents were already worried about her. She’d tried to talk to her friends about it, but it clearly made them uncomfortable. They were never rude to her, and they still said hello if she would say it first, but the relationship was different. In desperation, she’d made a foolish attempt to talk things over with the counselor at school. The counselor provided counsel, yes, but not good counsel. He’d told Kayla to get help. Professional help. The kind of help intended for crazy people and people who blamed things on their childhood and people who washed their hands over and over and over again until they bled. She was better off alone. She could handle it by herself.
Perhaps it had been another dream today, at school. Now that time had passed, she was skeptical about why she’d panicked like she had. It was going to be okay. She was in control.
No, she wasn’t. Nor was it going to be okay. The memories flooded back and spilled onto her pillowcase in big wet drops. She needed him back. She wasn’t going to make it without him. And that night, alone in the quiet darkness of her bedroom, she couldn’t even remember why she’d shot him.
Every year, my family has a chocolate tasting. We get lots of different dark chocolates, from all different countries, and determine a winner through a thoroughly scientific process. The purpose is twofold: (1) To eat a lot of chocolate, and (2) to determine the Greatest Nation in the World. Last year's winner? Russia.
