Page 15 of Poison Aches

I destroyed my mother…because I’m worthless.

I want to see what the girl does with that reality in her face.

She’ll probably deny it, just like everybody else.

The girl suddenly looks up, her face contorted with pain and helplessness.

“I…I didn’t mean to!”

I stare at her, feeling dumbfounded.

She doesn’t even deny it.

I’ve never met anyone like this girl who easily owns up to her screwups.

“You have to believe me! I really didn’t mean to!” The girl cries. “I saw the letter, asking about me! I saw the return address, so I took a chance to go try to find my mother. I took the bus by myself, and it dropped me off as close to the address as possible, but then I ended up getting lost.”

You can almost see her pain of regret clearly within the wells of tears in her large eyes.

“It was a very bad neighborhood, and then I ran into a group of teenagers. They took all my pocket money and my food, and they ran away. Then a dog chased me. I fell down on the rough road littered with bits of broken glass and cut myself. By the time an elderly post office worker found me, I was bleeding, hungry, and crying out for my grandparents.”

I listen silently, already knowing where this is going.

“The kind lady called Gramps…who was already at the police station after he and my brother combed the entire town looking for me. By the time he came for me, it was dark, snowing, and then on our way back…”

This time, when the sobs come crashing through, her tiny body can’t stand it.

She really huddles down onto the snow-covered ground and crouches into a small ball, her stomach caving in on itself as she cries.

“It was all my fault!”

At this point, her voice is beyond hoarse.

Her entire body is now trembling. Soon, she’ll be an icicle and there won’t be any need to jump.

Without thinking, I take off my coat and drape it around her shoulders.

She immediately looks like a dwarf, swallowed by my coat.

For my age, I’m a big boy, but by the time I realize what I just did, she’s not the only one that freezes. I do too.

Why did I do that?

“So?” I mutter gruffly.

“Huh?”

“So are you going to jump or not?” I snap. The girl raises her head to look at me, so I crouch down to meet her at eye level. “Ifyou want to atone, then do it. Why are you here being a sobbing coward?”

The girl’s face distorts in pain and some fire ignites in her eyes.

“You don’t care at all about life, do you?” she retorts back. Then her eyes widen like saucers as if she just figured something out. “Wait, is that why you’re here too? To die?”

I almost laugh at that.

“Why are you smirking?”

I look at her. Really look at her.

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