Pandora
Too easy. How about a rib? Make it extra biblical.
I laugh again, despite the ache on my chest, despite how I don’t think she’s joking. She really would take a rib if she could get away with it.
I keep chatting with her, and we send more and more outrageous suggestions to each other.
I’m supposed to hate her.
I’m supposed to destroy her.
But all I want to do is have fun with her.
3
RIVER
I don’t know where to look.
If I look straight ahead, I’ll see Franklin’s mother talking about her son with tears in her eyes. If I look next to her, I’ll see his father, completely somber. On the dais is the photo of Franklin, smiling brightly. Around me in the room are other people who are every bit as emotional as his parents.
While my eyes wander and I try not to think about Franklin, I spot his girlfriend Sandra near the front. She’s in a long-sleeved black dress, and her head is bowed.
I wonder how she’d heard about his death. Had she thought Franklin wasthe one? Did we steal the love of her life away?
Asch and Blaze are somewhere behind me. I don’t know if they even cared about Franklin, but Blaze had driven us all here to the memorial service.
If I’m honest, I don’t know if I could have managed to drive myself safely.
I’ve thought about that night over and over, replaying it in my mind. Each time, he gets through it safely. We have an epi-pen on hand. We get him to the hospital quickly enough.
He never succumbs to the fucking peer pressure to begin with.
But it always comes back to the truth.
Brock and Tate got off lightly from this.
One ruined hand, one ruined life — at least they’re still alive.
Franklin, who was arguably the best of us, isn’t.
His mother finishes speaking, and I look at her just in time to see her eyes on me. I know she hates us, all of Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma, and I can’t say she’s wrong to blame us for what happened.
I’m just grateful she didn’t stop us coming from this memorial service, where I can at least say goodbye.
When Franklin’s mother finishes speaking, Sandra goes up to the front of the room. She clutches a paper tightly in her hands, and her mascara is faintly smeared around her eyes.
“Hi, everybody,” Sandra says in a shaky voice. “I’m not a great speaker. I didn’t know Franklin for that long. I wasn’t sure if I had the right to say anything.” She pauses and inhales loudly.
Franklin’s mother squeezes Sandra’s shoulder.
Sandra wipes her eye, then continues. “Franklin was really sweet. In a world where everybody takes what they want, where they demand everybody bend over backward for them, Franklin was just so… kind. He was so excited to see me every day, and he made me feel so special. Like maybe the world wasn’t dark and rotten.” She lets out a nervous laugh. “Is that cynical of me? Franklin made me rethink my world view. I’m going to honor him by being more… more positive. By sharing the kindness that he always shared.”
Her words make my heart clench.
I wish I could say that having him in my life, however briefly, would motivate me to see the world in a better light or that I would be as kind as he had been.
But the opposite is true.
