No You Didn't

Eight: Shortcake

It had been so long since I'd relived the details of those memories. They had been at my heels for years, but I'd always been able to outrun them until now.

After I'd finished, I sat in my chair, shaking hands wrapped tightly around my coffee mug that had long gone cold.

It still seemed strange that none of it was a mere nightmare. Even now, I could convince myself that one day I would wake up and it would all go away.

At least I hadn't shed a tear as I told the story. I refused to. Not in front of the likes of Eddie, anyway.

He'd been silent the whole time I spoke, his mouth set in a businesslike frown as he wrote down everything I said as if hearing it all for the first time.

Hearing it as if he hadn't lived it the same way I had.

I stared at him now, a perfect stranger, as he finished the last of his document.

You were there! I wanted to scream. Don't you remember?!

But by looking at him, I couldn't even begin to tell what he was thinking. Did he recall that Sunday as clearly as I did? He had stood there in that doorway as we watched my nieces and nephews die.

After church that day, I'd had been too stunned to cry, too busy trying to help Mama stand upright and trying to make sense of what was going on.

I'd snuck out that night to meet Eddie in the woods. I couldn't stay in the house any longer listening to Mama's wails downstairs.

Eddie's old Chevy sat in its usual spot in a clearing surrounded by pine trees.

I'd climbed into the passenger seat and neither of us spoke until I let out a sob that seemed to come from the depths of my soul.

Eddie had cried, too. We both did. W'd understood each other back then.

Now, Eddie glanced up to meet my gaze, his face void of any emotions at all.

He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Viv. I know that must have been hard."

I didn't reply. A sterile remark hardly called for an impassioned answer.

"Now, concerning the trial..." he prompted, turning the page of his legal pad and poising his pen to write.

I stood up, my chair raking back with a squeal. "I think I need a break."

Eddie nodded and set the notes aside. "Of course. Whenever you're ready."

I shot him a look of disgust. Who did he think he was, treating me like a victim while he acted like some sort of therapist?

"I don't need a break from the story," I said. "I need a break from you."

Eddie let out a short laugh. "Come on, Viv."

I tried to ignore him by going into the kitchen, but then I turned around and said, "Why are you being like this, Eddie?"

Eddie also stood up and spread his hands apart. "Why am I being like this? What do you want from me? I tried to be your friend when I first got here, I tried to apologize. Then I agreed to let you be in charge of this story, even though it was my idea and I'll be the one writing it and publishing it. Now I'm trying to be as non-threatening as possible, giving you space to tell the story without my interference, and you still hate me for it."

"I just can't believe you left for New York and came back a heartless newspaper writer who has ink instead of blood, profit instead of memories, and stone instead of a heart."