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Him
sworn off ever placing my pure feet on the cold black. How dare
he ruin my game! I swear my face must have turned red at that
moment as I could feel the heat flaming through my cheeks,
radiating from me.
That’s when
he
reappeared on the black tile to my right.
He
told
me to pick up the rock on the side street and to bash the boy’s head
as the pathetic boy had defied me. I did just that.
And then I ran. The groceries that grandma needed long
forgotten.
The boy died.
I later found out he lived in my street.
He went to my school.
He was my age.
He
did not deserve death.
I keep thinking back to that day. It wasn’t my fault.
He
made me
do it.
He’s
the monster.
Grandma was right—I am just like my mother. Drugs became
my best friend. They would rid me of my guilt, my fear, but they
couldn’t get rid of the most important thing. They couldn’t get rid
of
him
and
he
kept coming back. The tile game that had started as
some simple childish fun had metamorphosed into a dark,
clandestine secret that only evoked images of
him
.
Three. Three more innocent people later died. Only one died
because of me.
Death one was Grandma. She figured out that Marge-from-
Bingo’s nephew, the pudgy-faced boy, was murdered by me. As she
had connections with the local town police Chief in Command,
Bruce, she was able to bribe him to keep my story hidden. A
shameful skeleton in the closet. Her heart was already in a frail
condition and my betrayal led to her death just fifteen days after the
event. Deaths two and three happened after others overdosed on
some drugs that I had edged them to try. Deaths two and three
were
his
fault.
He
told me to sell them heroin.
He
told me to force
them to guzzle down vodka while taking it.
He
told me.
Present
I told her everything.
She turned the tape recorder off. She played back everything I
said as I awkwardly shifted in my seat and, if that wasn’t torturous
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