[Original: Drabble] "Meet the Parents" [Zeke Jones, G]
Title: Meet the Parents
Prompt: writerverse challenge #20 day of the dead (write about remembering loved ones)
Word Count: 316
Rating: G
Fandom or Original: original ( Zeke Jones ‘verse)
Summary: “It was an accident.”
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
Meet the Parents
“If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen,” said Howell.
He stood beside me at the foot of my parents’ graves, sturdy and solid and just what I needed.
“It was an accident,” I said. “It’s not like I witnessed their murder and became a cop to avenge their deaths. That’s Batman, in case you didn’t know.”
“I do know some of your pop culture references.”
I sighed. “It was the summer after I graduated high school. They’d gone for a drive… an oncoming car lost its brakes, crossed the center line and hit them. The crash killed both of my parents, and three people in the other car, two cousins only a few years older than me, and a friend of theirs. Their grandma still sends me a Christmas card every year.”
“An accident,” Howell repeated, and I nodded.
“Yeah. No one was at fault. The cousins’ car was old, but they’d had it inspected only a couple months before. The road was in good repair… an accident. I inherited our apartment, and their life insurance, plus the partial scholarship I’d gotten, put me through college. Even with my… new condition, sophomore year.”
I knew he would know I meant my Bite, when I became a vampire. That story, I’d told my partner already. We stood in silence for a long time, the waning gibbous moon sliding in and out behind the clouds.
“My father died when he was seventy-three,” Howell said. “My mother was eighty-two. And I still miss them just as much as I did the days they died. I wish I could tell you that it stops hurting… but really, you just learn to live with the pain, and remember more good times than bad.”
I nodded again, and moved a step closer, Howell’s arm radiating heat against my shoulder. “Someday, will you take me to meet them?”
“Someday,” he agreed.
THE END
Current Mood:
blah
Prompt: writerverse challenge #20 day of the dead (write about remembering loved ones)
Word Count: 316
Rating: G
Fandom or Original: original ( Zeke Jones ‘verse)
Summary: “It was an accident.”
Note(s): originally posted to the writerverse wv_library
Meet the Parents
“If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen,” said Howell.
He stood beside me at the foot of my parents’ graves, sturdy and solid and just what I needed.
“It was an accident,” I said. “It’s not like I witnessed their murder and became a cop to avenge their deaths. That’s Batman, in case you didn’t know.”
“I do know some of your pop culture references.”
I sighed. “It was the summer after I graduated high school. They’d gone for a drive… an oncoming car lost its brakes, crossed the center line and hit them. The crash killed both of my parents, and three people in the other car, two cousins only a few years older than me, and a friend of theirs. Their grandma still sends me a Christmas card every year.”
“An accident,” Howell repeated, and I nodded.
“Yeah. No one was at fault. The cousins’ car was old, but they’d had it inspected only a couple months before. The road was in good repair… an accident. I inherited our apartment, and their life insurance, plus the partial scholarship I’d gotten, put me through college. Even with my… new condition, sophomore year.”
I knew he would know I meant my Bite, when I became a vampire. That story, I’d told my partner already. We stood in silence for a long time, the waning gibbous moon sliding in and out behind the clouds.
“My father died when he was seventy-three,” Howell said. “My mother was eighty-two. And I still miss them just as much as I did the days they died. I wish I could tell you that it stops hurting… but really, you just learn to live with the pain, and remember more good times than bad.”
I nodded again, and moved a step closer, Howell’s arm radiating heat against my shoulder. “Someday, will you take me to meet them?”
“Someday,” he agreed.
THE END
Current Mood:
blah