Future Portraits of the Unhappy Dead | Part 3
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For an ad-free listening experience, visit patreon.com/drnosleep. Sign up for a 7-day free trial and gain access to all my stories, including over 80 bonus episodes completely ad-free. That's patreon.com/drnosleep. Now let's dive into the story. I jerked back into the shadows and bumped something. A vacuum or a broom. I couldn't tell. As he unleashed a torrent of garbled mush,

moaning until Etta rushed back into the room with a fresh diaper in hand. "Good lord, what is it now? What's the matter with you?" "MOMON!" With great effort, he raised a trembling hand, extended a gnarled finger, and leveled it at the closet. Sweat bubbled off my neck and slid down my back. My knees felt like they would hinge and give out.

but I didn't move. I didn't make a fucking sound. I just prayed that I'd retreated deep enough into the dark she couldn't see me too. "Done!" Etta stood and took a step toward the closet, her hand rising to open it, before the sound of liquid hitting the carpet stopped her. The smell of ammonia filled the room, the coppery tang of urine

A snarl bled across Etta's face, and she twisted back around to stare at James, who was once again pissing himself, his thighs gleaming yellow as a puddle formed beneath his waist. "No!" Etta said, marching toward him with quick, purposeful strides. "No, no, no, no!" She looked like a force of nature, the way she moved, stopping a foot from James to stare at his now sopping wet legs and darkened socks.

Her head rotated back and forth in rapid, quarter-inch turns, like if she shook it fast enough, she could make the piss disappear. James no longer looked my way, but instead stared at Etta with eyes that had turned a fearful, glassy pink. His lips wobbled, wet with spit, but no sound came out except for a pitiful moan. Etta retrieved the diaper from the couch and balled it hard between her fingers.

"How dare you do this to me, Jim? How dare you?" Then she jammed it into his mouth. She leaned in and brought her face so close to his. All I could see of him was his liver-spotted scalp shaking as he fought for air. "Air," I registered coolly. That Etta was determined not to let him have. Time slowed. The next few moments unfurled in front of me like some terrible flower in bloom.

I knew what would happen with Etta pressing down. Jamming the diaper deeper into his throat, James would seize and convulse in his wheelchair, his lungs desperate for air that would never come. I saw Etta after, looking down on him with her hands on her waist, tsk-tsking his corpse, telling him how unfortunate it all was and how it didn't need to happen. "You forced me to do this, Jim. You know you left me no choice."

And after that, how she'd clean everything up, how she'd arrange his body just so. Chin slumped onto his chest, legs clothed in a fresh pair of slacks, before the paramedics arrived. Etta would dab her eyes in fake concern as she spoke about how he simply stopped breathing. An EMT would hug her and assure her it wasn't her fault, that this kind of thing happened all the time.

and James. Poor dead James, with his cul-de-sac of gray hair, would sit there lifeless, just another tragedy sacrificed to old age. That was if I didn't do something to stop it. I made the decision. Etta didn't turn as I slid the door open. She was so intent on smothering the life from the man, nor did she hear the first few steps of my approach.

It wasn't until I was a few feet away that she registered my presence and glanced back, her brow lifting slightly in acknowledgement, like we were old acquaintances passing each other on the street. "You!" she spat, the word hurling through the air like an expletive.

I moved for her then. I grabbed her wrist as she swung it to slap me. I snatched the other wrist mid-air when it tried to do the same. Then I forced her back, away from James, who pulled the diaper from his mouth with a wet rush of air and a lung-rattling cough. I thrusted her toward the couch as she screeched, "Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!"

We fell together. Etta slamming onto the cushions first, me landing on top of her next. If I were forced to guess, I'd have to put her somewhere in her late 60s or early 70s. But she fought like someone 20 years younger as she hissed and spit, kicked and scratched, trying to break free to… what? Call the cops? Accuse me of theft? Or assault? Rape even? Pretend I was the one trying to murder James instead of her?

A lie the authorities would buy hook, line, and sinker if I let it happen. Which I wouldn't. For James' sake and mine. So, I did what any red-blooded, overweight, asthmatic intruder would in my situation. I smothered her. I grabbed a decorative pillow, pressed it over her black cave of a mouth, and pushed down with all my might. Her cries turned from rage to fear as her muffled voice pitched higher toward that of a scream.

The sound sapped the strength from my arms. I could barely see the litter of kittens embroidered on the pillow from my tears. A wave of revulsion ran through me, as thick as motor oil, and I nearly pulled the pillow from her face to apologize and help her back to her feet. And I would have if it weren't for James, who stared at me with a firm expression. When he nodded, I knew it was in answer to the question I wanted to ask. Should I? Yes, his nod said.

Absolutely. I doubled my effort, the tears coming harder now, pattering off the backside of the pillow. "I'm sorry," I whispered to Etta as her limbs kicked and flopped and then, with a final pathetic tremor, stopped moving altogether. And that's when her phone rang. I didn't mean to look at the screen. I wouldn't have if Etta's phone hadn't fallen from her pocket during our tussle. But it had, and I did.

and what I saw sucked all the air from my lungs. I screwed my eyes shut, then opened them, telling myself it was a dream, that I wasn't seeing this, but I was. Avery. My Avery. Staring right back at me in the form of a screenshot, only younger, and with a light spattering of freckles over her nose. I reached for the phone instinctively, my fingers trembling, so thick with paralysis it felt like frostbite.

"Don't you do it," I told myself. "Don't you answer, RJ." The screen went black. It rang again. I answered. Avery said. Bulbs flashed and shattered. Missing pieces snapped together in my mind. I suddenly knew why Etta seemed so familiar, and looked so familiar, like I'd seen her before. Because I had. Decades earlier, in the newspaper, mourning the loss of her husband.

And at work, little glimpses of her buried in Avery's features. The same nose, those same wide eyes. The way they both talked in clipped sentences at times. Like they had more to say when they didn't. Jesus, how had I missed it? I just sat there with the phone plastered to my ear, my tongue dry, unable to move, to think. "Are you there? I can hear you breathing." Avery's voice trembled and cracked. "I need your help."

Something awful's happened. It's Eric. He found out about, oh God, he... Oh God, he did. James said behind me. Who is that? Who's there? Avery replied. I hung up. James grunted and doubled over while trying to reach the waistband of his slacks. A string of drool clung to his lips and wobbled like egg white.

I stood and helped him hoist up his slacks, lifting him so he could get them over his waist, and then grabbed a quilt from the couch and spread it over his still soaking lap. "I'm sorry," I said, staring at him. This poor man who deserved none of this. "Can I get you anything?" He cocked his head toward a side table, at the plastic bottle there, half full of water.

I brought it to his mouth, and he drank from the straw for a full minute before relaxing his lips, spitting the straw free with a stale puff of air. "Thank you," he said. "No problem." I glanced down at my watch. 7:35, another two and a half hours before his daughter returned home. It wouldn't do.

"Listen," I said, waving my hand at Eda's corpse. "I knew she was treating you poorly. I can't explain how I knew, but I did. Which is why I was here in the first place. I just wanted to install a few cameras and leave. Get some proof for the cops." His eyebrows notched higher in a look of sympathy. Or concern. I couldn't tell which. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen," I continued. "I was never going to hurt you."

A nod this time, his eyes telling me everything I needed to know. He believed me. "Okay, so here's what's going to happen. I'm going to text your daughter from Mrs. Dunphy's phone there and tell her I'm not feeling well and that she should come home. Then, when she does, you simply tell her in the best way you can she had a heart attack. Think you can do that for me?" Another nod, something like fire in his gaze now.

Whatever this man was in his past life, before age took its toll, it wasn't a coward. I retrieved Etta's phone from the floor and thumbed her contacts, swiped twice, found Nicole's name, and hammered out the text. Pressed send. It wouldn't take her long to get here, 14 minutes and 32 seconds to be precise. I knew because I'd timed her from the bar. 20 if she stopped for cigarettes, which she wouldn't, not tonight.

I was about to set the phone down, about to pull the pillow off Etta's face and arrange her in full heart attack posture, when the screen blipped to life with a text from Avery. My blood thickened. I told myself to put the phone down, that there wasn't time for this, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I had to know what it said. My finger tapped the screen, and the message flashed to life. "Mom! Help!"

Three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen to let me know another message was on the way. A picture this time, one that, for the second time in the last few minutes, stopped my heart. It was of Avery bound and gagged, crammed into some desolate corner next to a dark blue door that I instantly recognized. Mascara mixed with her tears and ran down her cheeks. Her shirt hung in tatters, ripped open to reveal half a milky breast.

bruises stung her neck. Her forehead wept blood. I gaped at the photo, had no clue what to do or where to go. I just sat there, stunned as fuck until, with a sickeningly familiar sizzle of the screen, the picture came to life. Avery bucked and strained, crying out with the same muffled shrieks I'd heard her mother make as I smothered her. A voice rose from the speaker, one I instantly knew.

"It's over for you," Eric said. "You'll never see the light of day again." Then the screen sparked and went to black. My insides sloshed as I drove, my organs liquid loose, threatening to climb up my throat in a shower of vomit. I asked myself the question again. How had I missed it? How?

I knew everything about Avery. Her favorite food, what music she listened to, her daily routines, the movies she watched, the books she read, the friends she kept. Everything but the most important thing. Etta Dumphy, moonlight psychopath and elder abuse aficionado, was her mother.

was being the key word, because I'd just killed her. I said loud enough to make myself jump. The car swerved, and I pulled in a breath and told myself to focus, to concentrate on the road. Avery Carter, Etta Dunphy. Carter, because Avery had kept her late father's name. Dunphy, because Etta had kept the name of her most recent betrothed.

William Dumphy, owner of a paper supply company. A dour looking man with a face as boring as the paper he sold before a massive heart attack, or more likely murder, made Etta a widow. Again. Three marriages in total, and I'd only uncovered two. I hadn't time traveled far enough into the past to unearth the first, and why would I? What was the point?

I only wanted to surveil the woman before handing her off to the cops. Besides, Avery had never talked about her mother, only her dad. And only then on the rarest of occasions. In fact, I don't think I'd heard her say his name more than twice. Once on his birthday, mumbling to herself he'd be 67 if he'd lived. And again, after I'd asked her who'd inspired her affinity for photography. She said my dad.

As much as I didn't want to admit it, I'd made a massive mistake by overly focusing on Avery. And not those who'd made her. I'd snorted her tweets like a drug, sifted through her Instagram in hopes of another bikini photo, or a close-up of her perfectly shaped face and lake green eyes. What secrets hid behind those eyes? What was she really like outside of Tech Zone? A freak between the sheets? A closet sadomasochist into whips and leather?

Did she believe in a god? Did she spend her weekends scouring the universe for meaning, wondering like me why she'd been consigned to this spinning green globe as a speck of organic matter? Who was her mother was never a question I'd thought to ask. A fucking psychopath. Just like Eric, apparently. Eric! The photo from Etta's phone flashed to life in a series of stutter-stop images that left sear marks on my brain.

Avery bound and helpless. Her throat veined as she shrieked. All that damaged red skin. The tears coating her cheeks. Eric's smooth bro voice sliding out from behind the camera, telling her she'd never see the light of day again. Hopefully, I'd never have to find out what that meant.

Avery was still alive as far as I knew. And unlike the other photos, this one had come stamped with a time mark. One from the future. 8:17 PM to be exact. Whatever that bastard Eric had planned for Avery hadn't happened yet, and I was going to make damn sure it stayed that way. The horizon blushed pink as I parked across the street from Eric's house and got out. No, not Eric's house, I corrected. Their house.

After discovering Avery had moved in, I'd spent a couple of evenings, okay, more than a couple, parked down the street, staring at their perfect lawn and their perfect front porch, while imagining their perfect life behind that perfect blue front door. The same door I'd just seen Avery languishing against on Etta's phone. She looked like Sarah Brooks, beaten and bruised and without hope. A cloud of guilt swirled through my chest.

What a coward I'd been to give Lyle his phone back, to hand it to him without a word about what it contained. How gutless and pathetic. How incredibly true to form. And now, here I was, once again in the same situation. The sole witness to an unfolding tragedy. Except this time, I'd do something about it. But what exactly?

Part of me wanted to rush across the street, over the yard and through the door, action hero style, to kick it open and send Eric's teeth down his throat with a solid right hook. A fantasy that would end with me in a hospital bed or more likely dead. Even in his diminished state, Eric was still yoked with muscle. I'd be lucky to land a single blow if he saw me coming. No, I'd need to be smarter than that. I'd need to take him by surprise.

popped the trunk, and snatched the tire iron, and then made my way across the street, toward the backyard, and slipped through the gate. A lush green lawn greeted me, edged in brick, the sides thick with tansy and blooming aster. Around the corner I crept, keeping close to the house. I moved onto a stone patio, where I peered through a window into the kitchen. Dirty dishes foamed from the sink. Used glasses and boxes of cereal cluttered quartz countertops.

A trash can overflowed with Coke cans and fast food to go boxes. A living metaphor for Eric. Nice to look at on the outside, nothing of substance on the inside, except Avery. I pulled back and eased toward the sliding glass door and grabbed the handle with a prayer. "Don't be locked, don't be locked." It was locked. Shit. I went back onto the lawn and around the far side of the house, past a hose reel, toward a brown storage container planted beneath another window.

One, I knew immediately, I could reach and possibly squirm through, if it was open. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, I clambered onto the container, set my hands on the glass and "What are you doing?" The voice nearly sent me tumbling to the ground as I spun around.

A girl of maybe five or six, with a freckled face and wide, curious eyes stood a few feet away, appraising me through a wrought iron fence with a look of mild curiosity instead of fear. Why she didn't bolt for her house, crying about the robber next door was beyond me. Oh, hi there. I'm just trying to, uh, get inside. Why? You don't live there. Yeah, but I'm one of Eric's friends. Why don't you use the door then?

It's locked and... Think, dumbass. Tell her what she wants to hear. I haven't seen Eric in a long time. Since college. And I wanted to surprise him. The lie came out sounding dumber than I'd imagined it. But hopefully good enough for a kid. Oh. The girl twisted her foot in the grass, looked lower, and frowned. What's that? What's what? That thing in your hand. She pointed at the tire iron. In my hand. That...

I glanced at it with a shrug, like breaking into someone's house with a two-foot piece of steel was as normal as breathing. "Just something I borrowed from Eric. I'm giving it back." Her brow furrowed. "I thought you said you hadn't seen him in a long time." "Jesus, who was this kid?" I thought. "Nancy Drew?" "I haven't. I simply wanted to… Look, kid, just leave me alone, okay? Go play or something." She stepped back from the fence.

"I'm gonna tell my mom on you!" "Wait, don't do that!" I said, pumping some more sugar into my voice. "You wouldn't want to ruin my surprise, would you? I'm a friend of Eric's. A good, good friend. I promise." "No you aren't! You're a liar! Mommy!" Her screech split the air like an ice pick. I would have run then. I would have bolted toward the street and my car if it weren't for the sound that followed.

Another shriek, coming from behind me, muffled through two panes of glass. Avery! I lunged for the window, relief flooding through me when it opened. I pulled myself up and over the sill and into the bedroom, nearly upending a floor lamp in the process. Down the hall, Eric's voice thundered, followed by the bright, stinging smack of flesh on flesh, followed by Avery's cry. He hit her, I thought, numbly. He actually fucking hit her!

My lungs swelled with anger. I gripped the tire iron and I ran. Through the door and down the hall. You fucking bitch! Past a dining room piled in boxes. Around the corner end. I'll kill you for this! Into a living room where Eric stood, hulking over Avery with gluey strips of scalp peeking through his sweat-matted hair. Something about the sight stopped me. His skin had taken on a sickly jaundiced hue.

miles from the normal tanned bronze I was used to. His t-shirt was matted against the shoulder blades in sharp angles, his neck soaked in sweat. He held a length of rope in his hand, and the way his knuckles cracked as he brought it lower toward Avery's neck confirmed my fears. He would kill her unless I did something.

She skittered back, away from him, toward that awful blue door. Her face, a pale miasma of fear. Her eyes wide and lips stretched to her ears. Nostrils flared. Blood streamed from a cut on her forehead. Her teeth cut a white line through the pale pink of her gums as she cried, Eric, stop! And then her eyes found mine. And she screamed.

A high-frequency buzz filled my head. I rushed forward and swung the tire iron as Eric turned. His gaunt face stretching in shock a second before the steel slammed into his temple with a savage blow that sent him stumbling sideways. He raised an arm in defense, but not in time to ward off my next strike. A two-handed, arcing shot to the middle of his forehead. He sputtered.

I didn't. I cocked the bar and brought it crashing back into his teeth. I swung so hard, I left my body and floated up toward the ceiling, hovering there as my mouth howled, "Leave her alone! Leave her alone!" while destroying what was left of Eric's face. Words filled the room. Panicked cries I couldn't register until a hand came to rest on my shoulder and shook me for my rage. "Stop, RJ! Stop!"

Avery's words pulled me from the ceiling, and I whirlpooled back into my body. The tire iron slipped from my hands and thudded to the carpet. I blinked and blinked and blinked, through the blood in my eyes and the gore on my face. Tears slid warm past my lips and fell from my chin. I hadn't meant to do this. To turn Eric's face into a pile of human playdough. Or had I? I wasn't sure.

All I knew was, in that moment, I'd never do to Avery what he'd just done. I'd never hit her. If given the chance, I'd treat her the way she deserved to be treated. With respect. With love. I'd appreciate every hour, minute, second spent together. Because it's all I'd ever wanted. If only she'd give me the chance. Which, I realized with a jolt, was happening. I could see it in the way she was looking at me.

scanning the hills and valleys of my face with something other than annoyance or outright disgust glimmering in her eyes, really looking at me like she was seeing me for the first time. "Are you okay?" I asked as I drew my thumb over her blood-speckled cheek. Her lower lip trembled. "Oh my god, RJ, I thought I was dead." She burst into tears, and I pulled her into my arms and held her there. My skin hummed with her heat.

I ran my fingers through her hair and left it streaked in blood. She wrapped her arms around me and cried as we held onto each other for what felt like a lifetime. Her tears were warm upon my shoulder, her breath hot upon my neck. Every inch of her body felt so perfectly molded to mine, like a piece of me I didn't know was missing had finally been restored. When she pulled back, her face had regained some of its composure, but not much. Her lips still quivered as she spoke.

"What are you doing here? How did you… no?" I finished. She nodded. "It's kinda hard to explain. Try me. You'll think I'm weird." She smiled at that and hiccuped a laugh and wiped her eyes. "I already do." I laughed too. I couldn't help it. Our own little cute moment. And then said, "It started after my seizure. I began seeing things. In photos." Her eyebrows twitched adorably.

"What kind of things?" "Things people have done. Bad things. Bad people. I don't understand." "You don't have to. I just knew there was something off about Eric. That he wasn't right for you." I glanced back at him then, at the carpet freshly abloom with his blood, and I no longer felt guilt for what I'd done. He'd hurt Avery, and he'd done it for the last time. I turned back to her. "How long has he been hitting you?"

Her eyebrows wriggled again, almost like she seemed surprised by the statement. But then they settled back into place, and she reached over and ran her knuckles across my cheek. "Oh, RJ, is that what you think?" "It wasn't?" "No, silly, he-" The sound of approaching sirens cut her off, and the room exploded into a throbbing bruise of red and blue lights. Doors opened and slammed. Footsteps pounded up the walkway.

"You called the cops?" Avery asked, looking stunned. "No, I didn't. I..." "The girl! Shit!" "No, no, no, no!" Avery muttered as she stood and began to pace. "This can't happen." Her fingers worked into her hair, and her skin paled. I sat there, watching her dumbfounded, wondering why it was a bad thing that the cops were showing up. I stood and took her by the shoulders. "Hey, calm down."

She stared past me, at Eric, still shaking her head and muttering, talking so quietly I could barely understand what she was saying. A fist pounded on the door. "Open up! Police!" I glanced at it, and then thumbed her chin and guided her gaze toward mine. "Avery, none of this is your fault. You don't have anything to worry about. You're not even the one who killed him." Her lips stopped moving then, and her eyes seemed to clear. She blinked and nodded in agreement.

You're right. Oh my god, you're right. Then she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, her lips setting off a cloud of heat in my chest. Thank you, RJ. Our first kiss. I thought dumbly as the door blew open and two cops pushed through, guns drawn. Jesus! One of them said, glancing at Eric and then back at me. Who did this?

I opened my mouth to tell them I did, and that it was all in self-defense. That Eric would have murdered Avery if I hadn't killed him first. I didn't need to. Avery beat me to it. "He did!" she said, pointing at me with a fresh round of tears streaming down her face. "He broke in, and then he tried to kill me!"

They shuttled me downtown to Cattle County Jail. Yes, that's really its name. A squat, lifeless building, planted dead center in an ocean of cracked asphalt that I'd never before had the displeasure of entering. My eyes stung as the cops muscled me through the front door, the LED slathered interior instantly scorching my retinas. I stood there like a moth, drunk with light, unable to move, to think, as I replayed the look Avery had given me.

the rapid disintegration of her face as it turned from gratitude to fear. Until one of the cops jabbed me in the back and told me to "Move it, asshole!" He shoved me hard toward a mugshot station where another cop with familiar gray eyes and a mustache waited. Frank. Jesus. I didn't say a word. I couldn't say a word.

I just stood there and obeyed his instructions as the camera clicked and flashed. By the time he turned me over to another officer for further booking, I'd broken a sweat. Forms, fingerprints. Would I like to make a call? Do I want an attorney? No, and I don't know. A full body search, a change of clothes, a short-sleeved blue jumpsuit that smelled as old as it looked.

Then they led me into an interrogation room and told me to sit, which I did, for over an hour, as two stern-faced detectives grilled me like an overdone steak. "What were you doing in Mr. Coleman's house? How long have you known Avery Monroe? Were you planning to kill her?" My answers came in the form of silence. I didn't say shit. Not because they both made me nervous as hell, which they did.

or that I was afraid I'd say something stupid and serve up a nice, guilty, steaming confession. Which I would. But more so because my brain was still overheating thinking about Avery and how she'd betrayed me. Why would she do that when, only a few minutes earlier, I'd saved her life? Didn't make any sense. Which only made me question it all the harder.

It bothered me so much, I barely noticed when the cops hauled me to my feet and escorted me down a long concrete corridor toward a holding cell. Standing there, propping the door open was Frank. I made the mistake of meeting his gaze and instantly regretted it. The way he stared at me, with the corners of his eyes creasing as he shook his head, made me want to crumble. "Lights out at ten," he said gently before shutting the door. "Breakfast at seven."

He looked at me a second longer, through the glass slat in the door, until I could no longer stand it. When at last I glanced up again, he was gone. I spent the next several hours pacing back and forth in between the toilet and the concrete bed, wondering how it had all gone so wrong. Of all places, I'd wound up here, in the bowels of Cattle County Jail. I pictured it again.

Avery when she first saw me. And the shock in her eyes. Eric, standing above her looking like absolute dogshit. His skin pure plaster. His hair thinned to the point of balding. The undiluted rage in his voice. "I'll kill you for this!" Kill her for what? What exactly had Avery done? And who was she really? What did I even know about her? Tech zone manager? Lover of the outdoors? Bird photographer? The daughter of a killer?

Lightning crackled in my brain. Pieces fell into place. The way she'd latched onto Eric, their rapid engagement and marriage, even though they didn't have a single thing in common. Eric's sudden deterioration. The way he looked like he'd come apart in a stiff breeze. None of it could be a coincidence, right? The dude had gobs of money, and I'd misjudged Avery. She did want it. She wanted it all.

But not if it meant a lifetime listening to Eric blather on about all things keto while raising a dim litter of his children. Because that's what it would take. So why not just poison him instead? The pressure in my head dropped. I barely made it to the toilet before parting ways with the contents of my stomach. And then I sat there, with my head propped pathetically on the toilet lid, cursing my idiocy. How incredibly stupid had I been not to see it, when it had been there all along?

Right fucking there, baked into Eric's wasted features, into his words, "It's over for you. You'll never see the light of day again." His meaning dawned with a horrible truth. This jail cell, with its whitewashed cinderblock walls and its rusted toilet were never intended for me. They were meant for Avery, until I'd so dumbly decided to take her place.

A smell woke me, the stale of nicotine and coffee. A hot blast of breath on my face. I came awake to Frank standing over me, holding a tray of food and shaking his head. "Why, RJ?" My tongue went numb. I couldn't speak. He set the tray on the bed and crossed his arms. "You wanna know something, RJ? I always knew your sister would go places, that she would amount to something, but it was never her I thought would go furthest.

"It was you." I let out a tiny rasp of sound. "Me? I can see that surprises you, but it shouldn't. You remember that time when we all went to Lake Travis and you and your sister rode too far out and lost the oar?" I nodded as the memory surfaced, a vague recollection of the two of us boiling in Frank's aluminum canoe beneath the summer Texas sun. My sister Janelle crying the entire time that we drowned, even though we were nowhere close to tipping over.

"Well," Frank continued, "your mom wanted me to rush out and tug you both back in. But I told her to wait, that you'd figure it out, and you did. With that old fishing rod of mine." A sad smile crept across his face. "You were the one who thought of that, RJ. You were the one who brought that oar back in, not Janelle. You were always doing stuff like that, figuring out problems, coming up with solutions I never expected.

I knew you'd make your mark in life, just not like this." He tossed something onto the bed, a newspaper I hadn't registered him carrying until that moment, the Oakfield Journal, with a shot of me being escorted from Avery's house in handcuffs. Above the picture, splashed in all caps, the headline read, "Local Citizen Suspected of Savage Murder." I stared at it for what felt like an eternity. My mouth went sour.

I hadn't noticed any photographers snapping pictures. Not that that meant anything. I'd been in shock, was still in shock, and seeing the photo only worsened it. "I'm disappointed in you, RJ," Frank said before shuffling toward the door. "I guess I was wrong." I raised my head to tell him he wasn't. That he and everyone else had the situation backward, but he was already gone.

An emptiness swelled within me, a negative space where my heart should be. I picked up the paper and stared at it again. There I was, an overgrown man-child being led toward the police cruiser with my head hanging in a slump, and my hair drizzled over my eyes in greasy curls. Blood splotched my shirt and my jeans. If a picture existed of someone who looked guiltier than I did, I'd never seen it.

Frank might as well skip the trial and fire up the electric chair himself. Disgusted, I moved to set the paper aside and my skin rippled. Spiders crawled down my legs. The photo went blurry, then clear, blurry, clear, blurry. It kept happening while in the picture, my chin rotated off my chest in a series of stop-motion shifts, like a camera lens struggling to focus.

My eyes appeared. Two dark pools of ink. My mouth widening until I tossed the paper onto the floor and jumped to my feet. "No!" I muttered to myself. "No, no, no, no!" A voice replied. My voice. It sounded snake-like. It sounded like death. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Pressed my hands to my ears. My voice cut right through them like an ice pick. Sticky warmth bled over my palms and down my wrists.

"You can't ignore this. You must watch." "No, I didn't," I told myself, but already I was inching toward the newspaper and stretching out a hand, fingering an edge. A feeling of weightlessness overtook me as I snagged the paper from the floor and turned it over. There I was, still in the photo, but no longer the focus. Avery was, seated on the front step with a pair of paramedics comforting her, but her eyes weren't on them.

They were on me. A lifeless smile stitched across her face. "Watch!" she said, and I did, as the photo went black, then resolved into a different scene entirely. Her on a windswept cliff, staring over a grand vista next to a man with gentle eyes. A vacation perhaps, or a road trip, just the two of them in this moment, until Avery pulled her hand from his, set it on his back, and shoved.

Another scene, Avery older now, preparing a cup of tea, spooning in honey and a packet of white powder before bringing it to another man seated upon a couch. A sickly man with sparse hair and yellowed eyes who took the tea and swallowed it with a smile. And a third, this one asleep on a bed, waking a moment before Avery brought the hammer down, centered directly between his eyes. I dropped the paper and kicked it beneath the bed.

I stared at the wall for hours. The decision wasn't an easy one to make. I didn't take it lightly. I waited for night to fall, ate my dinner in silence, and then settled onto my bed with a semblance of peace. Frank didn't stop by again to say goodbye before leaving, and for that, I was thankful. I thought of him then, and of the brief flicker of happiness he'd brought into my life on those too-few fishing trips of my youth.

Frank's sitting there beside me in his boat, explaining how life wasn't so different than trying to catch a trout, that it takes work and patience, and sometimes a little luck. But hey, remember RJ, things usually end up where they should be in time. Everything except for me. I stood and felt my way through the dark, toward the sink, and nodded one end of my torn shirt around the faucet, and then the other around my neck.

I took a breath, pulled it deep within my lungs and held it there. I pictured Avery once more, and the imaginary children we'd never have. The boy with the nose like mine and the eyes like hers. The girl who'd begged me to chase her around the house before bed, kicking up her heels and laughter until I caught her and carried her to her room. A nice dream, a nice life, good enough.

Hey guys, thanks for listening. I want to give you all a quick heads up regarding some upcoming political ads you may start hearing leading up to this year's presidential election.

These ads do not represent my own political viewpoint. So if you hear a political ad play on the podcast and it's not in my own voice, then it has absolutely nothing to do with me personally as a podcaster. Thank you again for being a dedicated listener of mine, and I can't wait to have another amazing year with you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.