We sat around a lot back then. That’s what I remember. Just talkin. ‘Bout everythin and nothin. And we told stories of who we was and who we’d a mind to be one day. And we maybe made usselves sound better than we was or could ever be.
There was this one day, and we was sittin in a room in school, maybe four or five of us, and all the windows closed, and school was finished but we had to stay behind. She was there and her name was Judith. She was just ordinary, but I don’t know, bein with her in that room and I got to thinkin she was sorta nice. I somehow saw her different from before. She was sayin how things was with her mom and they wasn’t real good. Somethin about her mom’s black dog days and Judith had to watch the knives and the scissors in the house. And the bleach she had to watch, too. And none of us knew.
I thought I could help. I wanted to. And that’s how we got together. Me and Judith, and her story became my story and my story was briefly hers – the same story for a while. She was soft and warm and good. And we could just be when we was together. Be usselves, you know, really be. And she’s still the best kisser I ever had.
But I think in the end she blamed me for what happened. She never said nothing, but I could tell. She was with me, see, the day it all fell out wrong, the day when her mom did what she did. Judith thought if she’d been there instead of messin with me, then just maybe it could’ve been different. I couldn’t argue with that and I still can’t.
Her pa turned up for the funeral, drunk and cryin and smellin of piss, but it was an aunt she went to stay with when it was all done. Aunt Kielty and she never had the time or the patience or the love, and because Judith blamed me we stopped bein close and our stories broke apart and we became different stories then and I just let that happen.
Years back that was, and today her picture’s there in the newspaper and I can still see the girl in the woman, the girl she’d been before. And it says how she died and she was only twenty-two, which is exactly ages with me. She was run down by a car and the driver said she just stepped out into the road, out of noplace, and she was lookin straight at him when his car slammed into her and not smilin exactly but her face still and acceptin.
I recalled Judith’s stories then. The ones I’d lost by not bein with her. The ones that said what she’d be one day and what I’d be, too – the things we never was. And I remembered how Judith’d blamed me for what her mom did and how she’d blamed herself, too, for not lookin out for her mom. And I wondered if there’d been someone not lookin out for Judith at the end and I wished it had been me cos I would have done it better and just maybe things could’ve been different again. Just maybe.
Patricia Ann McNair 
We sat around a lot back then. That’s what I remember. Just talkin. ‘Bout everythin and nothin. And we told stories of who we was and who we’d a mind to be one day. And we maybe made usselves sound better than we was or could ever be.
There was this one day, and we was sittin in a room in school, maybe four or five of us, and all the windows closed, and school was finished but we had to stay behind. She was there and her name was Judith. She was just ordinary, but I don’t know, bein with her in that room and I got to thinkin she was sorta nice. I somehow saw her different from before. She was sayin how things was with her mom and they wasn’t real good. Somethin about her mom’s black dog days and Judith had to watch the knives and the scissors in the house. And the bleach she had to watch, too. And none of us knew.
I thought I could help. I wanted to. And that’s how we got together. Me and Judith, and her story became my story and my story was briefly hers – the same story for a while. She was soft and warm and good. And we could just be when we was together. Be usselves, you know, really be. And she’s still the best kisser I ever had.
But I think in the end she blamed me for what happened. She never said nothing, but I could tell. She was with me, see, the day it all fell out wrong, the day when her mom did what she did. Judith thought if she’d been there instead of messin with me, then just maybe it could’ve been different. I couldn’t argue with that and I still can’t.
Her pa turned up for the funeral, drunk and cryin and smellin of piss, but it was an aunt she went to stay with when it was all done. Aunt Kielty and she never had the time or the patience or the love, and because Judith blamed me we stopped bein close and our stories broke apart and we became different stories then and I just let that happen.
Years back that was, and today her picture’s there in the newspaper and I can still see the girl in the woman, the girl she’d been before. And it says how she died and she was only twenty-two, which is exactly ages with me. She was run down by a car and the driver said she just stepped out into the road, out of noplace, and she was lookin straight at him when his car slammed into her and not smilin exactly but her face still and acceptin.
I recalled Judith’s stories then. The ones I’d lost by not bein with her. The ones that said what she’d be one day and what I’d be, too – the things we never was. And I remembered how Judith’d blamed me for what her mom did and how she’d blamed herself, too, for not lookin out for her mom. And I wondered if there’d been someone not lookin out for Judith at the end and I wished it had been me cos I would have done it better and just maybe things could’ve been different again. Just maybe.