All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

“I just wanted to show you that sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds.”

He reasoned the truest proof of life was pain,

At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.

And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

“How do I fix things?” she said. “You’re not always able. But you take a moment and remind yourself where your north is. But I’ve got a feeling you already know that.”

“Franklin Meyer was a cunt, and not the gentleman kind. Franklin’s father was a cunt, too. As kids they were cuntlets. A line of cunts, each one cuntier than the last.” “I wonder what the collective term for—” “A cuntet,” Sammy said knowingly.

“Time changes our ability to view the things that hurt us.” “But not the pain.” “No. Not the pain.”

Patch knew well about the rot that set in just beneath, how you couldn’t tell shit about someone from the way they looked or the job they did. To see it you had to gut them; you had to look deep inside for the poison in their veins.

but Patch heard none of it, just saw Saint, his friend, in all her pure and good. He saw her crawling through tangled woodland, the bite of winter deep in her bones as she pushed on looking, seeking him out while the world around had long since buried him. He saw the way she cared for her grandmother, the way she was with Charlotte, how this man had taken so much from someone who only gave.

Patch knew there were moments when you made your bad decision even when you were fully...

He also knew that he would not allow his daughter to grow up in a world where the good stand by idle. In a world where her father did ...

“Maybe when we pray we’re not asking for intervention. We’re just reminding ourselves of the things that matter. You screw up and ask forgiveness of yourself. Someone loses their way, and you search your own mind for the guidance to help them.”

Saint knew love, she knew it was sewn into the smallest gestures, the kindnesses barely perceived. And she knew it was responsible for the largest and darkest acts, the sacrifices and the rawest pain.

when she turned to leave she wondered at the price of trust, and the toll it took to offer it, and to betray it.