Misbehaved

by Charleigh Rose

a stoke of lightning lights up the sky. Mentally, I try to remember what my dad taught me about gauging the distance of a storm. “All right, Remi, watch for the light, then count the seconds until you hear thunder.” “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi…” Thunder booms before I get to six. “Five seconds,” I tell him, sitting on the counter with my chin on my dirty knees, staring out at palm trees threatening to fall over in our yard. I hope they do. I love storms. But even more than watching them, I love playing in the wreckage afterward. “That’s right. So, to figure out where lightning struck, you divide the number of seconds between the lightning and thunder by five. How far away is the storm?” “Five divided by five is one, so…one mile?” I look up at him, excited that it’s so close. He musses up my stringy hair with a proud smile. “Bingo,” he says and tips his beer bottle back for another swig. “And if it’s less than thirty seconds, what should you do?” he quizzes. “Take cover,” I answer firmly. “Good girl.”

There is no right or wrong in this world. No black and white. Remington and I live in the gray area. Logic is pointless. Gut feeling is dangerous. The only way to know whether you did the right or wrong thing is to ride it out and see it to the end.