We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

He longed for cousins and uncles and Sunday football and barbeque, like the other kids in his class.

“I just wish there was a middle, you know. Because that’s where people live. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing … sink or swim like that. Most people just tread water, and that’s enough. Because when you’re sinking, you’re pulling us down with you.”

Any illusion, the postcards, Friday night calls with Hal, any illusion the girl and the boy might yet get their deserved life had died such a cold and final death that Walk did not speak to anyone for three days.

She was a bad sister. She was a bad person. He cried so much he shook, his face in the pillow, screaming for a life so close that for a few, blissful weeks, he had it in his grasp.