GARRETT
I find that a thunderstorm washes everything away. For one second, you seem to forget everything.
A thunderstorm clears my head, let’s me get a few stolen moments of peace from the memories that haunt me, still to this day.

During those few flashes of lighting her face isn’t the only object burned on my retina. The thunder clears her laughter from my ears. Her screams too, are erased.

But not all memories go away. No matter how many times the rain falls I still remember the fact that she loved it, the rain I mean. All parts of it. The thunder, the lighting, the drops wetting her hair and clothes.

And then, even though it’s raining, I still find myself picturing her face.

“No, stop,” screams my personal angel, inside my head. It’s a warning, knowing that picturing her would be the unlimited burning of my soul. That I would go mad, insane.

I shake my head, my shaggy sandy blonde hair spraying drops into the downpour, as if that will erase her, almost like an Etch-A-Sketch.

My eyes catch my reflection on the diner window, some place in the middle of nowhere, where I’ve decided to seek shelter, at least till the rain let’s up.
I see a man, in his early 20s (or that’s what it looks like) drenched, his sturdy hiking clothes sticking to his pale smooth skin. His eyes are a ruby red, and at the moment they’re crazed, but not thirsty. His thick dirty blonde eyebrows drooped low, making his eyes only slits. His square jaw is clenched, the muscles twitching in exertion. His lips are pushed into a thin line, another sign of his madness.

“God Garrett,” I say to my reflection. “Pull it together.”