Goodbye, Mr. Regret

Timothy stared at the message on his phone, his dark eyes fixed on the glowing

screen for a long while.

[Do you like it?]

He typed a reply.

[Yeah, just like Happy and Lucky.]

He pressed his lips together, thinking.

If Sheila liked them, there was no harm in giving her one too.

There were twenty-two left.

He bought them all, though he only intended to keep one.

The rest, he'd throw away.

It was just an excuse to set one aside for Sheila.

[If you like it, keep it.]

Capital City.

Jessica was too afraid to sleep. She huddled in the corner of the hotel room, knees pulled to her chest, shivering so hard her fingernails nearly broke the skin of her palms.

Every clap of thunder struck like a hammer against her heart.

lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered

memories crashed

the sky was heavy and gray, rain

mother had handed her a twenty, told her to run to the corner store for a bottle of soy sauce, and said she

out candy, even choosing a piece

practically skipping on the way home, swinging her bag of groceries, when she reached the foot of her apartment building-and

was a

When she finally looked,

wide and

her head in dark, snaking rivulets

her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Her skin

a

quickly surrounded her

crashed to the ground. She pushed

to call out, to scream for

parted, but

thunder

alone in their apartment, and followed the ambulance

lights were out. In the darkness, the image of her mother's broken

thunder outside never stopped, battering her

never understood why her mother had

her body, the time

home earlier, maybe her mother wouldn't have

her teeth, hands shaking as she pulled out

screen was blinding in

Her lips trembled.

of thunder nearly made her drop