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.

into total darkness. Only when lightning ripped across the sky did the world briefly flicker into view. The wind howled, rain hammered the windows with a relentless drone, and Jessica felt her courage drain away, fear flooding

memories crashed

was heavy and gray, rain threatening at any

a twenty, told her to run to the corner store for a bottle of soy

ages picking out candy, even choosing a piece

on the way home, swinging her bag of groceries,

a

When she finally looked,

gentle eyes stared wide and unseeing, blood spreading from the

her head in dark, snaking rivulets across the

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

that a woman

surrounded

ground. She pushed through the

out, to scream for her

lips parted, but no sound came

the thunder and

Jessica alone in their

lights were out. In the darkness, the image of her mother's broken body played on a loop in

thunder outside never stopped, battering her small world with

never understood why her

her body, the time she'd wasted picking out

only she had come home earlier,

her teeth, hands shaking as she pulled

screen was blinding in the pitch-black

Her lips trembled.

thunder nearly