Unstable by S.E. Hall Page A

old…acquaintance. He was telling me about the night my mom died, how he was there, tried to save her.”
    I let my silence do the rest of my talking for me, waiting for him to volunteer information to explain away any lingering questions wringing tightly around my heart and stomach. Did he see exactly what happened to her?
    When he dips his head and says nothing, I’m forced to ask. “Will you tell me about it, Gatlin?”
    “Why?” His head shoots up, agonized confusion in his tawny eyes. “You just said you already know.”
    “Everyone takes in a different view of a scene. I…I just need to know everything I can.”
    His exhale is heavy, as is the sag to his shoulders. “I guess I can understand that. I…I searched through the darkness, like everyone else, but…I didn’t stay as long as them. That, I shamefully admit. Once I saw my dad, watched them pull his body out, I just…” his heavy lament is too mournful and ashamed to be called a sigh, “couldn’t. I waited a while, on my knees, praying someone would yell out that they’d found your mom, alive.” All the color drains from his face and his voice cracks, “But every minute that passed by and that didn’t happen, and my father’s body laid there on the bank…I broke. Is that what you want to hear? I broke, Henley! I ran home, threw up, and cried like a baby ‘til I couldn’t cry anymore.”
    His pain, remorse, is as familiar to me as it is acute, and I suddenly feel like the ass I am, making him relive it.
    “Gatlin,” I mumble, unable to look him in the eyes, “I’m sorry I asked. I can’t imagine what that was like for you. And I wasn’t there, haven’t been here , so I’m certainly not judging you. I have no right to judge anyone. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.” I think it’s important he hears that. I just hope he listens, and believes it…something I spent far too long not doing.
    “They…didn’t tell me they were going out there. Just left from the main house.” His head drops again and shakes from side to side. “Dad knows I’d have gone to help him, not your Mom, not out in a storm. They didn’t tell me.”
    I take tentative steps toward him and, very unusual for me, slowly lift my hand to place a gentle touch on his arm. The hands of the hurt attempt to heal.
    “He just laid there, rain pelting down on his lifeless body. I know they were busy, but they didn’t even cover him up. And I couldn’t get across the river!” He tucks his chin further into his chest so I won’t see the tears I have no doubt accompany his sob-wracked voice. “To close his eyes, his mouth. To give him some dignity. It was awful.”
    I feel her—the girl I once was—gradually clawing her way up from the deepest pits inside me where I’d long ago shut her away, and gaining ground, trying desperately to break free of her confines. And she cries…right in front of Gatlin, unashamed.
    Tears for him. His dad. My mom. Tears for me.
    When I have nothing left and gather myself, taking deep breaths in and out as I wipe my eyes, he speaks softly.
    “It’s gonna be okay, Henley. We’re gonna be okay, both of us.”
    “How do you know that?” I don’t believe him for a second.
    “Because, it’s the only option. Life is fickle, ya know? It’s already short, and for some,” he swallows hard, “it’s taken from them way too early. The longer we waste the time we were given, that they were robbed of, it’s like we’re dishonoring them. Slapping them in the face with the fact we’ve been spared, sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves when we could be out doing all the things they wished they could still do.”
    I absorb his words, trying to embrace them as my own, but anger still takes the forefront. I’m so fucking sick of people leaving me, but honestly, I left too. I left myself. And long before my mom did. She never gave up on me, that’s all on me. I just threw her away, the real Henley