AFTERMATH <\/strong>
\nWord Count: 353<\/p>\n

I told them that I saw Russell\u2019s face in all my dreams. That like a wax doll he shows up at a party right in the middle of a living room. He\u2019s sitting on the couch. A death mask, white and hardened, eyes closed. No one talks to him. They told me if I didn\u2019t think I was ready to take the finals I could take them the following week. Would that be better? Yes, it would. I hadn\u2019t studied.<\/p>\n

The first time I saw Russell was at the wake before the funeral. He was the older brother of my friend Janice who had been the driver. Four of us went together to the service to see her and according to the school counselors, to bring closure. He didn\u2019t look like her at all, red hair flaming against the white satin pillow. Hers is blackish-brown. He didn\u2019t look real. His hands looked like a mannequin\u2019s, wound together in rosary beads. He\u2019d been killed instantly. Maybe that\u2019s why he wasn\u2019t smiling.<\/p>\n

I told them that I saw him screaming. That he wanted something from me and I didn\u2019t know what. It wasn\u2019t true. He only came back when I closed my eyes and tried hard to remember what he looked like.<\/p>\n

Janice didn\u2019t finish out the semester. We lost touch over the summer. I wondered if she had nightmares of the dark road being swallowed up by her car.  I started having bad dreams of speeding down a road and hitting a tree head-on. I\u2019ve been by the place where Russell died, still marked with the dried flowers and melted candles and goodbye notes that aren\u2019t readable anymore.<\/p>\n

I think of Russell a lot. I want to know him better. I reread the obituaries I\u2019ve cut out. The prayer folder from the service. He had been home on leave for a few days. He\u2019d been a basketball star in college. His picture shows him smiling and his eyes are bright and friendly. I think we would have dated, fallen in love, maybe even gotten married. Our kids would have had red hair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFTERMATH Word Count: 353 I told them that I saw Russell\u2019s face in all my dreams. That like a wax doll he shows up at a party right in the middle of a living room. He\u2019s sitting on the couch. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-2011","category-mainstream","tag-mainstream"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}