Thirty-Eight
"Where do you think we go when we die?"
It was the previous March, and Tina and I were seated in our far too familiar field, pondering our deepest thoughts over the coffee Tina had spiked with wine from her mother's cabinet. It's not like her mother would have noticed anyway; the woman packed away about a bottle a day to herself, and the result was a passed out corpse sprawled across the sofa. Tina had slipped in quietly the night before, taking the Merlot off the shelf and carrying it in her backpack for our typical afternoon conversation.
"Why do you ask?"
Tina wasn't looking and me, shoving her bare toes into the moist dirt.
"Tina, you're not thinking of-"
"No, no... I'm not."
"Then tell me why you asked me that."
Her piercing green eyes finally reached across to meet mine, and I was surprised to find that they were loitered with tears.
"Tina-"
"Maybe I just get scared sometimes Amber... Maybe I'm afraid that one day, I'm not going to want to be here anymore, and I'm going to want to know whether or not I'll be somewhere that's better than this shitty place."
She picked up her paper coffee cup and took a long drink; eventually finishing off what was left inside the container and tossing it down into the grass.
"Sometimes, I wish I would just fall asleep and never wake up again."
"I can't help you unless you tell me what's upsetting you."
She only shook her head, silent again, moving her hands around in a circular pattern over the ground. I sighed, taking a small sip of my own drink, and laid my head back into the grass.
"I'd like to think that all the good people go the heaven, or some kind of place that's happy."
"Who decides who those good people are?"
"God, I guess."
"But what if he's wrong? What if the people that seem good aren't and some of the people that seem bad are actually good?"
I turned to her, softening my voice and giving her the most genuine of smiles. Still, she continued avoiding my gaze.
"Tina, you're a good person... You have nothing to worry about."
Her eyes moved up from the ground and look square at me. The warmth in her eyes had faded, her complexion less glowing and more ashen; as if she had aged fifty years in the journey her eyes had taken to meet mine.
The shallowness in her stare lasted a minute, and she looked away from me and at my coffee cup.
"Are you going to finish that? I've got a date later and I need to be at least a little drunk to enjoy it."
I handed it over.
