Sidney Berry had her life planned out: after high school go to culinary school, become a world-renowned chef and marry her childhood sweetheart, Aiden. But after a tragic incident that shakes her world at the end of her senior year, her plans derail...
"Here." Her voice cracked a bit and she coughed to clear her throat. Actual words had not left her mouth since they were here yesterday. At home, she was a quiet island all to herself. Here she held the quietness of an officer on a stakeout. Except when Aiden came. Then she found only words to say and even the desire to speak.
"I see. Anybody look familiar yet?"
"No."
He nodded and dug into his book bag pulling out papers. He slid a stack over to her. Her homework. Dead father or not their High School still expected her to finish the few assignments they had left for the year. She would get them all done later that night at home and give them back to Aiden to take to school in the morning.
"I bought you these." He slid a pack of half-eaten Oreo's over to her. Her favorite snack of all time.
"Why is there only half?"
"I don't know. They came like that." He held a straight face as he opened his spiral notebook to begin working on his assignments. He was funny as hell. Could keep a straight face after saying the most absurd crap ever and it made her laugh every time. Even now.
"You're ridiculous." She told him after he cut his eyes at her. It felt like both a relief and a terrible wrong to laugh but she needed it more than she ever needed anything right now. She loved him for that. He smiled as well. His full cheeks making room for it. She thought of her father then. How he always said that someday she and Aiden would be married. She saw it now. Hoped for it even.
"Have you told anyone? Your mom?" He asked her.
Right after the accident, she was whisked off to the hospital. She learned later that she'd collapsed. Passed out right there next to the train that her father was beneath. The police came to her in the hospital after she regained consciousness but after asking her one simple question-- "What happened?"-- she fell into hysterics and had to be sedated.
After that, her mother wouldn't let anyone near her. No police. No more questions. Her mother assured her that she would never have to talk about that devastation again. But she didn't know that Sid had so much to say. That she saw the quick, almost imperceptible shove, that had ripped him from their lives.
"No."
"You should, Sid." He was being gentle with her. He knew that Sid was battling with feelings that he didn't understand; neither did she to be quite honest. Sid expected to feel anger, a sense of loss, and extreme grief. But she did not expect the guilt. The shame that came from being the only one who was there and could have saved him but not being able to. To tell her mother, or anyone for that matter, what happened was to tell them she had watched her father be killed. Allowed it in some twisted way.
She should have known that guy was bad news. Who has a fucking scar on their face like that for no good reason? He'd pissed some one-off before. She was afraid they would blame her somehow. Make her implicit in the entire thing that tore their family apart. The reasonable part of herself told her that wouldn't happen but the part that lived beneath the blame kept her mouth shut.
"I don't know. Maybe." She was hoping that she could spot the guy first. Find him and then that would give weight to her story. If people saw him, they would know for sure that he was the type. He was a murderer. In the meantime, people made up their own stories of what happened. In some versions, her father tripped on the gap between the train and the platform and went into the tracks. In other versions, the increasingly crowded train platforms from the surge of outsiders moving to the Brooklyn bumped him until he was falling. In the most ruthless versions, he jumped willingly.
It seemed like the stories depended more on who was telling it and what agenda they wanted to push rather than any truth or evidence. The truth was that no one was paying attention to her father. They only saw him once he'd already made contact with the train. No one saw the interaction between him and the two men but her. And then shortly after they pushed him they were gone. Leaving her there with the burden.
"I think your mom would understand," Aiden said.
Sid looked out at her Fort Greene neighborhood bustling by just beyond the window. She hoped that the concrete sidewalks and towering brick buildings themselves would somehow deliver this guy to her. Make him appear so that she could have the missing link to her story. Tell everyone that he was to be blamed not her. But in the faces she saw going by, she didn't see him. And feared that she never would.
It may be time for her to tell her mother anyway. Without the evidence. Without the support. Just her words. Hopefully, the bond between mother and child would be enough. She knew for a fact that if the tables were turned her father would believe her. Her mother deserved a chance to do the same.
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Vote and comment! Should Sid be keeping all this to herself?
