Crushed
1
Overture
(AJR)
September 2017
“What would you do, Frank?”
“Huh?” Frank asked as he pulled down his glasses to peer over them at her.
“Like in one of those Asian shows or comics.” Jenna pushed the button on the remote of her bed, raising it so she could see him better over her oxygen mask. “If you were sent back in time like that?”
“Not this again.” Pushing his glasses back up, Frank turned back to the paperwork laid out on the table in front of him.
“Come on, I’m awake for once.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “How do you know it’s a different day?”
“Your shirt.”
He looked down. “It’s a white button-down. I wear one every day.”
“The buttons are different.”
“You can see that?”
“Stop avoiding my question. What would you change if you went back?”
Frank put his pen down and crossed his legs. Sitting back, he rubbed his chin for a second or two, then said, “Nothing.”
“Ha!” Jenna laughed, then went into a fit of coughing. “Of course, the saint wouldn’t.”
“I’m not a saint.”
“Like hell you aren’t. Who comes visit a friend on their deathbed every day like this?”
“I’ve done bad things!” Like always, he avoided the topic of death.
She let it slide. “Like what? Went 22 miles an hour in a school zone?”
Frank laughed. “No. I don’t really want to tell you now, though.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe I like being a saint in your eyes.”
“The list of things you could do to remove that halo is very very very short.” She held up her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart.
“I’m sure I still have one or two things on it.”
“You know what? Fuck you. I’m going to die in your trunk. That way, you can’t say you never had a dead hooker in there.”
Frank burst out into laughter, doubling over.
“Seriously, though. You have no regrets?”
“Don’t believe in them.”
“Yup. Just like a saint. Me, on the other hand, I’d do everything differently. Everything. God, I was such a bitch.”
“Yeah? Well, leave me out of it. I’m fine with how my life turned out.”
“Are you really?”
A smile was his only answer.
“Who knows, maybe I’d make you fall in love with me.”
He laughed again. “I’d like to see that. If you’d acted then like you do now, during senior year, you might have had a chance. That is, if you could get me to stop hating you first.”
“Challenge accepted.”
“Best of luck.”