Bad Analogies Scene 4

“I’m going to die soon,” I told him.

He turned to look at me like a pointer on the scent of a down pillow.

“It’s genetic. My genes are going to hunt me down and kill me.”

“Shouldn’t you be in a hospital, then?”

“Oh, no. I’ll be perfectly healthy, and then bang! Fate carries a P220 in her purse.”

Kevin’s voice was soft. “That’s it, then—why you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I laughed, and it wasn’t a funny laugh. “I’m a losing investment, Kevin, just like betting on whether or not a dorm room needs more cleaning than a barrel full of roaches. And nothing you can say will change that.”

“We all die in the end, like a bad writer’s prose. Just because you don’t have as long, does that mean your time is worth less than anyone else’s?”

His hand was on the bench between us, halfway like a politician who’s dumber than a chicken because he won’t finish crossing the road. I considered it for a moment, and laid mine next to it.

The streetlights blurred in hot, yellow, salty streaks, like corn on the cob, and I squeezed his hand more tightly.

--_*rachel*_