The Big Fish by Madison Henley (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

picture of an all too familiar face with writing above it.

In Loving Memory of Reginald Kerouac

Keliah gasped inwardly before speaking.

“Georgia I’m so sorry.”

“I told him to stop smoking all those damn cigarettes.”

Georgia laughed pathetically, ignoring Keliah’s apology. Georgia continued busying herself on her computer and didn’t utter another word. Keliah couldn’t make out what vibe she was getting from Georgia. She just stood there dumbly, waiting for Georgia to say something. Anything.

“You can come if you want.”

Keliah grabbed the piece of delicate paper and held onto it like her life depended on it. Georgia stood up and walked out of the classroom, before she made it fully out, she took a couple of steps back into the classroom and smiled weakly at Keliah.

“You look really pretty today.”

With that, Georgia left her classroom and Keliah stood there for five minutes, processing everything that had just happened. She grabbed the invitation and angrily walked out of her classroom. Keliah’s tears flew at an angle as the wind outside caught them and she wiped them roughly with her hands whenever it got too blurry to see. Keliah stormed back to her dorm room where Meredith was just getting dressed.

“Hey, hey. What happened?”

Keliah slammed the paper down on her nightstand and began pacing her room with her lips pouted and her eyes dark.

“Keliah, talk to me. How’d it go with Georgia?”

Keliah stopped walking and turned around to face Meredith. “

Her father died! Her fucking father died over break. That’s how it went.”

“Okay, don’t get mad at me. But why exactly are you crying? You didn’t know him.”

“I did know him! All those times I came home late was because I was at the hospital with him. He was nice, he was friendly. He treated me with respect and now he’s just gone...whatever, that's not the point. Georgia doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve any of this. Why do all the good people get hurt? First you, now her. It’s not fucking fair.”

Keliah blew out a quick breath of air and plopped on her bed. Meredith came up in front of her and kneeled down to wipe her tears with her thumbs.

“I know. Nothing is fair and life but you’ve got to understand that things happen for a reason, okay? There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Keliah pouted at Meredith. Keliah had always been naïve. Even now, she still always saw the good in people even when there was mostly bad. She wanted to believe that all people were good; they just needed the right person in their life to show it. She was a big kid so when things happen to her like this, she didn’t know how to handle them well.

“She invited you to the funeral?”

Keliah nodded.

“Well that was very sweet of her, right?”

Keliah nodded again.

“See, you have to look at the bright side, okay?”

“Okay.”

Keliah mumbled and wiped her last set of tears away from her eyes.

“I’ve got to go to class but I’ll see you in a bit. We can go out somewhere and get your mind off of things.”

“Alright.”

Meredith kissed Keliah’s forehead before leaving out the door. Keliah cuddled in her bed and pulled the covers around her head. She needed to just escape her world for a moment and enter a peaceful state of sleep. When she woke up, she would feel better. She closed her eyes, sniffling a couple of times before dozing off into that calm state of mind.

***

Meredith put her sweatshirt hood on her head and kept her hands in her pockets as she walked to the café to grab some tea. The sun was missing and the sky was a bright grey. The wind blew softly and the leaves fell from the trees and landed around Meredith as she walked. This was the kind of weather Meredith called relaxing weather where she could just curl up in a chair and read for hours, take notes on the good morals and values she learned in the book and jot them down in her notebook to use for her daily life. Meredith removed her grey hood from her head as she stepped inside of the café and ordered a small cup of hot chai tea. She walked over to a near booth and slid into it, sipping her tea as she looked out the large glass window to watch people walking by.

“Mind if I sit?”

Gabrielle sat down anyway across from Meredith expecting her answer was going to be ‘no’ regardless of if she asked. Surprisingly Meredith didn’t say anything; instead she just stared at Gabrielle with a blank face.

“Are you a student here now or something?”

Meredith questioned. Gabrielle shook her head.

“No, I um…no, I’m not. I actually already got my degree taking online classes while in Sweden. I’m here because I want to sort things out with you.”

Gabrielle fiddled with her coffee cup, unable to look Meredith straight into the eyes.

“I thought I made myself clear, Gabrielle. There isn’t anything to sort out. You messed up, you left me and I’ve moved on. Done.”

Gabrielle looked up at Meredith with all hope lost in her pale eyes.

“But Meredith here me out- -”

“Gabrielle, you don’t have to explain yourself. I understand that you had a choice to make and you chose the one that you wanted the most. You don’t have to apologize to me for making a decision.”