confession.
“I…uh…umm.”
“Go ahead Jake. We’re all here to help,” said Safora softly.
“Uhhh…I…”
“Just tell us the truth Jake.”
Silence.
Explosion.
“Goddamn you Charly! You were the only girl I ever loved! How
could you hurt me the way you did? I finally thought I had found
someone that could love me for what I am, and you betrayed me!”
I couldn’t believe my own ears. These were not the words the
therapy group was supposed to hear today. The most shocking aspect
of the whole situation, wasn’t the words themselves, but the fact that
they weren’t coming from my mouth, but from the mouth of Oscar
Turnbull.
“What?” I screamed at him.
“Keep going, Ossscar. You’re doing fine,” said Safora, shooting
me a controlling glance.
“You bitch!” he continued, “All my life I thought I would find a
girl like you, one that could finally give me the affection I’ve sought
all my life, and you had to go off home to your cheating boyfriend
back home!” He started to cry, and the sympathy from the group was
so thick you could choke on it.
“Bastard!”I screamed.
It all fell together now like a spiral of collapsing dominoes. Here
was the man that was responsible for my disease, and the disease of
the girl I loved. Here was my mold-blooded killer. Here was the
murderer of my love and my life, Oscar Turnbull. I knew he’d
traveled a lot but I didn’t know he’d traveled to Africa, and I didn’t
know he’d traveled inside Charly.
“Bastard!” I screamed again.
“Don’t interrupt, Mr. Rippy.”
“And all the while, you were only interested in me because I was
wearing the same boots your lying boyfriend wore.” He looked over
at my boots. “Yeah, just like the one’s Jake has. Well, I burned those
fucking clodhoppers! I hate them and you and him and myself
and…!”
My fingers clamped down on his throat, cutting off any more of
the bile spewing from his foaming mouth.
In accordance with Oscar’s theory about traveling coincidences,
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
194
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