Devonne Brown

“Do I know you?” they both asked simultaneously, then laughed. Susan stepped backwards two steps. That laugh of his was more familiar than his face and all the warmth and funny drained out of it. She didn’t like the way she felt at all. She held a smile on her face. Maybe it wasn’t him. They were in third grade together and didn’t even sit close together, didn’t even have the same reading group. A lot of years and a lot of things can happen since third grade.

“Excuse me,” Susan looked at her watch and went through the crowded foyer of the hotel and to the meeting room. She got her name tag and tote full of pamphlets and bookmarks, and went to find a drink. The chance encounter with her past made her nervous. Surely that couldn’t have been Tom the demon child from the old neighborhood. He still scared her.

“Like birds?” A voice from behind her asked. Shit. He’d recognized and remembered her.  Remembered everything from the sound of it. 

“Do you chronicle your adventures now?”she asked. 

“How did you know?” There was venom in his voice. This is a writer’s conference. “I’m the keynote speaker. Look,” He showed her his smiling face in the advertisement. She couldn’t believe he had used his powers of evil for fodder for his words. God knows how he’d researched his horror stories. 

“You’re a monster, Tom,”

“You still have your panties in a twist because I made you watch me drown that baby bird for you. I was just showing off and you didn’t appreciate it. C’mon. Stay. I used that in one of my first best sellers. It was a great story. It was even a scene in a movie, of course no animals were harmed in the making of the film. They have laws about that.” He laughed hard.

“You’re so full of shit, you always have been, let go of my arm, I don’t need to hear about horror writing,” said Susan. 

“What do you need, Susan? A way to pay your bills? I can help with that.” Tom raised his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx.

Susan couldn’t get the memory of Tom drowning that helpless baby bird out of her mind. All over again, she watched it struggle to get out from between his two fingers as he held it under the pond water. She felt as trapped as it was that afternoon. Did anyone else know what kind of monster this famous author really was? She hoped he didn’t have a family to torture. 

Susan had never told anyone about the baby bird. No one would have believed her. Tom was the cool kid at school, she was the quiet nerd. Maybe if she’d said something he wouldn’t be famous now. She felt guilty, dirty.

She felt his eyes on her as she left the hotel, and heard the applause for Tom as he took the stage. Life just wasn’t fair, was it?