“Oh, I don’t know. That I thought I saw my friend die in front of me today? And that I was happy he wasn’t dead? And I wanted him to know it?” “Drop the sarcasm, young lady, and the dramatics. A lip lock was totally inappropriate.” “Now who’s being dramatic?” I fumed. And so the conversation went, around and around, all the way home. I knew Aunt Dwill wasn’t really mad at me, and I wasn’t mad at her. But we just couldn’t let it go. The doctor would have called it after-shock. She had warned us while we waited for Zach’s dad that Zach might be irritable for a few days, and that would be why. The formal name was post-traumatic stress. I slammed into the lighthouse keep and up the stairs to my room. I bypassed the bed, though a good tantrum into the pillows might feel good right about now, and plopped instead into the rocker by the window. The sea called to me. Waves crashed as the tide came in and the weather started to turn. A storm brewed, but nothing could match the tempest inside me.
