zesty_pinto | "Friends"

It's happened: I finally must have entered the purely inspired zone from all my desperation and it in turn must have evolved into something grander... I say this... because I just got another story idea.

September twenty-first, two AM was when I got the phone call. I still remember parts of a dream where I was looking at the world from above and then it began to shatter in waves as I realized it was the phone.

"Are you Larry Bernaby?"

"Yes...?"

"I'm sorry, but this is the Police... A person we believe to be Marsha-Anne Greenburg was found dead at the scene of a hit and run off the corner of twelfth and thirty first and we need you to help identify the body." I couldn't believe that event four days ago, and I still find myself shaking today.

"She was a great kisser."

"Hmm?"

"Marsha. The best kisser in the world." Ben said it with a lonesome smile in funeral clothes that only made him look more lonesome than I thought.

"Heh, yeah..." I never knew her that well to say, but I just nodded.

I stood at the podium at that funeral and looked at all the men and women in front of that podium and knew that as I looked at them all I could not recognize any of them, yet everyone of them told me that I knew her more than any of them. ...perhaps they were right, though I could never really say.

"Marsha... Marsha she was-"

Marsha was only a friend. I met her in junior high. She needed help dragging a prop for her stage work and dance number. I obliged to help and she smiled and hugged me and thanked me with all her might into one big hug. It was the cutest smile I ever saw and I never felt so loved. She then told me her name was Marsha, she hated her parents, and wondered if I was interested in doing stage work.

In high school she became the most popular girl in her grade. She always was next by me but she always assured the guys that I was a friend. I helped her in "Othello," "Macbeth," and "Tommy" as a stage hand. She was the prom queen at the senior prom that I never attended since I had to help the family during my father's heart attack.

We split for college. I remember the third month at night. It was raining, she was making a commotion with the desk clerk at my dorm. She immediately ran to me at first sight and held me. I remember smelling the bourbon on her and told the desk attendant it was okay.

She was raped that night by some frat guys and she was crying. I offered her my bed, she offered a kiss, and the night that came was one I thought I would never expect to happen as she undressed me.

"Marsha... you're dru-"

"Shhhh..." she whispered before she kissed me with those drunken lips and gave me a night filled with pleasure.

The morning she was gone. A note was on the dresser that said "I'm sorry" I got a phone call later from her. She said it was the alcohol talking and that she never meant for it to be this way. She still wanted me as a friend, and that if it was any other way then it would only go worse. I could only accept her. She was only a friend, after all. Not too long after she dropped out and transfered to my college, pursuing her theatre exploits. I was too busy to help with the stage, but I did catch her in at least one performance each time, where she always blew me a kiss after each one.

When we left college, she was already proposed to by a guy and quickly married. She called me every time at 3PM while on the office, telling me her life and asking me for her advice. She went through three husbands. The fourth was her last one before the accident.

After the funeral, we met to drink.

"I always felt sorry about her illness."

"Illness?"

"She never told you? Breast cancer ever since she was 18. I thought everyone knew, though she never wanted to get rid of it until just recently. Felt really inferior about it. Now that I think about it... she once told me to never tell you."

I cried.