you have always liked girls that seem smarter than you. You see yourself studying a little bit too. After graduation it skips ahead to the part of life where you are in the job that you don’t much care for, but it was what was available for you after graduation with your liberal arts degree. You just scraped by and stared at your pencil barely listening to the monotonous sound of your supervisor’s voice as he went on about reports and your work ethic. You quit your job to pursue your passion and ended up doing well with it. You made more money and fame than you initially expected. You met your wife in a bookstore, just like you always dreamed, probably because you saw it on some television program or commercial and thought it was sweet and decided that it was how you wanted to meet your wife. You had two kids and you were happy that your dream of being an artist worked out so that you can afford to pay for your children’s liberal arts degree that you want them to pursue because it worked out for you. One did, one didn’t. One married a man far away and called on holidays coming home every other year with two kids of her own that look like different people every time. The other doesn’t even call. Was it what you said, that one time at Easter? You didn’t mean it. You regret it, but it’s no use. Her sister knows, but she swore she wouldn’t tell. She never did. She was always the honest one, even if it meant not lying, but not saying to you, her own father. It skips ahead again and you were retired, no longer able to paint as well due to arthritis, but you were happy enough to be living in your family home spending day after day going to coffee and then reading and then watching the 5 o’clock news with your wife and occasionally having dinner parties or going to dinner parties until finally one day you were driving along, three years after it was probably safe for you to be behind the wheel of a car when your heart stopped.
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