"Goodnight, don't let the bedbugs bite," her mother said, tucking her in tightly.
"Bedbugs?," Julia asked, her voice trembling.
Her mother said not to worry, it was just an expression.
"Besides," her mother continued, "our house is much too clean to have bedbugs. So no need to worry about them."
"Shouldn't we maybe vaccuum the mattress first, just to be sure, Julia said, kicking at the heavy down comforter.
Her mother lay a hand against her forehead and brushed the hair back from Julia's eyes. She sat down on the bed.
"You just want to stay up and watch television,"...
Good night…
Good morning…
Good afternoon…
Chet had to find his own fun while working as a department-store greeter. Sometimes he said “Good evening” instead of “Good night” to the fancier-looking customers. Sometimes he said it to the disreputable customers, too, but a bit sarcastically, to see if they’d pick it up on it. They usually didn’t.
Every now and then Chet would greet someone with the wrong time of day. “Good afternoon, sir,” he’d say, as the sun was peeking over the mountains. “Good night, ma’am,” while the sun was burning hot overhead. And usually people just continued on...
"Goodnight." He bid her as they paused at her gate.
He was not like the other guys she had led down this path. She hadn't walked too close, occasionally letting their arms brush. She hadn't turned suddenly, stepping closer to him. She hadn't looked up at him out of the corner of her eye and silently willed him to kiss her.
He was not like the other guys because she was not going to stretch her hand out as she lifted the latch on the gate. She was not going to pull him up the path as she turned the...
Goodnight... I didn't think I would wake up. Well, maybe I did. Seventeen pills ought to have done it. It didn't. I guess I had known that. My sophomore-year project on suicide told me that. That seventeen wasn't enough. And I shouldn't have told anyone either. I got dragged to a counselor in front of my crying father (who never cries). I got dragged to a therapist, whom, thank God, realized the insanity of my life, and my mother (who refused to talk about her issues). Maybe I would have gone a different route, used talking, anything else, other than...