I could have killed her. I could have taken an ax, or a shotgun, or a knife or cudgel, and ended her right then and there. And back then I loved Krystal. She was my friend. My family.

But when she stood at the door and looked at my secret heart, without permission, something inside me withered.

She stepped into the room, transfixed, her fright forgotten. She stared and stared at the dozens of framed articles, photographs, the T-shirts. A large macaroni art mural—a replica of one of the cast photos—hung framed on the wall, and I had used different colors of macaroni in the nature-craft style of the 1970s, which had given it a funky pop-art psychedelic effect, and it was something I had been so proud of up until this moment as her judging eyes took it in, ruining it.

Krystal turned toward me, her eyes full of wonder. A shadow of pride flickered within me, but it drowned in the rage and embarrassment of being seen. Anger was the only thing that kept me looking her in the eyes.

“This is what you’ve been up to? This?” she demanded.

It was not a rhetorical question, but I let her sit on it, anyway, all words gone from me, until a few meek ones slid out: “. . . none of your business.”

That really got her going. “You’re freaking crazy,” she told me. “You know that? You win a billion dollars, and you’re spending it on this dumb shit. You’re really a piece of work, Bonnie. I’ve tried to help you—”

(and at this I almost ha!’d out loud. Her? Helping me?)

“—but now I know you’re just crazy. You’re just—just—” She was choking on it. “You’re pathetic.”

Then time slowed down as I watched her pick up one of the smaller frames sitting on a shelf near the door and threw it. Threw it! It missed the bedroom window by a hair, but knocked down some of the other frames that sat near it and the glass broke in all of them.

I felt all the blood in my body go to my feet. My mind groped wildly for a gun, a knife, any killing weapon. What could I use? What could I use to kill her? But I could think of nothing, my stupid feet glued to the floor.

She stormed past me and left, slamming the front door. Then a large thump of a car door, and her car leaving soon after.

I remained in the hallway, panting. Sweat sprouted off me, and I tingled from head to toe. Slowly, I started moving. I went to the kitchen first to get a drink of water. The fridge door was still hanging open, so I shut it, and closed all the blinds.

Looking back, it was quite the soap opera scene. Silence pulsed in its aftermath. If I really listened I could hear the white noise of neighbors a hundred yards away laughing, clinking beer bottles on their porch. The walls were thin. They had probably heard everything, which only added to my shame. I collapsed into my recliner and a wave of drowsiness passed over me so powerful that I blacked out for a while. When I woke it was the middle of the night. I fired up the DVD machine, trying to forget I was a human being confined to this one life cycle, this one lousy history.