Alicia Atkins

Things that would sting.

Particularly her.

Probably because we had been so close.

I didn't even intend to make her crazy.

Unlike my social manipulations at school, the anger Alicia directed toward me came out of no particular ill will on my part.

I simply was.

And that drove her nuts.

In retrospect, I expect that lining up her behavior and mindset with my own at that age would have shown a hell of a lot of parallels.

All the complaints levied at her from Mom and Dad could have been cribbed directly from a list of things that they said to me at the same age.

Alicia was acting like an asshole.

And in that, at least she was exactly like me.

Going to school and then into the workforce had taught me to hide the rawest edges of my unpleasantness.

I could appear to be a terrific friend and co-worker when I wanted to.

And it wasn't even always an awful way to be.

I wondered if Bertrand had mellowed with age.

The drives and compulsions he was subject to becoming mere suggestions from a part of the brain gradually being phased out.

I thought I might be mellowing.

And then I moved home.

and Alicia reminded me of who I was.

Her angry outburst at me and others in the house started to take on the sound of the words in Bertrand's diary, if not the tone.