Free Whispers from the Past by Elizabeth Langston

livestock.”
    I finally stirred, not happy with the direction of this conversation, but not sure how to stop it without making a bigger deal out of it than it already was.
    Gabrielle’s eyes widened. “Did you…prepare your own meat?”
    Susanna nodded. “The men of the village would slaughter the hogs and deer, but I handled the chickens, fish, and rabbits.”
    “Rabbits?” Gabrielle’s face had gone pale.
    Did Susanna really have to go there? I stood up abruptly. “Are you off now?”
    She stared up at me for a long moment before rising slowly. “Let me get my things.” She collected our dirty dishes, over my protest, and disappeared into the back.
    After Gabrielle’s driver took us back to her house, Susanna and I switched to the truck and rode in complete silence to Marissa’s apartment. When we arrived, I put the truck in park but didn’t turn off the engine. She undid her seatbelt and then turned to face me.
    Frowning, I said, “I’ve never heard you talk so much about your past.”
    “It is nice for a change to be asked about subjects that I know how to answer.”
    “And you sure did answer.” I snorted. “Did you have to mention the rabbits?”
    “You chide me for speaking too little.” Her tone was defensive. “Now shall I be chided for speaking too much?”
    “No, but you could try speaking about important things to me.” Why did it feel like she was always spoiling for a fight lately? “I didn’t know you don’t want to go to college.”
    “Have I ever expressed an interest?”
    “No. It’s just…” In Susanna’s previous life, there had been no expectation for her or any girl to get much education. Going to college would have been unthinkable, but it wasn’t unthinkable now. In fact, just the reverse. I’d assumed that she’d be like all of my friends. Of course we went to college. And somehow along the way, we figured out what we wanted to be.
    Susanna didn’t want to be anything other than what she was already, and I didn’t know how to approach that. She seemed to enjoy learning. Maybe she didn’t understand the possibilities.
    Could I get her to reconsider? What would she do if I tried? And why couldn’t she have waited until we were alone to drop this bomb on me?
    “Will you finish your thought, Mark?”
    “Just wondering why tonight you found so many ways to point out how different you are.”
    She shrank away from me and clutched at the handle to the door. “It seems to me that, when you are different, you don’t have to point it out. It is obvious. This is why I rarely talk with your friends. I do not look like them, think like them, or act like them.”
    The door clicked open and she slid out.
    We weren’t through, yet there she was again, running away from an argument.
    When I caught up, she was jamming her key in the door.
    “Why are you being like this, Susanna?”
    She stopped struggling with the lock and rested her forehead against the door. “It is too hard for me to fit into your world.”
    “Not if you keep trying.”
    “I am tired of trying. The effort changes me in ways I do not like.”
    “I’m not asking you to change.”
    She shook her head over and over. “You do not ask, but it’s what you expect. I have to watch every word I say and measure them against rules that I don’t know.”
    I had no answer to that, but it sure hurt to hear. Gently, I took the key from her hand and unlocked the door. She stepped inside.
    “Susanna?” She stopped but didn’t look my way. “I don’t want us to say good-bye while we’re pissed.”
    Her head bowed. “Nor do I.”
    “I want you to smile when you’re around my friends. I want you to smile around me .”
    “I want to feel like smiling.” The words whispered past me as the door closed.

    I forgot to set my alarm clock but, thankfully, woke with a start at my normal bike training time. It was later than I’d wanted to leave for the beach, but it was still doable. I hurried through my shower