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fiction
SCRAP PAPER HEARTS words Liesel Schmidt image Africa Studio/Shutterstock
THE FINALE This is the finale of a two-part fictional story. Part one was
Sophie made it through those next few months somehow.
featured in our October issue.
The funeral and the accident reports and the police
Because of that one day,
reports. There were stacks of unopened sympathy cards that one horrible moment,
that she wanted to burn—she wanted to smell the smoke
Sophie’s mother would never be there to hold her when
and watch the flames writhe in their hot red, orange and
she needed comforting, never be there to listen, never be
yellow dance. She wanted to burn away all the pain. She
there to see her fall in love or walk down the aisle. There
knew it would always be there, though, forever tattooed
would never be any more laughter or the beautiful sound
on her heart. And her life would never be the same, never
of her mother’s voice.
resemble the life she’d been living before that phone call. Still, she’d learned to move past it, to box it up and put it
Never.
in a drawer, safe from sight.
It was ironic how closely related never and forever had
Until that day. The drawer was upended, the box ripped
become in her mind.
open and spilled. And all it had taken was one little piece DOSOUTHMAGAZINE.COM
