More often than not, I slept through every kind of storm. It drove everyone in my family crazy due to the fact they would be wide awake from the very first thunderclap. It was a rare night when all of them could go back to sleep. The night I woke up with a storm raging all around my small cottage, I knew there must have been another sound to have woken me up.
I slowly sat up in my bed and waited for my eyes to adjust to the gathering darkness. The longer the seconds ticked on without the clicking of Sam’s nails across the wood floor, I knew something serious was happening. My dog always checked on me if I got out of bed at night. I silently reached for the pepper spray I always kept next to my bed and had a moment of panic when I realized it wasn’t there. Where could it have gone? I didn’t ever move the pepper spray and since I lived alone, I couldn’t blame a roommate for not returning it. Had someone been in my house? Had the dog managed to bump it off my night stand? The more I searched, the more panicked I became. When I heard a second window break, I knew my past had finally caught up with me. The sins of my family were amplified by my final act of atrocity. I just never thought I’d be caught for my actions from so long ago.
Standing Room Only 