Chapter 106

Sean

"Oh? Who s over—?"

"Bethan. I m serious."

"What happened?" her tone changed.

I thought for a moment. "Have you ever seen a nuclear bomb go off?"

"Ralph…"

"The people in the center, they don t feel anything. One minute they re alive, the next, they re just ash. It s the people who are far away that really suffer."

"Ralph, I don t understand."

"A bomb went off today, and it was my fault. I saw the

Do Not Touch

sign, and I knew that if I did, that something bad would happen, but I just wanted to know what that something was, and then the bomb went off. I never expected it to be as bad as it was…"

"I m coming over," she said.

"No, I m fine."

"No you re not! Listen to yourself Ralph, you re talking crazy."

"I just want to go back to that week, everything was better that week," I said, talking more to myself than to her. "I ll call you later. I gotta go."