As Seth walked back to the love seat, he became dizzy and disoriented and fell hard to the floor. He didn’t know how much time he had left, but he knew he was dying. As he listened to the sad words of Phil Collins, he began to cry. As Seth lay there taking the last few breaths of his life, he’d never been sorrier for anything in his short life than what he put himself through in the months leading up to this moment.
After a few moments, Seth’s breathing became weaker, and he felt cold. With what little time he had left, he thought of Molly: her gorgeous amber eyes and her beautiful smile, her luscious, soft lips and her warm, welcoming hug.
Suddenly he could no longer hear the music and slowly closed his eyes.
At that moment, Molly and her new boyfriend, Aegeus, were in the middle of making love when she suddenly got the chills. “Aegeus, stop, please.”
“What, why?” Aegeus continued to pump into Molly.
Molly then became angry and pushed Aegeus away. “Goddamn it, Aegeus, I said stop!”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Molly sat up, covered herself with the blanket and began to shake. “That’s just it—I don’t know. For whatever reason, I lost the mood.”
Over the next couple of months, Molly really started to think about Seth. She didn’t know why; she thought it was strange.
On October 31, Molly woke up screaming from a nightmare. She sat up and began to cry. After half an hour she started to calm down. She reached for her cell phone and opened up her photo folder. She saw a photo of Seth and really missed him.
She cried again because she missed everything about him—his kisses and his deep, hearty laugh, his smile and the way he made her feel. She often referred to her and Seth as Johnny Cash and June Carter. And now looking back at their relationship, that couldn’t have been closer to the truth.
Seth, much like Johnny Cash, did everything in his power to get the girl of his dreams, the person he loved the most. And much like Johnny, Seth didn’t give up. Molly then switched to a picture of her and Aegeus, and she no longer felt anything for him. Sure, him having a job, money and a car was thrilling and exciting at first, but Aegeus, like Molly’s other boyfriends, didn’t give her the thing Molly wanted the most, the thing Seth excelled at over every other man in her life. Seth gave her true unconditional love.
That was one out of the many things that attracted her to Seth in the first place. But somewhere down the line, in the stress of her family telling her to get rid of him, she completely forgot this.
Right then and there, she decided to break up with Aegeus and get back together with Seth. She now realized everything Seth did was out of love. He really didn’t mean to hurt anybody at all.
It’s just that love can make people do peculiar things. Molly hoped Seth would take her back. She took a deep breath and texted Aegeus it was over between them and to never contact her again.
Then came the big one: what to say to Seth. What could she say? How do you apologize for completely ignoring somebody for four months? Molly took another deep breath and began her long apologetic text message.
The next day Molly had hundreds of texts, and a few voice mails from Aegeus, but nothing back from Seth. She thought that was strange, as Seth would always return texts within five minutes.
So Molly decided to text him again. After a couple of days passed, Molly was worried. This wasn’t like Seth at all. “If he’s still mad at me, or doesn’t want me in his life, he could’ve at least texted me back,” Molly said to herself.
Finally, on November 6, Molly gathered enough courage to drive to Seth’s house. She crept up the front porch steps.
A chilling, eerie feeling washed over her. She opened the screen door and knocked. She waited and waited, but there was no answer. She started to turn around when all of a sudden Mrs. Zimmer opened the door.
“Ah, hello, Mrs. Zimmer.”
Mrs. Zimmer stared at Molly.
Molly became incredibly uncomfortable. “It’s me, Molly Featherlite.”
“I know who you are. I’m just trying to figure out what you want.”
“Is Seth home? I really need to talk to him.”
Mrs. Zimmer slowly backed up and indicated Molly should enter. They entered the living room.
“Please,” Mrs. Zimmer said, “have a seat.”
Molly looked around the room. She realized Seth’s computer wasn’t on the desk, and a few other things of Seth’s weren’t present either.
“You know, you were the best thing that ever happened to Seth, but I’m sure you already knew that.”
Molly could tell by the tone in Mrs. Zimmer’s voice she was upset. “Mrs. Zimmer, I know you’re upset with me. All of you have the right to be. But if I could just talk to Seth, I really want to put this right.”
Mrs. Zimmer stared at Molly for a moment and became teary eyed. “You want to talk to Seth, eh?”
“Very much so.”
“Do you have a Ouija board?”
Molly’s eyes got wide, and a deep sadness fell over her; her stomach dropped, and her eyes got teary. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you have a Ouija board?”
Molly scratched her head in confusion. “Mrs. Zimmer, please forgive me. But I just don’t understand—”
“He’s dead! My baby boy is dead!” Mrs. Zimmer began to cry. She stood up and pointed at Molly. “And you killed him!”
Molly began to cry as well. “What? When? How?”
“Seth committed suicide on July 5, the evening you were supposed to have dinner with him. Imagine Betty’s welcome home surprise! Her dead rotting nephew in the middle of her sitting room.”
Both Molly and Mrs. Zimmer cried uncontrollably for a moment.
After a couple of minutes, Mrs. Zimmer walked over to the front door and opened it, signalling Molly to leave.
“If you want to see Seth, you have to visit Memory Gardens Cemetery, section I, plot 40.” Mrs. Zimmer slammed the door in Molly’s face.
The next day, after calming down, Molly took a little drive to the cemetery.
As she put her vehicle in park, she remembered the story Seth had told her months before. Everything that’s been happening this week, with the text messages and yesterday at the Zimmer home, Seth said would happen.
This was uncanny. To cheer herself up, Molly thought perhaps that this was all apart of an elaborate hoax that Seth was pulling on her, knowing he’d told her this story.
Molly wanted to get out of her vehicle and not see Seth’s name on the headstone. She slowly exited her Sportage and made her way to section I. As she made her way to plot 40, her stomach became twisted with a heavy, ripping pain.
When she came upon plot 40’s stone, there it was, Seth’s name carved in granite. It read
Seth Andrew Zimmer
June 15, 1990–July 5, 2014
Molly dropped to her knees and cried uncontrollably.
Growing Pains Page 21
