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- It was a year ago that I was walking home from that first-time homebuyers class and looking at the clouds, which were amazing. When I got home, the puppy's roommate's friend was outside our gate, standing in the street and smoking a cigarette. We exchanged pleasantries and talked about the clouds and I'm glad I didn't say they looked like blood, which I'd kind of been thinking, and instead said it looked like fire. At that point in time his sister had been dead for a couple hours, although he didn't know that for sure yet and was on his way to the police station to find out. I knew something was weird but didn't know exactly what, but as soon as I saw the puppy's roommate's face I knew. I'd seen the breaking news headline, I knew what was going on. A few weeks later I went to some conference and someone from the YWCA gave a talk about domestic violence and kept referring to "survivors". I know the word "victim" carries certain associations and it's empowering for some people to think of themselves as "survivors" rather than "victims". But "survivors" only refers to the people who lived and some people don't live so when you talk about "survivors" you're excluding the ones who didn't survive. This has nothing to do with me, I have no business getting upset about it, but when I was sitting there listening to the talk I felt like I might have a panic attack. Her brother is a wreck, the puppy's roommate keeps saying. Well, how could he be otherwise? I don't know. The last time I saw him he seemed okay, he talked about good memories he had with her before she'd "passed" and I thought that seemed very healthy. But of course he'd be a wreck now, of course he'd be a wreck always. I don't have any idea how you'd deal with that. I never met her or anyone else who was involved that night but their deaths have - oh, what can I say? Had a big impact? That sounds so fucking stupid. The police officers went over to her brother's house last night to tell him that they were still so upset about it. It's still so upsetting.
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