Deadly Part Five: Pride (Revelations)

 “I can cover lunch,” Peggy offered once they had finished their pasta.

Beth was offended. “Don’t you think I can buy my own linguine?” she demanded.

“I think you paid last time. I thought it was my turn,” Peggy explained.

“Well, you can take it this time, but next time lunch is on me,” Beth promised, but in her head she had already decided to cut ties with Peggy. How dare she assume that Beth was too broke to buy pasta? Never mind that she was right.

The next morning, she visited the closest coffee house and ordered a latte and a bagel with cream cheese. The stupid barista got her name wrong, putting “Bess” instead of “Beth” on the cup. Then he almost forgot her bagel. She resolved to walk the extra six blocks to the next shop up, not realizing that it was owned by the same people and did not offer bagels.

She was out on the sidewalk, headed to work, when she saw a woman crawling out of an alleway ahead. She appeared to be injured somehow; there was blood on her hands. Not wanting to get involved, she stepped right over the woman. Or tried to. The woman suddenly had her hand around Beth’s ankle, and everything around them had disappeard, leaving nothing but blackness in all directions.

The wounded woman stood up and faced Beth. Now she wore a hospital gown. She was disfigured and bleeding from multiple wounds, some looking like gunshot craters, some burn marks, some slashes as if from a knife. The lower half of one leg was bloated and blue in color, as if waterlogged. The other leg was broken; there was bone protruding through the skin. How she remained standing, Beth did not know.

“Bethany,” the maimed woman said, “we need to talk. You are commiting the sin of Pride. I am here to offer you redemption, should you choose it.”

Behind the woman, a stained-glass window appeared out of nowhere. It was a depiction of the woman before her, but with Beth’s face. The apparition gestured to Beth to follow her as she walked right through the window. It shattered when she made contact with it, but reassembled itself once she had passed through. Beth went after, flinching from cuts which never came.

Emerging from the portal, she saw that they were in her little house. On the kitchen table was a birthday cake with her name on it. One slice had been taken out. There was a single plate and fork in the sink, but the kitchen was otherwise immaculate.

Behind them, the door opened. They turned around and a woman who looked exactly like Beth came in with a grocery bag in her arms. She looked about forty, twenty years older than Beth was now.

“It’s your birthday,” the spirit told her, “and nobody cares. You drove away all of your friends and disowned them for petty reasons. Look at where your pride has gotten you. When you die, miserable and alone with no friends or loved ones to mourn your passing, you will spend eternity suffering great wounds and begging for help but being ignored, just as you tried to ignore me. Now let me show you what happens if you accept what I am offering you.”

The stained-glass window was still behind them. After walking back through it, they were in a coffee shop. There was another twenty-year-old Beth sitting opposite a young woman that she used to date. Her name was Jocelyn. She and the other Beth were holding hands across the table and engaged in intense conversation.

“I never knew that you stopped talking to me because of the taquitos. I always thought you were bored with me or had found somebody else,” Jocelyn was saying.

“I can’t believe I was so petty,” said Beth. “You were the best thing that ever happened to me and I would love to be back in your life, if you’ll have me.”

“I’ve missed you. I never really got over you,” the other woman responded. “I’d love to start seeing you again.”

Pride laid her hand on Beth’s shoulder. “You and Jocelyn date for a while, then move in together. Eventually, you get married and buy a house. You adopt a dog and live happily with one another until you die and are re-united beyond the Veil.” She brushed Beth’s forehead with the tip of a finger. “Bethany Marie Lake, it is your choice.”

Beth looked at the tableau before her, then at the embodiment of Pride. Then she tilted her head up and said, “You can’t tell me what the future will be, and you can’t tell me what to do. Stick your offer.”

Twenty years later, sitting at her kitchen table in the one chair because she never needed another one, Beth cut a single slice out of the birthday cake she treated herself to every year. With one slice a day, it would last a while. She had poured a cup of coffee to accompany the cake, and before taking a sip, she raised the cup as if in a toast.

“Here’s to me,” she declared, and then broke down sobbing.