{"id":453,"date":"2010-02-13T17:25:57","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T00:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/?p=453"},"modified":"2010-02-13T17:25:57","modified_gmt":"2010-02-14T00:25:57","slug":"short-fiction-saturday-he-completes-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/short-fiction-saturday-he-completes-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Fiction Saturday &#8211; He Completes Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The following bit of flash fiction was written in response to a Valentine&#8217;s Day Prompt.\u00a0 Enjoy.\u00a0 The Prompt is now closed.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/longridgewritersgroup.com\" class=\"broken_link\">Long Ridge Writers Group <\/a>has a newsletter you can join if you like short fiction prompts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">He Completes Me<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou just don\u2019t get it,\u201d Jade slumped on the stool and cradled her head in the crook of her arm. \u201cHe completes me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tracy chopped at the carrots and absently scooped them up and into a bowl, like a pharmacist funneling pills into a prescription bottle.<\/p>\n<p>Tracy prayed that her daughter would never have to experience a love so deep or a life so twisted by fate that this new lover would complete her.<\/p>\n<p>Jade was a love child, a surprise, a happy mishap. Jade came into the world as a glue, to bind two insincere people together.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Tracy and Steve had struggled, separated, reunited, settled in and at last became comfortable. Without a child to share they would have parted lives before they even started.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, Tracy had to leave her job at the pharmacy to work the other side of the prescription bottle. When dialysis became too much for her body, it was Steve who stepped up.<\/p>\n<p>The doctors said they were a \u201cmatch made in heaven.\u201d Friends and family romanticized the situation. In sickness Tracy and Steve had found a bond tighter than their love child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, he completes me,\u201d Tracy whispered as she set the pot to boil. Steve died of an embolism, a clot in his heart, on Valentine\u2019s Day and no one seemed to understand the sincerelessness that Tracy felt. She knew the love her daughter spoke of for just a few weeks before death parted them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, Jade,\u201d she began as she set the cutting board in the sink. \u201cI get it more than you\u2019ll ever know.\u201d A tiny wave of envy swept through Tracy\u2019s recovering body. She reached for her prescription bottle and clutched it tight to her chest. \u201cMore than you know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cYou know, Jade,\u201d she began as she set the cutting board in the sink. \u201cI get it more than you\u2019ll ever know.\u201d A tiny wave of envy swept through Tracy\u2019s recovering body. She reached for her prescription bottle and clutched it tight to her chest. \u201cMore than you know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,89],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fiction","tag-flash-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Short Fiction Saturday - He Completes Me - don&#039;t Touch Anything Sharp<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/short-fiction-saturday-he-completes-me\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Short Fiction Saturday - He Completes Me - don&#039;t Touch Anything Sharp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"\u201cYou know, Jade,\u201d she began as she set the cutting board in the sink. \u201cI get it more than you\u2019ll ever know.\u201d A tiny wave of envy swept through Tracy\u2019s recovering body. 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It will probably be on CNN before the end of the day. Sure, they\u2019ll blur it a little to save the public\u2019s eyesight, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fiction Friday&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Fiction Friday","link":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/category\/fiction-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":162,"url":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/flash-fiction-friday\/","url_meta":{"origin":453,"position":5},"title":"Flash Fiction Friday","author":"Sally","date":"June 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A Life Less Lived A bedraggled plant sits on a windowsill like the first line of an unfinished poem. A leaf flutters to the sill in silent testament to a life less lived. A body identified as Mrs. Campbell was discovered this morning after a mail carrier reported a suspicious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sally Light&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sally Light","link":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/category\/sallylight\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Successor Service Dog from Canine Companions for Independence","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/100_4478-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallyfranklinchristie.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}