My cousin may have been the devil and I gave the world to him.

My cousin, let’s call him Sam, was the most charming man I had ever met. He had a way with words and could talk his way out of anything. Not just debates or arguments. I’m talking out of speeding tickets, jobs, and even jail. I was the son of a preacher man and he was the product of divorce. His father was a pastor like mine and his mother was the wife of another pastor. His parents parted ways when he was just a baby and he never really got to see them for they were preoccupied with getting remarried. So Sam came to live with us for a few years. Most people wouldn’t call their cousin charming enough to get out of anything but Sam was that freaking cool. I’ve never seen anyone like him. Not just his words. Just his presence. He was always clean. He always tanned. I’ve thought about him probably well over a million times and I’ve never seen but one speck of imperfection ever. That being a small birthmark. It was shaped like a heart but upside down. It rested on his right cheek. It was black and about the size of a pea. So one day Sam gets in a fight with some other kids near our house. He was only about 11 but he had already way surpassed me in height. He had to be one of the biggest 11 year olds I’ve ever seen. He gets into a tussle with about 7 kids. I’m not joking either but he was still smiling while he was fighting them. It was scary to say the least. But he gets in trouble, tussling isn’t allowed. Not in our neighborhood which consisted of mostly churchgoers. To tussle was a sin. He gets a ticket. So we come up to the officer that gave him the ticket and he hands it to him. As Sam is looking at it he says “Officer Sindle, why are you so mean?” The officer looks at Sam and then gives him the ticket back and says “I’m just tiring of watching you young one. Make sure to be careful tussling I wouldn’t stand a chance to save you!” So we walk away. I said “Sam, you just got your first ticket and you just talked your way out of it!” He just smirked. That’s what he did. He just smirked. He didn’t say anything. He just acted like he did nothing. But he did something. I can’t deny it but he did something. So days go by and we become closer. We are inseparable. So we play games and talk about things we like. He didn’t like much but he seemed to like my friends and family. Especially my friends. So we get older. He was always bigger than me. He was always stronger. But he just always looked the same age. He was always pretty much near the same size. But he always seemed the same age. He had a way with people. I shouldn’t say that. I should say a way with women. He was always near the women. They loved him. He was always near my mother. My grandmother. My friends gave tittle-tattle about him being a bad boy and it only drew them in more. He just always seemed so cool. But he would always have this smirk. I don’t know how to describe it. The smirk he has. He just always smirks. So one day I get kicked out of the church. As I’m leaving I stand outside. And there’s Sam but today he doesn’t smirk. He’s just standing there. Looking at me. I say “Sam what are you doing here?” He says, “I’ve been waiting for this moment, for a very long time.” And I ask “What moment?” And he says “The moment you trusted me completely.” I ask “What do you mean?” He says, “You just gave me the world.” As he says that I don’t feel anything much so I ask “What do you mean?” He says, “You just gave me the world.” He had this smirk. I’ve never seen him smirk like that. It was the same but different. I’ve never seen him smirk like that before. It was the same smirk but also different. It was his but I’ve never seen it like that. I said “What do you mean?” He says, “You just gave me the world.” And he tucks his hair behind his ear and it reveals that mark. I had never seen it before. I thought about but I never saw it. The mark was gone. And for the first time I didn’t see Sam as my cousin. I saw him as a stranger. And with that my world went black. When I woke up I was in a ditch, alone, and naked. So I walked the road. I didn’t know where to go. I was miles away from my house. But I had a phone and I called my friend and gave tittle-tattle about Sam. And how he was the devil. I just ranted. He just listened. And when he called me the next day I thought it was so strange that I said all of that. And I just chalked it up to drinking. And I said the next day, “Hey I’m sorry about last night but it was just too much.” He said “What do you mean?” I said “I went on about Sam.” He said “I don’t know who that is.” I said, “My cousin.” He said “I’ve never heard of him.” I said “So you can’t tell me if he’s the devil?” He says “No.” I said “I feel crazy.” And he says “I thought you’ve been crazy since the first day I met you.” I laughed and said “What do you mean?” He says “You don’t talk to anyone. You’ve never had an opinion. It’s just weird. We’re a Christian church and yet you’re one of the ugliest people there. And you tittle-tattle about your cousin being the devil? I’ve never heard you speak so much.” To me tittle-tattle is just talking about anything that is inconsequential and doesn’t matter but today I guess it meant something different. Today it meant something more. I’ve always thought of tittle-tattle to just be meaningless speech but to him it meant something else. I asked him “Was there anything else I said?” He says “Yes. You said you gave him the world.”

My cousin may have been the devil and I gave the world to him.

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