Hard Beat

“It was my birthday.” Those first words are the hardest to get out, namely the admission that I was the cause of Stella’s death. “I told Stella not to make a big deal about it, that we’d have a little celebration at the bar later. I told her that I wanted to Skype with my family and have the party downstairs and I was more than happy with that. She agreed…” My voice trails off as I recall the look on her face, the sound of her voice as she promised me that she wouldn’t do anything else because the city had been in some major unrest with the opposition making a few daring assaults in the city to make its power known.