“You cheated on me, Eli,” I barely get the words out. “You did that. You hurt me a million times, over and over again.Youbroke us.”
He looks sad for a moment, then locks the emotions back up, throwing away the key. He hitsthe gun against the steering wheel hard, making me jump.
“I know,” he shouts. “I fucking know, Lydia! I don’t—” He chokes on the words. “I don’t know why I fucked up so badly with you. I just—” He drags a hand down his face. His knuckles are visibly scraped, like he hit something—a brick wall by the looks of it. “I needed to know you were mine. That you wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t have you leave me.”
This irrational anger suddenly takes over. I don’t know where it comes from. “What does that have to do with fucking Katie?” I spit her name out like it tastes bad. “Huh? Tell me. Explain that math.”
He looks at me, the tear on his cheek catching the dash-light. “She was just easy,” he says, and I want to vomit. “Always has been. It didn’t—” He shakes his head like he’s erasing his own thought. “It didn’t mean anything. I just was having a bad—” He looks away, jaw tight. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t mean shit, Lydia. She was just there. Just a distraction. One I hate myself for taking.”
“That’s the worst fucking excuse I’ve ever heard.”
His head snaps toward me. “Shut up.”
“No.” The word tastes like blood. “You’re a piece of shit who made me fall in love with you just so you could destroy me…just so you could hurt me in whatever fucked up way you were hurting on your own.”
The hit is so fast I don’t even see it coming. He cracks me in the temple with the gun, and white burns across my vision. Pain erupts, fast and excruciating. Blood drips through my fingers as I hold my head.
“Fuck you,” I say with all the strength I have. “If you’re going to kill me, do it! What do I have left? You took everything from me, Eli!”
He laughs, almost delighted, like I finally said the right thing. He sets the tip of the gun against my temple, like a gentle kiss. The world narrows to a point the size of that barrel. I can’t move. I can’t…move. Part of me thinks he won’t. But a louder part of my brain knows he will.
He watches me, like he’s memorizing the way I beg with just my eyes. “I’m going to miss your pretty face,” he murmurs. “Your mouth. The way you cry for me. The way you moaned my name.”
“Stop,” I cry.
He leans over and kisses me. I go still because my brain is telling me that not fighting him will equal safety. His breath smells like beer. I taste the salt, and want to gag. The gun isn’t on my head anymore, which should make me feel relieved, but it doesn’t.
He pulls back. “But that’s not how this is gonna go,” he says softly. He reaches down, cracks a new beer, and chugs it, throat working, eyes on the windshield like he’s watching a movie only he’s in. The can clatters out the window onto the rocks.
“Eli,” I say, and this time it’s an actual prayer. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“I told you I couldn’t live without you,” he says, almost tenderly. “I told you I wouldn’t.”
My body is shaking, and my heart wants to beat its way out of my chest. “No.”
“You know, my original plan was to kill you first,” he goes on casually as my hand slides toward the door. He notices, flicking his eyes down, and the smallest smile appears. “Don’t,” he says. “Not yet. I want you to hear me.”
My hand freezes. My whole body is one long held breath.
“I thought…I thought I’d kill you first and then myself.” He tilts his head like he’s studying something that’s not there. “Together forever. Poetic, right?”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please.Pleasedon’t do this. We can fix things. I’ll—I’ll come back. I’ll—” The desperation in my voice disgusts me as it pours out. I would promise anything right now. I would promise him the fucking moon if it would make him stop.
“It’s too late,” he says. “I know you don’t love me anymore. I’ve made my peace with it all.” He lifts the gun, but not toward me this time. He angles it, rests the base under his chin, and every muscle in my body locks so hard my teeth hurt.
“No!” I yell, grabbing for his arm. He jerks away. “Eli,please. Please don’t!”
He’s so calm, so fucking calm that it scares me. “I thought a better way to make you understand,” he says, explaining this like it’s all so simple, “what you did to me, how you broke me when you left…” He smiles, “would be for you to have to suffer like I suffered.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t do this to you,” I sob. “You did this.You—”
He doesn’t hear me…or he does and doesn’t care. He looks out the windshield, at the bridges, at the distant city, like he’s assembling some fucked up final shot of a film. “It’s poetic,” he repeats. “One day, you’ll look back on this and see how poetic it was. That I saved you from me, I killedmyself…but really…I’ll be killing you every day for the rest of your life.”
A song starts to play in my head, drowning out every single thought in this moment. It’s a song I remember my mom always playing when I was little. It’s such a random memory. It plays like a soft, sweet, painful love song.
The lyrics from A Song for You by Leon Russell repeat over and over as time slows. The lyrics about being alone together, and him confessing that he treated her unkindly, but still loves her.
It’s fucking cruel, really…
