Page 27 of Overkill

He stood there for a moment and looked at me. Really looked at me.

Then he opened his mouth and surprised me.

“I was born into a fundamentalist Christian family. At least…I was born to a mom who was pretty fundamentalist. I don’t mean like she read the Bible and followed it, but she cherry-picked it, called everyone who didn’t believe what she believed devils and Satan worshippers, and raised us to believe anyone who didn’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, you were going to Hell.” He bit his lower lip, then took the leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders, helping me put it on. “I was…born into a cult.”

“Oh.” I had no idea. I was completely surprised!

“I believed a lot of it, too. For awhile, at least.”

“I have a hard time imagining that.”

He wasn’t judgmental—as far as I could tell—and he was charitable, kind. Not the there’s no hate like Christian love kind of person…

“Well, I was.”

He looked at me, and I wondered for a moment if he was checking for my reaction, to see if maybe he had freaked me out. He hadn’t. I’d known worse families. I was a part of one…

“To reorganize my brain, I read about other religions.” He pulled up the collar of the jacket, then swiped his index finger on my cheek as if he just felt like touching me. And I liked that. “There are common core principles understood by most cultures and most religions. I like to think of them as humanity. I want to understand what makes a person good, not just in one dogma, but in all of them, so I can figure out how to embody them.”

He took my hand in his, and I kept my eyes on him as he led me through the parking lot, to the front entrance.

“I’m not a good guy sometimes. And I want to know why I did some of the things I did.”

“I think you’re a great guy,” I said honestly.

“I’m not. But I’d like to be good enough to you.”

Why did that hit me so hard? Why did it make my eyes sting? Why did the thought of someone trying to be decent to me, and for me, sound like the most romantic thing I’d ever heard?

Weightlessly following him in, I heard him talk to the receptionist. But it wasn’t until a woman with a lab coat and a badge escorted us into a freezing room, where rows and rows of metal drawers held the dead, that I remembered the grim task ahead of me.

They opened one. I didn’t need to see it. I could tell from the silhouette alone.

She asked if I was ready, and I nodded. Then she gingerly pulled the white cloth until his face emerged.

He was grotesque.

They’d cleaned him; the wounds were a strange, flesh color that was either makeup or some kind of post-mortem discoloration. His nostrils had been eaten away, leaving his nose a hole. His cheeks looked jagged, revealing his jawbone beneath. His teeth. And still, he was absolutely recognizable.

The fact I’d know every scar, every ridge, and every bump on his body made bile rise.

My vision blurred. My stomach turned.

My head swam, and my breaths came jagged and angry, scraping my throat like I was swallowing sand with every inhale.

“Ma’am, you have to tell us if that’s…” Her words trailed off.

I thought he blinked. His eyes twitched. Something.

I swore I saw it, but I also didn’t.

I blinked, and he was perfect again. Like he was just asleep. Like he’d wake up at any moment and point his cold, pale finger right at me. Accusing me. Telling me words of vicious love while calling me ungrateful and cruel. Telling me this was all my fault.

And this time, he’d be right.

“Baby?” The word came from his motionless mouth. Baby. Babe.

I was just a baby. I was a child. He wanted me to stay a child. He wanted me to stay home for his use. The violence he’d visited on me when I went to college, when I’d finally clawed my way out, only to be dragged back to hell when he threatened to replace me…with Miriam.