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I know how fake it all was, really. How he came here just to tell me what he’d done. He saw me at the meeting that night, heard my story, so of course he bought the house.
Funny how I almost can’t assign blame to him. It was me who kicked him in the head. It was me who threw myself at him.
I laugh, and hate my fucking smile. Snarile. I snarile wider. My eyes pulse with pressure and the mirror blurs. I snatch my phone off the counter and hurl it at the mirror. The thing doesn’t even break.
“FUCK!”
I double over and can’t stop the sob that bursts out of my throat.
I don’t want to care, don’t want to love him still. His love for me was fake and tainted. Barrett pitied me. No way he didn’t.
There is no way Barrett could have loved me.
I was wrong to think he could. Too perfect… I laugh through my crying. That I could even think that kind of thing could happen to me. I’m what’s tainted.
Bitterness hangs off me like a too-large coat, and feels like someone else’s. But it’s mine. This life is mine—and I don’t want it.
* * *
Barrett
January 19, 2016
Gatlinburg
This town has a fucking wine delivery service. Who the hell would think? Since I got here on the 12th, I’ve watched that fucking fuchsia-colored van climb up her driveway, watched them stop and get out. Some guy in a fucking apron, with that little rectangular brown bag. Gwenna cracks the door open and reaches out her skinny arm and I can see her pale hand stretch out in a half-assed wave, and then the door is shut. The guy drives off.
I know she’s drinking all day. I still have the cams inside her house, and I have no more shame. I watch them all the fucking time. Obsessed.
If I wasn’t before I met her, I know I am now—and I don’t give one single, solitary fuck.
She drinks and cries, and I watch.
Tell me why I shouldn’t.
I did this to Gwenna: start to finish. Hit her. Left. And then I pushed my way into her life. I let myself get drawn to her. I knew I shouldn’t—from square one. Before the meeting, even, when I heard her speak up at that podium, I was obsessed with her. Obsessed with my own guilt. That I had hurt something so precious. She was beautiful and kind. I saw her with the bears, the way she held the big one up against her like some living patron saint of wounded animals.
It was fucked up—how much I loved watching her. How bad it made me feel about myself. I wanted it. Craved it. She was everything I wanted—kind and gentle, loving, bright, soft, gorgeous. But she was guilt, too. Penance. That’s what I thought I was doing when I first watched her. I watched her limp. I watched her smile. I felt my heart light up with pain and it felt right: a reason not to die yet.
Then I saw her that night, talking. Saw the way she walked down off the dais with her head held high. I could see how much she loved her business. How pissed off she was, and how tenacious. And somehow, I started thinking about her more than myself.
What I could do to make things up to her. As if I ever could.
I bought the house. To give it to her. When I told her.
I was supposed to tell her. Dove and Bluebell knew I needed it, so they covered for me—Dove especially; he was stateside, and at that time, Bluebell wasn’t. We agreed that it would be okay and I would tell her. If she did press charges, I had come up with a story that wouldn’t incriminate anyone but me. A cover story. Not that hard.
The General’s people would find out afterward. And Blue could try to fight for me. At that point, everyone watching the situation would see for themselves that I hadn’t taken anybody down with me, so why the need to kill me? And if they did, well…
Dove and Blue both knew I didn’t really care.
Absolution. That was all I ever wanted. Just to get that huge weight off my shoulders and feel clean again, if that could e
ven happen.
Then things changed. I couldn’t stay away from her. I got too close. She kicked me.
Sometimes I wonder why she had the key. Why did she have a copy of my house key that day? Why did God let her get in? I still pray the things I learned at her church, but I’m not sure if there’s a God at all.
