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“What?”
Did I hear him right?
“Will you hold my hand, please?” he asks again.
After all the things we have done together, this is what he wants?
He lifts his hand, fingers splayed out, waiting. The tips shake slightly. I give him my hand, and he threads his fingers through mine, exhaling.
His hand is stone-cold.
I close my fingers around his palm, trying to warm him, because it is a cold day, but not that cold. His hand feels shaky and kind of clammy. As if there’s something wrong. Very, very wrong.
Of all the things he has done with me, this feels the most intimate. I breathe shakily, thinking how I could stay like this beside him, forever. He turns and presses his lips to my temple, and holds me there, against him, for a second. Then he slowly peels himself off the ground.
“I’ll be a second,” he says, nodding towards a cluster of trees behind me. Does he need to pee? “Just wait here, ok?”
I wait for him for twenty minutes.
Ok, it’s officially too long for a leak. Did he leave me here? Would he? I mean, last night he told me how much he loves his mom. He practically sobbed as he told me. A guy just doesn’t talk about his mom to a girl, he just doesn’t. Unless he’s serious. Unless he’s feeling things.
But right now, as I look around me at the soft grass and the still water that meets the horizon far into the sky, it feels like he’s gone for good. It feels like he’s left me here. Like everything he said was a lie.
Like he was saying goodbye.
‘Will you hold my hand, please?’
Is that the kind of thing a guy tells a girl before he dumps her by the side of a lake, in the middle of nowhere? I wouldn’t think it is, but then what…?
And that’s when I hear it. A gunshot.
/Marco/
[audio transcript]
I got the call last night, while we were at the restaurant.
My boss wants to see me tomorrow morning. He made an appointment, and I’d better keep it. This is it, mom. This is goodbye.
They are going to take me out, because I did not follow my orders. I have been given several warnings already, but have paid no attention to them. My time is finally up.
Tomorrow, I die.
fourteen
My eyes snap to the water, and I see it happen in slow motion.
It probably takes less than two seconds.
On the other side of the lake, there is a formation of rocks jutting out, barely space enough for anyone to stand.
But there are people standing: Two silhouettes. I immediately recognize Marco’s long, lean body. The other one is stocky, older, but it’s a man. And he is pointing a gun at Marco in cold blood, aiming to his heart.
A shot rings out, and I watch, frozen in horror, as Marco’s body jerks and flops lifelessly into an arc before catapulting into the water. It hits the glassy surface with a sickening, almost silent, splash. The water quickly closes over it.
The man peers over the rocks, turns and leaves.
And then there is silence.
