Every Breath You Take

by Bianca Sloane

  She reached over and stroked his arm, which she figured out was soothing for him, an elixir for his mania. “I told you. This is the only way. If we’re going to do it, we have to do it right. Besides, you know me. I like to follow the rules, do everything by the book.”

  His shoulders slumped and his head plummeted to his chest. “You’re right, you’re right. It’s the only way. The proper way.”

  “That’s right. All right, go on now. I still have a lot to do to get ready.”

  He laughed. “Far be it from me to keep a woman away from planning her wedding. I’ll just be over here watching my Van Damme movie. You can come on over when you’re done.”

  “Okay.”

  “Damn,” he shook his head. “I’m gonna miss watching movies with you.”

  “Joey,” she whispered. “What are a few movies compared to the paradise waiting for us on the other side?”

  He smiled. “You’re right. Love you, girl.”

  “Love you, too,” she said, blowing him a kiss for good measure.

  He made a motion like he was catching it, pressing his hand to his lips before retreating to the living room where he could still keep an eye on her. Of course, he had her ankle chained to the leg of the table, which was bolted to the floor. Natalie kept her happy smile until his back was to her.

  It’s almost over, Joey.

  “He’d lose interest, would probably even forget about her.”

  They said he was crazy.

  They used much more clinical terms, of course. Various personality disorders. An emotional break. His parents pleaded with the judge for mercy because he was eighteen and a “good boy” who’d “never been in any kind of trouble before.” The judge, having deemed him severely emotionally disturbed and a threat to himself and others, determined a mental hospital was the most prudent course of action and sentenced him to a term of seven to fourteen years. Joey was so agitated, erupting into yet more fervent declarations of love, claiming when he murdered Dennis, he gave him “exactly what he deserved” for “ruining his girl” as they hauled his flailing limbs and screeching voice out of the courtroom.

  They assured her his obsession with her would wane, that after seven plus years in a mental hospital, he’d lose interest, would probably even forget about her. She’d be a distant, hazy memory.

  Natalie Scott and what happened “that night” was big news in Providence, as evidenced by the gawks and hushed whispers hurled at her as she walked through campus or stopped into the local coffee shop for a cup of tea.

  Without any soul searching, she decided to leave. She just woke up one morning and realized this was no longer her home. He’d stolen it from her. She remembered the catalogs from Northwestern landing in her mailbox a year ago. Yes. Getting lost in an anonymous city like Chicago would do it. She told her advisor she wanted to transfer, and it wasn’t long before she was packing her meager belongings and boarding a bus west. Dina understood and didn’t try to talk her out of it. She’d visit, they’d e-mail. They were sisters after all. They’d never die.

  It was time to start fresh yet again. Against Dina’s advice, she’d keep her name. It was all she had left, the one thing he hadn’t taken from her. Everything else would be new. A clean slate. But this time, she’d do it differently. There would be no romantic liaisons to distract her. She would hold all suitors at arm’s length, for her sake and theirs.

  More importantly, she’d never see Joey Green again.

  Chapter 74

  SHE

  It was time.

  Natalie leaned against the cabinet in the bathroom, her heart zooming like a freight train, as she looked at the blue conditioner blob she’d smeared against the wall—her last—wondering whether she could go through with it.

  Except she had to. She’d die here, her baby right along with her.

  She jammed her eyes shut and shook her head, letting her face drop into the palms of her hands for a few moments, the blood swelling inside her ears. She clasped her hands together, took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders, groaning a little as she did.

  Natalie ran her hands through her hair, falling out in clumps now from the new growth breakage. Just one more thing. One more thing out of her control.

  She looked down at the white dress she’d asked him to get for her, wondering what preposterous story he’d made up to get a salesgirl to assist him with this purchase. The silky, flowing material billowed around her like a tent—it was almost too large.

  It didn’t matter; she didn’t plan to keep it on long.

  Her bladder pressed against her for the fifth time in what she figured was at least a half hour. She groaned and squatted over the toilet, glancing down at her underwear and gasping at the pink smudges.

  “Oh, no. Not again, not again,” she rubbed her forehead and tried to stay calm, thinking back to the varying brown and pink streaks she’d been seeing over the past few weeks. They were never any more than that, and she kept feeling the baby kick and squirm, assuring her everything was fine.

  It had to be.

  Her heart racing, she took a wad of toilet paper and pressed it against herself, praying.

  It was clear.

  She stayed perched on the toilet for a few moments, trying to quash the anxiety churning inside her.

  “Stay with me, baby, stay with me,” she whispered. “We’ll be out of here soon. Just stay with me, please.”

  The baby kicked, jolting Natalie. She smiled and rubbed her stomach before pulling up her panties and struggling to her feet. “That’s my girl.”

  She washed her hands and smoothed her hair down before pacing across the now-flat pink carpet, a mangy, mottled mess from the continual treads of her feet all these months. She rubbed the long, jagged scar behind her ear, his lifetime gift to her. Yet one more reason to push forward.

  On cue, she heard the beeping, followed by the door opening and Joey’s beaming visage. Natalie followed suit, allowing her eyes to mist over.

  “Oh, Joey. You look so handsome,” she said.

  He puffed out his chest like a peacock, obviously proud of the navy blue suit and multicolored tie. “I done good, huh?”

  “The most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Do I look okay?”

  “Girl, I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

  “Well, it’s just you haven’t said anything, so I thought maybe you didn’t like it.”

  He walked over to her, his face soaked with tears. “Nat, you don’t know how lucky I feel right now. To have the most beautiful woman in the world by my side . . . forever.”

  “You always say the sweetest, most beautiful things to me.”

  “You make it easy. I have to confess, though . . . I thought maybe you was trying to fool me again. You know, like all those other times.”

  “Joey . . . I’m your wife. You can trust me with your life.”

  “Did . . . did you just say you were my wife?”

  She nodded. “I already think of us as married. We’re just making it official. For us.”

  “Damn, I love you so much. You have no idea how much.”

  She held out her hand and waited for him to take it. “Then let’s get started.”

  • • •

  Phase one.

  One of the nonsensical tasks she gave him was to create a wedding playlist. He clicked play on his iPad, which was hooked up to the speakers on the TV. “If I Ain’t Got You” streamed from the tiny speakers. They’d danced to it at their senior prom.

  Jason wanting their first dance to be to “I Like It.”

  Natalie walked as slowly as she could, hoping he wouldn’t hear her heart pounding or detect the false notes of her smile. Tears ran down his face, and as soon as she reached him, he took her bouquet and placed it on the couch behind him.

  Natalie took the typewritten sheets of paper Joey handed to her. “And you typed this up exactly as I told you to?”

  “To the letter,” he said, taking his own copy.

>   “Perfect. You start.”

  He licked his lips. “Dearly beloved. Natalie and I are gathered here today to join our two lives together as one. We are each other’s soul mates, each other’s true and abiding love, and as such, we will leave our bodies here on this earth so that our souls may become intertwined for all of eternity in the afterlife. Our love is too great, too powerful to be bound to the physical, and therefore we are leaving it all behind to pursue our love . . . on the other side, where paradise is waiting.”

  Natalie picked up her cue. “I have loved Joey all my life and am so grateful to him for rescuing me from an empty existence that was robbing me of my soul and my essence. I hate to think what might have happened to me if Joey hadn’t intervened, allowing me to start my life anew. And as I now take this journey to forever with him, I just want to say how very much I love him.”

  “I, Joey, promise to love, honor, and keep you, Natalie, from this day forward, for all of eternity.”

  “I, Natalie, promise to love, honor, and keep you, Joey, from this day forward, for all of eternity.”

  Joey reached into his pocket and produced a gaudy gold ring with a mound of diamonds clustered on top. It was ostentatious and not her taste at all. She swallowed the lump in her throat, trying not to rub the empty space on her ring finger, remembering the ring Jason had given her.

  Jason.

  Joey tried to slip the ring onto Natalie’s finger, impeded by the ever-present swelling. She laughed and slid it onto her pinky instead. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  Jason slipping the engagement ring on her finger.

  Natalie took the ring he handed her and slipped it on his finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  “And we now pronounce ourselves husband and wife forever,” they said in unison.

  Joey drew Natalie to him and kissed her with a force he hadn’t ever used before, and it caused her heart to pound, scared that he was going off-script, that somehow he’d regained the upper hand. She was relieved when he pulled back, the sappy look she’d come to recognize smudged across his face once more.

  “Ha ha! We did it, baby, we’re married. I can’t believe it,” Joey said, smothering her in kisses. “You’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”

  Before she could say anything, he pulled her into another insistent, probing kiss. She wanted to spit in his mouth, bite his lip, anything to pry his lips from hers.

  Patience.

  Joey reached behind him, picked up her bouquet from the couch, and handed it to her before letting out a “whoop!” He grabbed her cheeks and kissed her again. “Aw, Nat. Mrs. Green. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Now, come on. Let’s not waste any more time.”

  Phase two.

  Chapter 75

  SHE

  He took her by the hand and led her to the dining room table. He kissed her again. “You ready?” he asked.

  “You have no idea how ready I am. You’re sure you got everything I told you to?”

  He nodded. “To the letter.”

  “Good,” she said, her shoulders slumping in relief. “We wouldn’t want any problems. Not when we’ve come so far.”

  He ran into the kitchen and she saw him pull the blender from the refrigerator and plop it onto the big, plastic base to pulse it a few times. She held her breath as she saw him pour the thick, chocolate mixture into a large purple tumbler. He held the cup away from him as he came back in to join her. The fumes made her eyes water and she slid her hand over her mouth and nose, taking short inhales into her palm.

  “You have everything, Joey?” she asked through her fingers.

  “Uh huh,” he nodded, his own eyes turning watery. “Two bottles of sleeping pills, bleach and ammonia. Just like you said.”

  “Perfect. I knew I could trust you to get it right. And the other thing?”

  He darted into the living room and came back carrying a purple velvet shawl. He pulled back the fringed edges to reveal a shiny silver dagger, which he handed to her. “For you, sweetheart.”

  She took it from him, being careful to let her fingers close around the handle so that it wouldn’t slip from her trembling hands. He rubbed her shoulders.

  “You okay? You’re shaking.”

  “Just excited, that’s all.” She nodded toward him. “Okay. Go ahead.”

  Natalie held her breath as she watched him lift the rim of the tumbler to his lips, blanching as he did so before he took a shaky sip. His face scrunched up and he looked away, coughing.

  “Whew, that is nasty,” he grunted. “That’ll damn near put hair on your chest.”

  “Don’t think about that,” Natalie said, her hand still clamped across her mouth, the blood rushing in her ears. “Just . . . if you drink it fast, it’ll be over before you know it . . . which means we’ll be that much closer to paradise.”

  Joey gave her a reassuring nod before he took a deep breath and another stuttering swallow. He winced as he gulped the mixture down. In an instant, he started choking and his eyes bulged. He grunted again and clutched at his chest, trying to loosen his tie and shirt. Sweat dotted his upper lip and the skin around his mouth started to bubble and burn where the ammonia and bleach trickled out of his lips. He looked up at Natalie, offering her a weak smile. “It’s coming faster than I thought.” He nodded toward the dagger. “You ready?”

  Natalie fingered the curled edges of the dagger’s handle and picked it up, weighing it carefully in her hand. She smiled and looked up at Joey.

  “Do you remember when we were watching West Side Story?”

  “Yeah,” he panted, barely managing a feeble, confused nod.

  Natalie moved back a few steps, watching as he started to convulse. He clutched the table and doubled over. “That’s what gave me the idea.”

  “Nat, why are you taking so long?” he managed between the violent coughing fits that continued to shake him.

  She continued to move away from him. “Joey, you know that in West Side Story . . . Maria lived.”

  He dropped to the floor, seizing now, his eyes starting to glaze with the effects of the sleeping pills ground to a fine dust thanks to the powerful jaws of his beloved blender. “What?”

  “Maria didn’t die,” she said, smiling. “Tony did.”

  He realized what she’d done. He moaned and lunged for her, but she ducked back.

  “You fucking—” The poison was swimming through his veins and rising from his skin like vapor. Tearing at his insides. Disintegrating his organs.

  Natalie gripped the dagger, turning its sharp point in his direction. “Did you honestly think that I would kill my baby—myself—for you? For the man who murdered my husband, my child’s father?”

  She could see the confusion in his eyes, the desperation to hurl insults at her, curse her. He could only shake his head, frustration, torment and anger squeezing his face, the toxins pinching his vocal cords shut.

  “Yeah, that’s right, Joey. This isn’t your baby, you son of a bitch. I was pregnant when I got here.”

  “Lying . . . you’re lying.”

  “Oh, no, Joey. I got you. You fell for every lie I told you. Just like you lied to get out of the hospital, just like you ‘told them what they wanted to hear.’ Oh yeah, Joey. I did the exact same thing to you.”

  He was writhing and moaning, wanting to keep his eyes on her, but death yanking them closed. “Loved . . . you.”

  “I was never carrying your baby. We were never going to live ‘happily ever after’ as ‘one big family.’ I was never going to let you get anywhere near my baby.”

  “You’ll never get away from me,” he managed to squeeze out.

  “No, Joey, that’s where you’re wrong, because I’m walking out of this house today and then I never have to see your disgusting, repulsive face ever again. Always one step ahead. Know every move you make before you make it. Isn’t that right, Joey?”

  “How could you . . . after everything . . . I did for you?”

  �
��The only thing you ever did for me was ruin my life,” she said. “And now . . . I’ve ruined yours.”

  “You . . . burn in hell,” he said as he keeled over.

  “No, I won’t,” she whispered. “But you will.”

  Chapter 76

  SHE

  Natalie waited.

  She slid into a dining room chair, watching as vomit poured out of him, as his eyes glazed over, as sweat streaked down his body, soaking his cheap suit with dark, smelly splotches. She watched as he tried crawling toward her, his hands stretched out in front of him, clawing at that God-awful pink carpet to try and inch closer to her. For every inch he tried to get closer to her, she inched the chair away from him, never taking her eyes off his curdling limbs.

  Finally, he collapsed in a pool of feces, blood, and vomit, his labored breathing rasping into silence.

  She kept waiting.

  All Natalie could picture was creeping over to him to check that he was dead and a bloody hand shooting up to grab her arm and pull her down into the mire with him.

  Natalie kept her vigil over him, alert to any movement, any sound rising from his body.

  Finally, when there had been no twitches, no involuntary spasms, no wheezing breaths, she edged toward him, her heart pounding against her chest. She groaned as she lowered herself to the ground, panting as heavily as he had moments ago. She snaked a shaky hand out to his neck, placing two fingers against the slimy skin to check that the rigid veins were no longer pulsating.

  They were still.

  Natalie gulped back her tears and ran her hands across his pockets in search of that elusive phone, the ticket to her freedom. She found it clipped to his belt and struggled to extract it. She grunted as it came loose, and she fell back against the leg of the table, delirious joy settling over her shoulders as she kissed the hard square of plastic. Her hands closed around car keys in his other pocket, and for the first time in a long time, pure euphoria washed over her.

  She ran her fingers over the keypad, waiting for the screen to light up, only to see it was locked. Except she could see the date.