by Holly Hood
“Say anything!” Ike yells, he grabs Nash by the shirt and shakes him.
“I killed him. When I was a kid…the night after Christmas,” Nash admits. Ike shakes his head, not believing Nash admitted it.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think my dad took off and left us our whole life?” He is actually crying. “My sister killed herself because of that shit!”
He’s livid. A kind of anger I have never seen before.
“How was I supposed to tell you something like that?” Nash shakes his head. “He wasn’t a good guy. He did something you would have never understood back then.” He’s not saying it. I don’t know if he can.
“To me,” I admit. I don’t know if its going to fix things or change anything. “Nash saved me that night from your father, from what he was going to do to me.”
Ike turns away from us in complete disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He mutters to himself. “My best friend kills my dad for a girl.”
I look at Nash, he won’t take his eyes off of Ike. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know if I should jump on him and pry the gun from his hands or scream for help—maybe one of the neighbors will hear me.
He spins back around. “It was supposed to be me and you. And you went and fucked things up!” And just like that he pulls the trigger, firing a shot into Nash.
“No!” I grab Nash’s shirt, fighting to keep him on his feet—this can’t be real. Ike can’t be trying to take everything good away from me. Nash drops to his knees and I look at Ike. “Just stop it. Don’t do this to him… kill me.”
I can see the blood on his shirt, and the realization in his eyes that Ike did shoot him. He squeezes my hand.
“It’s okay, I’m going to get you help.” If it’s the last thing I do I will get him help. I stand up and go for my phone and Ike fires again. And now Nash is sprawled out on the porch.
Ike points the gun at me. And I really think he is going to kill me too. I close my eyes. This is not how I expected my life to end.
“When he told me that Nash killed him, I didn’t believe it…until now.”
I open my eyes. “Who?”
But he doesn’t say anything.
He aims at me and I see my life play out like a movie—every second of it.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been here before. I almost died years ago—maybe I should have.
I look at Ike. If he is going to shoot me I want him to look me in the eyes, I want to be the last thing he sees before he destroys me. I want to haunt him for the rest of his life.
I tense up—waiting.
And he delivers.
And everything turns off. I’m gone—again. Tossed into the black void that we all go to when bad things happen. A place where your no longer allowed to feel anything. A place where for once can feel okay, not worried about the world around you, because the world doesn’t exist here.
And I have to make a choice, the same as before. I have to decide if I want to come back. Or just stay away.
All we are is human. We are flawed and we are struggling each and every day.
And sooner or later it’s fatal.
THE END
