Jeremiah Quick

by SM Johnson

  She kept playing with the knife. His eyes opened, locked to hers, and he mouthed, "Now."

  She thrust the knife straight into X he'd drawn with red Sharpie, the edge of the blade toward his face.

  It was both harder and easier to do than she thought it would be. Harder because she had to lean forward to push it with her weight, and it hurt her cut hands something awful. Easier because she committed herself to the wounding.

  It was terrible.

  He didn't seem to react to pain so much as to the sensation of being punctured, and that was with a moan that sounded like pleasure or relief.

  And yes… somewhere in this she ground her hips hard against him, felt his cock swell.

  He didn't scream, or flinch, or even wince, and never stopped looking into her eyes. She flicked her own eyes away for partial seconds, but he never did. They were heavy on her face, like the weight of the whole world, like she was the only one in it who mattered.

  She supposed, in this moment, she was.

  Dark blood welled out from around the blade and stained his pale skin. Pretty leaned forward, grinding against him again, and licked at the place where it seeped from around the blade, slower and thicker than she would have expected.

  She sat up, staring into his eyes again, and tried to push the blade toward his throat. It wasn't like cutting butter. She ended up sawing at him, pushing hard, and now he bucked, writhed, and she couldn’t imagine he expected it to be like this.

  The whole of time stretched out. It felt like she was sawing for hours, the blade hitting rib bones and sliding away, then catching on, what, connective tissue? Softer, stickier something that she was able to cut through. She struggled, and there was more blood, enough that the knife hilt was slippery in her damaged hands.

  He convulsed underneath her now, which made her eyes to fly to his face, worried for him, worried he might beg her to stop this when it was already too late.

  "You're doing fine," he said through clenched teeth. "Keep going."

  She sawed more, the knife handle so slick with his blood that it tried to defeat the motion of her hands, but then came the sensation that her hands were gently engulfed by those of an invisible other, that there was help for this.

  Jeremiah gagged, fought the restraints with such a violent frenzy that she paused, but his voice, so raw, so basic to earth, ground out, "Don't stop," and so she didn't.

  The wound was open from X to star, now, and she knew what came next, but didn't want to do it. He would be gone. He would be gone forever, this time.

  "Do it," Jeremiah said, his words pressured, coming at her like quick darts, as if he read her mind, felt her wondering already about regret.

  The music swelled toward a crescendo, The most beautiful thing in the world is killing me… and she knew Jamie would be screaming, "Now!"

  She pulled at the knife handle, fingers clenched hard, and yanked the blade free of his squirming, bleeding beautiful flesh. She thrust it at the hand-drawn star, angled it under his ribs, and aimed the blade toward his heart.

  When it encountered resistance, she pushed harder, already knowing she was capable of finishing this.

  His chest, her hands, the knife, her thighs – covered in gore.

  He cried out, still arguing with the restraints, his hips bucking, thrusting his cock hard, hard into her.

  The sense of power she'd felt had not abated.

  She grabbed for it, rode it into the final thrust, and the blade went true.

  The rest was quiet, almost silent.

  His eyes widened, and he smiled, just one tiny brilliant flash.

  He took a shuddering breath in, and it left him with a whispered whoosh.

  And all his lights went out.

  He was just… gone.

  …and to die is to know, and to die is to know, and to die is to know, and to die is to know… it's killing me, the most beautiful thing in the world is killing me…

  goodbye jeremiah quick

  Chapter 46

  Jeremiah's car ran out of gas and Pretty pulled it to the curb just as it sputtered and died. Big old land yachts do that sometimes.

  She was wearing his jacket, the one with the spikes, and walked the last four and a half miles home barefoot, because for some insane reason she'd put on his boots and left her shoes behind. His boots were fine for driving, but too large for her feet to fill, in all the ways that mattered. They were heavy in her arms, but she couldn't leave them behind. She wanted to cry, but didn't seem to have any tears. Perhaps he really did eat them all.

  Are the details important?

  He'd told her to move the car. Back it straight out of the carport, very carefully, he said, and she'd know what to do next.

  Beneath the car was a hole. A grave.

  A smell she couldn't fathom that wasn't constant but came and went in waves. And, though she tried hard not to look, her eye caught sight of black fabric that her brain told her was a silk scarf, and a glimpse of soft white that might have been Jamie's blond hair.

  It was… hard. To put Jeremiah into that hole. Not just physically dragging him, but mentally, emotionally, letting him go. Even though she knew he didn't inhabit his body anymore, even though she knew he was home with his beautiful boy.

  It was still hard.

  Covering them up was hard, too, the most difficult physical labor she'd done in a long time. And her body was still more raw wound than healed flesh.

  After… she put on her own jeans and the t-shirt Jeremiah had been wearing before she killed him. His boots. She couldn't find her underwear or bra, but she found his spiked jacket.

  She didn't know what to do, so she went into the house. She poked into his nooks and crannies and filled the pockets of his jacket with various shiny things, just… bits and reminders of Jeremiah that she could keep. She pocketed a manila envelope of photographs – inside were two pictures of Jeremiah and herself back in high school that she'd never seen before, hadn't known existed. There she was, clutching at him, and there he was, with the sad look of leaving in his eyes. There was also a small print of the black and white picture of himself, the one she had not stolen from the art room. Three pictures of a woman with a teasing scowl who had to be Corrie.

  And a hundred pictures of a boy who could only be Jamie.

  As she walked, she thought about things she didn't take.

  A long tube that contained rolled up drawings in dark pencil, mostly of people standing in front of mirrors, but the reflections were distorted, or otherwise at odds with the rest. One of the pages looked as if it had been crumpled up for a long time, and then a long time later carefully smoothed out again. It was a woman, standing half-turned from the mirror, holding a baby. Pretty wasn't sure she'd ever seen such a perfect rendition of a baby, not drawn by hand. Clearly the artist had loved this baby. But the woman's face in the mirror, well.

  She had lines.

  Careful fine lines, drawn with a fine-point pen or perhaps even tattooed. Pretty held the drawing next to her face, in front of the mirror. The lines matched her own fading lines, most of which Jeremiah hadn't cut, out of mercy or compassion or maybe even love. She would never know.

  At the bottom of the page, in very tiny print, were words.

  They don't tell you it's a trap.

  This wasn't a story Jeremiah had told her, and she had no context for it, but the drawing looked motherly, and he had said his mother was an artist.

  She should have taken the tube of drawings.

  And yet. It was almost all she could do to keep walking, wearing the heavy jacket, carrying the heavy boots in her arms, and all with the crushing weight of the last month pressing into her in the form of wounds and scars.

  She had abandoned her family.

  And she was returning to them… different. The scars Jeremiah forced into her skin might fade, they might not.

  There could be a lot to deal with, things she couldn't even wrap her head around while walking home barefoot and fresh out of tears in the
almost-dawn of a cold autumn day.

  She might be arrested for killing Jeremiah, although the thought of that ritual coming back to hurt her seemed impossible.

  How could it be wrong? How could it be illegal?

  It was the most right thing she'd ever done.

  Guilt. Fear. A heavy sickness in her stomach about what she would find when she reached "home" – but she had nowhere else to go, and there was nowhere else she wanted to go. She wanted to go home, more than anything else.

  She didn't love them any less, and, in fact, would probably appreciate them more than she had before Jeremiah Quick happened to her. She wondered what they would think of that? The thought of her children, her home, made her start running, boots clutched to her chest with one arm, jacket held closed with the other. Home. Home. Home. Her footsteps pounded the pavement, her mind chanted the word, her heart raced between the two.

  Finally, her street, her driveway, her house, and her wonderful, welcoming back door.

  She fell against it in sheer, exhausted relief.

  Grasped the handle and… found it locked.

  Cold terror, from toes to fingertips. She was no longer welcome here. She staggered there on the porch, leaning, letting loose a dry wracking sob.

  Please, please, let the door open. Please.

  She had no home.

  She could bang on the door with her fists. Break a window with a rock. Scream her husband's name. Force her way inside.

  But.

  If she wasn't welcome, she wouldn't force herself upon them. She jerked her chin up, felt her jaw clench and her tongue rest tightly against her bottom teeth. Defiance. She wouldn't stay where she wasn't wanted.

  The dog barked once as she stumbled across the driveway, fumbled with the handle of the man-door to the garage. That doorknob did turn.

  The old couch was still there and she collapsed onto it, pulling Jeremiah's jacket around herself. And then she let go of everything, just for a little while, too empty to consider the meaning of the locked door.

  Daylight.

  Something woke her, but for a few seconds she couldn't even make sense of where she was. She blinked at the man standing over her, and almost shrieked.

  He looked different. Was it because she was different?

  "Hey," he said, and his voice was gentle, not angry. "Where have you been?"

  She half turned to see him better, and tried to smile, but wanted to cry.

  And then he bent his knees, squatting beside her, and raised a hand to push her hair out of her face. Jeremiah's braid had unraveled in her travels.

  "Jesus," he said, and only then did she remember what a fucking mess she was. She was like... the wreckage of who she used to be.

  "Baby, what happened to you?"

  "You locked me out," she said, and her voice came out strangled, aching with the need to cling to him and cry, be held, be comforted.

  "Never," he said, shaking his head, fingers stroking through her hair, deftly separating tangles. Some of the tangles were probably Jeremiah's clotted blood.

  "The kids have been scared. They want the door locked. We have keys and everything." He winked, and that told her something bigger than words. His lips were almost a smile, and it was that look, that silent communication known only to people who've lived together for decades, that convinced her he was telling the truth. The secret language of lovers.

  "I love you," she said. "I love you so much. I didn't mean to leave." And then she whispered, "I did a really, really bad thing," even though saying it that way felt like a lie. He would think it was bad. Everyone would.

  He scooped her into his arms and stood, cradling her like she was a child.

  Jeremiah's boots spilled out of her hands and hit the floor with a thud and another thud.

  And Pretty's husband, her confidant, her partner for all the years of her adult life, carried her into the house, studded jacket and all. He was the only one who never left. He was her home.

  She was murmuring, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I can explain. Or maybe I can't. But I'm sorry."

  He held her painfully tight and whispered."Shh. There will be time for all that. I love you, too. I'm glad you're home."

  Pretty cried, and there were tears.

  Her beloved kissed them away.

  And that was close enough.

  [end final draft]

  2.18.14

  2:42 pm

  Destiny’s Page

  There’s a childhood friend

  You’ll never forget

  He’s the one that affects you the most

  He’ll make your heart melt

  With the things that he’s felt

  But the memory’s only a ghost.

  He’s the one that you long for

  And never forget

  Even when he’s gone far away

  And the day he returns

  Is the time that you learn

  Your heart is a place he will stay.

  He rides like the wind

  And will never forget

  The ones that he left far behind

  His life is an art

  But we’re all in his heart

  And home is the love he will find.

  ~smj circa 1989

  SM Johnson lives in northern Wisconsin with one husband, one daughter, one dog, one shady orange-striped cat, and a garter snake named Kyle.

  Her favorite winter activity is hibernating with a good book.

  She's published six novels and three short stories, with many more works to come. Find out more at SM Johnson Writes, where life gets messy.

  Author's Note

  This story, Jeremiah Quick, is written in memory of a small number of people who had a big impact on my journey to becoming the woman I am today. It's not just for Jeremy, but also for Adam Brown and Samantha Jo Johnson, and others.

  I want this story to be a reminder that HIV/AIDS is still real, and still deadly.

  AIDS Info, National Institute of Health (NIH)

  On suicide: If a friend or loved one tells you they are suicidal, ask if they have a plan. If they have a plan and the means and ability to carry it out, please take them to the nearest emergency department or call 911.

  People in acute emotional distress or who suffer from severe, chronic mental illness sometimes do commit suicide, and there is little the rest of us can do about it.

  If you are feeling suicidal: It gets better. Please don't leave. Call the lifeline and ask for help.

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (United States) 1-800-273-8255

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my beloved family, who may not understand my need for terrible and beautiful stories, but give me time and space to write them.

  Thank you, 19, my dear friend, who helped me create the cover of this book, but more so the way you brought Jeremy back to me in so many ways, not just through stories, but also through Our Conversation.

  Thanks to my beta readers, JC Andrijeski, Coral Russell, and Bluerabella, and to my new and delightful local writers' group, Kathleen, Nicole, and Sam. I couldn’t pull any of it off without you.

  And finally, thanks to Jeremy Olson (RIP) not just for being, but for being you.

  Please be aware: Poetry and song lyrics are my own, except for microcosmically brief quotes from Behind Blue Eyes (The Who), Storm (Lifehouse), and Beautiful Thing (Romantic Torture). I encourage readers to investigate, buy, and enjoy all music referenced in Jeremiah Quick. I made a conscious effort to give credit to artists within the text, but if you need to know a song title/artist for a music reference, email me at devante9901@aol.com, and I'll be happy to tell you what I know.

 

 

 
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