ELEVEN
* * *
What do you want me to say? What do you want me to think? What do you want me to do?
It isn't supposed to be this way.
It's not. Love is supposed to be forever.
I step back to the den. Abby has fallen back, limp under his blows. Her face is a bloody mess in the dim light and I can just hear her breathing as it comes around her shattered nose and mouth.
Kevin is confronting Lucy in the church. His face, stiff, controlled, can barely conceal his rage at finding her with Reverend Hampton.
Vick looks over, sees me.
And the knife in my hand plunges down.
#
It's like spearing stale jello, almost. Just that bit of resistance going in, and then it is soft and there is the look on his face as the blood comes, lots of it, spraying and shooting out over me and over Abby and over the couch. Blood, red and thick and everywhere as I stab again, again, again. And Vick slipping, crying out as he falls away, the knife coming free of my hand as he does, falling to the carpet beside him.
It is suddenly very, very quiet in the room.
Moments pass.
Lucy enters the pool hall, and in the background the country music is playing. She approaches Kevin. And as I stand there, watching, they talk.
Only the words seem so distant now.
Lucy: "By the way, you're forgiven."
Kevin: "You're not."
I don't know if Abby is breathing now. I don't know if Vick will get up. I don't know anything anymore, because nothing is the way it is supposed to be. Nothing makes sense like it is supposed to.
And I know it never will.
I reach down, my hand soaked with blood. I take the remote, holding it carefully lest it slip, and with a single punch of a single button, I turn off the TV.
THE END
* * *
What do you want me to say? What do you want me to think? What do you want me to do?
It isn't supposed to be this way.
It's not. Love is supposed to be forever.
I step back to the den. Abby has fallen back, limp under his blows. Her face is a bloody mess in the dim light and I can just hear her breathing as it comes around her shattered nose and mouth.
Kevin is confronting Lucy in the church. His face, stiff, controlled, can barely conceal his rage at finding her with Reverend Hampton.
Vick looks over, sees me.
And the knife in my hand plunges down.
#
It's like spearing stale jello, almost. Just that bit of resistance going in, and then it is soft and there is the look on his face as the blood comes, lots of it, spraying and shooting out over me and over Abby and over the couch. Blood, red and thick and everywhere as I stab again, again, again. And Vick slipping, crying out as he falls away, the knife coming free of my hand as he does, falling to the carpet beside him.
It is suddenly very, very quiet in the room.
Moments pass.
Lucy enters the pool hall, and in the background the country music is playing. She approaches Kevin. And as I stand there, watching, they talk.
Only the words seem so distant now.
Lucy: "By the way, you're forgiven."
Kevin: "You're not."
I don't know if Abby is breathing now. I don't know if Vick will get up. I don't know anything anymore, because nothing is the way it is supposed to be. Nothing makes sense like it is supposed to.
And I know it never will.
I reach down, my hand soaked with blood. I take the remote, holding it carefully lest it slip, and with a single punch of a single button, I turn off the TV.
THE END