"What's the matter, Sidney? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Those were Billy's words from only moments ago when he held the voice changer up to his mouth, the same mouth she's kissed and exchanged declarations of love with in the past, to taunt her in the same tone as the masked killer who'd been tormenting her for days. The same one who brutally murdered her mother a year prior and left her butchered, bloody body for her to find.
The man she loved, the one she saw herself living the rest of her life with, was the same man who violently turned her world upside down. The revelation was staggering and led her to stare at him in shock and horror, two emotions that only heightened when he told her why he did all of this. Her mother slept with his father and was the reason why Mrs. Loomis divorced Mr. Loomis and left her son behind in Woodsboro while she moved away.
She remained silent as she met his malicious gaze with her own while he recounted his and Stu's ugly plan for her. He wanted to kill her. Her own boyfriend wanted her dead…
"I never meant anything to you, did I?" She whispered, staring at him as the tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks.
Billy cocked his head slightly to the side. "What do you mean?" He asked.
Sidney didn't care anymore whether Stu was around or not. "I was just a means to an end for you?" She questioned, her voice dulled by the agony she was currently experiencing. "You never meant it all of those times where you held me in your arms and swore you'd always protect me. Whenever we were in our rooms together at our houses, your head in my lap or mine against your chest. When you made me feel loved and wanted. When you said that I meant more to you than all the other girls you dated or had flings with." She watched Billy's smirk falter as a strange expression came over his face.
Sidney could hear devastation and the tears in her own voice as she finished, "You never loved me at all. I loved you, but you never loved me."
"That's not true," Billy whispered, something shining in his eyes besides madness. Was it remorse? The tiniest sliver of sympathy? She couldn't tell.
"Yes, it is," she sobbed. "How else could you do this to me? How else could you act like a caring boyfriend when you've been plotting to murder me all this time?" She felt so gutted she didn't even need any knives plunged into her body. All it took was her boyfriend's betrayal to make her feel dead inside.
For a moment Billy did nothing. Then he stepped forward, setting aside the gun, and placed his hands—covered in blood and red corn syrup—on her arms. He stared deeply into her eyes and Sidney didn't know if it was just wishful thinking or if she was hallucinating, but she swore that she saw a bit of remorse and even love in the espresso brown eyes she loved so much.
"I did love you," he said softly. "And part of me still does."
"Then why?" Sidney asked desperately. "Why are you doing this? Why would you ever kill me?"
Billy's jaw clenched. "You wouldn't understand," he replied, his hands tightening around her arms.
Sidney ignored the bite of pain that his actions caused and told him, "The only way that I won't understand is if you don't explain it to me. I understood why you killed my mother. I hate it, but I understood it. She broke your family and ruined your life, but what did I do? All I've ever done was love and be faithful to you, and you still wanted to kill me? Please, Billy, tell me why. I need to know and after what you've done, I think I deserve an answer."
For a few minutes Billy could only stare at her, his dark eyes almost black with pain and anger, the intensity in them nearly robbing her of her very breath. Finally, he slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders until they rested on either side of her neck. Sidney's heart skipped a beat with anxiety, but when she felt how loose his grip was, she relaxed slightly.
"Fine," he acquiesced. "I was afraid that I'd lose you like my mother."
"What?" She breathed.
Billy swallowed and now Sidney could see a vulnerability in his eyes that she hadn't seen before when he revealed himself. "My mom left me. It was your mom's fault, but she abandoned me. She chose to leave me and ever since that happened, I've been afraid that you'd leave me, too, and I…" He hesitated for a moment. "I couldn't let that happen."
"Billy, I wouldn't have left you!" Sidney exclaimed, a tidal wave of devastation rolling over her as she stepped even closer to him. Her hands came up to clasp the ones that we still loose around her neck. "Why would you ever think that I'd leave you?"
"I was scared!" Billy yelled. She had to resist a flinch at the volume of his voice. "I already lost one woman that I loved because she voluntarily abandoned me and that damaged me! I only had you, Sid, and if you willingly left me too, I don't think I ever would have recovered."
"So the logical thing to do after that was kill me instead of talking it out with me and letting me know how you feel?" Sidney asked, a flash of anger warming her blood at how quickly her boyfriend's mind flashed to murder to solve a problem.
"For me, it was," Billy admitted. "My mind is a fucked up place, Sid, which I'm sure you know by now. I lost myself after Mom left me and I just kept losing more and more when I learned the reason why. I know that she's alive and breathing out there somewhere, but she's choosing not to be with me and it drives me insane. With you…" He heaved a tired sigh and removed one hand from her neck to run it through his hair, further tousling his already wild dark blonde locks. "I'm terrified that you'll find someone you like better and you'll willingly leave me, too, so I…I decided that if you were dead, that wouldn't happen…"
"But Billy," Sidney began softly. "If I'm dead, I wouldn't be with you at all."
"I know," Billy said. His stare was conflicted now instead of cruel. "That was why I wanted to do it. If you weren't there with me at all due to death, at least it would be better than not being with me because you found another guy."
Sidney was silent. Though she was horrified that death was still his first option, she couldn't help but feel sympathetic. After all, he wasn't always this way. He and Mrs. Loomis shared a powerful bond, one that was stronger than he and Mr. Loomis, and she remembered how devastated he was when she abruptly left their home without even sparing Billy a backwards glance. It badly wounded him.
And…in a twisted way, maybe it wasn't too surprising that he thought about killing her to keep the cycle of abandonment from repeating with her. Per his own admission, Sidney was one of the women he loved and if one of them had willingly abandoned him because of something bad happening, then it really wasn't impossible to assume that she could leave him, too.
Not that it ever excused murder, but….
"Billy, I would never abandon you," Sidney said softly, removing his other hand from her neck and squeezing both of them in her own hands. "I love you so much, even after learning everything you did and everything you were going to do…please…don't do this…"
"Then what do you expect me to do now?" Billy asked, staring at her with an almost hopeless expression. "You've completely derailed everything I was going to do tonight and now…what, do you expect me to go to prison?" He sounded bitter now as if that was exactly what he expected her to say.
But she shocked him when she answered: "Keep the plan, but let me be your final girl."
"What?"
Sidney took a step forward, her hands still clasped with his. "I still love you, Billy," she said, her eyes shining with already shed and unshed tears. "I know I shouldn't, but I do. So please…make me your final girl. Don't let us be alone any more than we already have been."
Billy stared deeply into her eyes, searching for any trace of deception. When he found none, they softened a bit as he breathed, "You really mean that."
"Of course I mean it," Sidney replied in the same tone.
"You'd really betray your mother's memory, Tatum's, even your dad's…for me, the one who killed them and blamed them for the murders?"
"Yes."
For a moment Billy could only stand there, staring at her in shock before a small smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "Come on, then, baby," he said. "We're going to have to make this believable."
And despite the self-inflicted knife wound in her side and the regret she felt by spitting on her loved ones' memory in favor of her boyfriend, Sidney didn't regret calling out for him when the police found them, the only two survivors of a disastrous house party at the hands of her father, Neil Prescott.
She loved Billy Loomis in spite of his murderous ways, and she knew he loved her. She supposed that that was how their love story was always meant to be: tragic in a way, but always real.