I nick my thumb on something sharp, something cold, something unyielding among the dying stems, but I ignore it as he exhales a heavy breath and looks back up at me, determination cutting across the hurt.
Our love story isn’t over yet.
“Say you’re sorry.”
I blink innocently up at him as he takes the penultimate step.Maybe this whole time he’s really wanted the doe-eyed dream girl.I can give him that.Especially if it draws him closer.I just need him to takeonemore step toward me.
“For what?”
“For—For—what you did.”
This isn’t playing out like he planned, and it flusters him.The shards of light from the disco ball skim across his face, and I spot the color rising underneath his skin.
“What did I d—”
“Youfuckedhim!”
His roar cuts right over the music.He’s so angry, so disgusted with me that I can see his teeth.They’re white, straight, a fantastic example of dental work, but he bares them like fangs.It makes sense why he only smiles with a closed mouth.I would’ve known he was a serial killer in the first five minutes of our date if he’d grinned at me.I’m glad I learned that about him before things got too serious between us.
I click my tongue, narrowing my eyes in thought when I say, “I think it’s more accurate if we sayhefuckedme.”
And as if on cue it starts raining.
It’s like the perfect end to a rom-com, but instead of pattering around us it sprays out in random arcs across the room, and instead of thunder we’ve got a persistent out-of-time alarm bell that cuts into “Love Story” intermittently.
It’s an instant reminder that while I’ve been down here, the others have been working at clearing the door to the roof.Many hands must make light work, but I can’t be too happy about that because it means Wes might be on his way to us right now.There’s no way John is going to gracefully bow out when he sees who stole the show from him.
“Jamie—” John’s chest is heaving.Even as the cry of the alarmbuilds, you’d think he would notice, but he’s too far in the love bubble.He’s too deep in his own delusion.
“Jamie, you’remydream girl.”
He really believes it.So much so he still wants to give me a chance.He still wants me to turn around and say I’m sorry, I love him, itwasa mistake and he’s the only one for me.So when I look up at him, release one of my hands from the bouquet, and grip his shoulder, he sees what he wants to see.He misinterprets my pity for regret, manages to twist his lips into one more soft, crooked smile, and takes a final step until we’re standing chest to chest.
In the theater elective I took in my first year of college they had a name for this, when the actors are so close to each other the audience knows there are only two possible outcomes:
Kiss or kill.
“Oh, John… No.”I shake my head slowly, tightening my hold on his shoulder, tightening my grip on the handle tucked between the stems.“No, I’m not.”
I shove the roses into his chest, buds first, and his eyes go wide as the blade glides right up underneath his ribs.I’ve heard the telling wet thud many times tonight, but it’s the first time I’ve been on the other side of it, and the action feels just as foreign as I thought.It’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined, but when I pull the knife out and the crimson rose petals burst across his chest, it looks exactly like I pictured it.
We’ve got the wrong Taylor Swift song playing—we should be listening to “Red.”Because when the rose petals fall away from his shirt and scatter on the floor around us, that’s what spreads across his chest.
She’s All Thatred,Funny Facered, Cher Horowitz reluctantly lying on the ground in Amy Hecklering’s incomparable classic,Clueless, because “This is an Alaïa!” red.
The stems peel away from the knife as he staggers back and fallsto the ground, but I just step over them.Because a good Leading Lady always goes after her man, and a good Final Girl knows that one hit, one shot, onecut, is never enough.
So among the wail of the alarm, the pounding of water, and Taylor singing about Romeo falling to his knees, I drop to mine, pull John into an embrace, and give him the ending he deserves.
CHAPTER 39
“You kill thousands of people and none of them really touch you.And then you murder one person and your life is changed… forever.”
—NotLove & Other Drugs
Whatever playlist John chose must be set to shuffle.
As soon as the final strum of the mandolin fades out, and after a brief moment of silence—where all I can hear is the patter of water hitting the dance floor and thick, unnatural sounds coming from beneath me—a quicker, tighter pluck of an electric guitar sounds.And just like that it’s the end of one era, and the start of another.
