The knife is slick and warm in my hand, and I drop it into the growing puddle of diluted blood, peeling off a rose petal that’s stuck on my forearm and letting it fall as I push to my feet.
I don’t know how much time passes before John stops moving.All I know is that when he does the muscles in my right arm burn from exertion and I’m panting as I look down at him, lying still, and leaking on what is objectively, as Taylor points out over the speakers, the cold, hard ground.
Water is still pouring down around us, the music and fire alarm battling with each other.The disco ball keeps stubbornly spinning overhead, casting a reflective haze of silver and red across the space.
If this were a movie, it would fade to black at this point, or we’d cut to a scene months later where the characters have adapted to a new normal, but I’m not granted that luxury.When I step away from John’s dead body, I still have to see him there in front of me.I have to feel the effects of what I’ve done in my body and see it on my hands.I know I did what I had to do.I know that whether it happened tonight or tomorrow or weeks later, I wouldn’t have survived John’s brand of love.And though I can’t muster guilt just yet for what I’ve done, there isn’t a stirring sense of triumph, either.Perhaps we’ve got the wrong soundtrack or the wrong lighting, but I can’t help but think that this would look so much better in the movies.
The realization is interrupted by noises louder than the heavy bass drum that plays over the speakers.I’m still running on fight-or-flight mode and I’ve kind of used up all my fight on John.So when a crack—so loud I think it might be my own ribs breaking open from the panicked beat of my heart—rings out from the front of the club, I bolt over to a booth on the streetside wall and push myself up against the red curtains.
A mass of people barrel into the building, spreading and searching for the horror that has drawn them here.The most disturbing preview of what they’ll find throughout the club is right there in the middle of the dance floor.John’s body is the tip of a carnage triangle that spreads out over to the bar and trails into one of the booths.Maybe it’s because I blend in with the velvet drapery, or because the sight of John and Billie and Colette has a stronger pull, but the police and paramedics run right past me, until the path to the door, the path to outside, is clear.Flashing red and blue lights seep into the entryway and hit the walls, a cold breeze filtering in with them, and after thatinitial rush of police and medics pushes through the club, splitting across the three levels, I just…
Walk out.
It’s a completely anticlimactic exit, and the scene I step out to—the lights, the vehicles, the cordoned-off areas, the army of people scurrying between them, the reporters and cameras that are visible even though they stand on the edge of it all…
You’d think we were on a film set or something.
There are barricades up in the middle of the street, tents erected, emergency services everywhere.The consistent frenetic energy outside is such a stark contrast to the stop-start reactiveness I had to adapt to while inside the club that it all melds together into an overwhelming cacophony.
“Ma’am?”
The voice sounds muffled and echoey even though it comes from a navy-clad figure who appears at my shoulder when I step out of the entrance.I ignore him.First, because any sentence that starts with “Ma’am” is not one I want to hear, but mostly because I’m investing all my concentration into trying to make my feet move so I can walk out onto the sidewalk.
That’s what this whole night has been about, right?Getting outside.
Even though it’s still dark—I lost track of time hours ago, but it has to be early morning by now—this is my “dawn break” moment.This is the “walking out of the ashes” scene that forms the end of every slasher, and even after everything tonight, even though I want to leave, it’s hard to take that final step.
There have been so many things to be scared of tonight, but every time I faced a fear, I survived.I may not have been the perfect Leading Lady, or the perfect Final Girl, but whatever I am is enough to make it out of this.Every choice I made led to me standing where I am.
Alive.
Yeah, there were some close calls.Yeah, I’m going to have some scars, but I’m still in control of this narrative.And that’s why I will my stupid, sore feet to move.
“Ma’am, we’re going to get somebody to check you over and then we need to ask you some questions.”
A hand wraps around my arm before I can follow through with my plan.When another lands between my shoulder blades, pushing me forward, I start to panic.Distantly, I know the police officer is trying to guide me away from the building, but I’ve just had an affirming epiphany—I’m literally about to walk onto the street by myself, not to mention the last man who touched me killed more than two handfuls of people tonight.I jerk away from his grip, but that just makes his hold switch from guiding to restraining and I’m wishing I hadn’t left that knife on the dance floor.
Then I hear it.A voice.
“Jamie?”
I freeze, planting my feet firmly against the cold cement as the officer tries again to pull me away from the club entrance.The familiarity of the voice drags my thoughts far away from stabbing a well-meaning member of New York’s finest, and I search through the moving bodies and the bright lights to find the source of my name.
“Jamie!Jamie!”
I shove away from the hands that have become more insistent now that I’m fighting against them while the shrieks continue to sound out from the other side of a barricade.Her cries sound exactly as they did when she was going into that vent, but this time they’re laced with hysterical relief.And when I spot her, when I see Laurie, it’s exactly as I imagined.Right down to the silver foil blanket.
She pushes away from a paramedic and starts running toward me.Another cop appears at my other side and takes hold of my arm.I’msure they’re both just trying to lead me over to medical attention, but since they’re stopping me from getting to Laurie, I struggle harder.Thrashing in their arms like I wanted to do when John kissed me on the mezzanine, I yell, “Laurie!”
It’s only when another voice, this one feminine and assertive, commands, “Let her go before she hurts herself,” that the grip around me loosens and I’m able to wrestle out of their hold and head straight for her.
“Laurie!”I cry out again.My feet are stinging from the cold and the grit of the road, but I can barely feel it, not when she darts around a police barricade, almost barreling over another paramedic as she sprints toward me.Her arm is outstretched—I assume to give me that handshake—but when she reaches me she doesn’t shake my hand.She uses that outstretched, dirty palm to grab my shoulder and wrench me forward.My nose lands in the center of her chest, and for a second I wonder how we graduated from handshakes to motorboating in the space of a few traumatic hours.But then her arms wrap around me, her cheek drops, she presses her head hard to the side of mine, and I realize—she’s hugging me.
She feels greasy and grimy, and she smells like shit, but she’shuggingme.And it’s hands down the best hug I have ever experienced in my life.
I manage to extract my head from her chest and look up at her, tears streaming down her face, her arms so tight around my shoulders that my wound has opened upagain.Her black silk jumpsuit is shredded, her dark, previously straightened hair has returned to its natural wavy texture, her face is blotchy and tearstained.
And she’s okay.
