My Tesla sits at the back of the lot, and though I go to it, I don’t leave. Not until the lights start to turn off one by one and the staff start to leave. There’s a chill in the air but it’s quiet and practically deserted. I see Vanessa leave, waving goodbye to whoever is left inside, and my hands grip the wheel. It’ll be nothing to follow her. I know where she lives, where she studies. I have her class schedule, and her work schedule. I always know where she is.
It’s physically impossible for me not to know. She’s a drug I can’t get clean from.
I stay rooted to the spot, watching her as she walks away from the bar and disappears around a corner, and I continue to fight myself.
But I have to wonder.
What would she do if she saw me?
Get mad? Be happy?
Would she kiss me? Hit me?
The goodbye we shared was so abrupt and painful, I’ve wondered if she’s had time to think and realized I am no good.
She texted me a lot the first few weeks we were apart, I read them and never replied. But she continued to text until one day they stopped.
Was it then she realized she was better off without me?
This is the last time, I tell myself on a sigh. I can’t keep sneaking off to see her. If I get caught…
Just one more look.
Just one more time.
I start the engine and pull out of the lot, taking the streets slow in case she’s still walking.
But it’s just up ahead that I see two people. A man is pinning a woman to the ground, and she is fighting him, her screams so loud I hear them even this far away in my car.
The shrill scream turns my blood cold, and the flash of blonde hair has my stomach churning.
I press my foot down, speeding up as I head toward them and brake suddenly, coming to an abrupt stop.
They don’t see or hear me, too focused on themselves which makes it easy for me to grab him.
He would have raped her.
The rage I feel is nothing like I’ve ever felt. It burns hot and violently, fueling my fists as I pound them into his face, over and over again, hearing and feeling his bones crunch and skin split.
Blood warms the skin of my knuckles, a mixture of mine and his, and his weight is heavy as I hold him up, continuing to pound into him even though he has long gone unconscious.
If I continued, they’d be scraping him off the sidewalk. But I can’t stop.
He was going to rape her.
She screamed.
She pleaded.
No one came but me.
He would have raped her.
I replay the sentence in my head.
Repeatedly.
“You’ll kill him!” Arms wrap around my arm on the upswing, stopping my forward motion and I turn, finally seeing her face up close for the first time in too long.
