I don’t trust myself. There’s a noose dangling above my head—beckoning me—and the more I give in to the self-deprecating whispers in the rafters of my skull, the more appealing the step stool in front of me is.
Give her a chance at a good life, Knox. It’s the least you could do after you almost ended hers.
But I don’t want to live without her. I can’t.
You don’t have a choice anymore.
I claw at my chest, willing my heart to stop twisting into macabre shapes. The rain finally reaches a consistent drizzle, and I know that distinguishing the sickle droplets of despair on cold skin will be impossible. The next time I see my girlfriend, it won’t be under happy pretenses.
The next time I see my girlfriend will be the last.
28
PLAY STUPID GAMES, WIN STUPID PRIZES
STATEN
KNOX
I’m outside.
After twenty-four hours, Knox is finally ready to talk, and I’m more than ready to listen.
When I make it outside, a steady downpour greets me, night closing its curtains on any ounce of moonlight or starlight. The sky is the darkest it’s ever been. If it wasn’t for the streetlights, I don’t think I’d be able to see Knox’s face at all.
My feet bend the rotting wood boards of the porch as I stand beneath the awning, safe from the pellets of rain that strike the earth with an ancient anger for all the temperamental dry spells of Minnesota’s weather. However, Knox still stands far away enough that he’s sucked into a vortex of cold wetness, his hair plastered to his forehead and his clothes thoroughly soaked.
Something is wrong. His throat undulates like he’s trying to condense his thoughts into a bite-sized delivery. He’s not rushing to embrace me. He’s not grinning like a lovesick idiot.No, he’s a harbinger of something worse, and my heart is what he’s deemed for death.
There’s a sickly gyration in my stomach—one that turns bile on a low simmer at the back of my throat. “Knox? What’s going on?”
“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”
Eight words no girl ever wants to hear. My body forces a laugh as some kind of coping mechanism. He’s not making any sense right now. This is a nightmare; it has to be. Why would…why would he say that? What is he talking about?
His vagueness merits a twist of my face, and I foolishly try to bargain with fate and her willing disciples. As brave an act as it is brainless. “Do what?”
Knox gestures between us while rainwater slides down his hewn features, then the hills of his lips, dipping into the geographical indent where saliva and tears mix together to form a viscous concoction. “This.Us.We—we shouldn’t be together,” he yells into the void.
I don’t know what to say. A rebuttal migrates up my raw throat, but it never takes flight. My heart is the equivalent of a jackhammer—no longer the steady, soft cadence it usually is but my conscience’s sad attempt to send out an SOS signal.
He’s not thinking clearly. Yeah, that has to be the reason.
I don’t know how, but I allocate enough concentration to detangle my words. If I let my emotions overpower this conversation, I don’t stand a chance at negotiating with him. Just the mere thought of not seeing him every day—of not feeling his arms around me—lodges itself into my vulnerable, fleshy parts like a disembodied stinger.
“Where is this coming from?”
“It’s not coming from anywhere. I’ve been contemplating it for a while now.”
I know when Knox is hiding something, and right now, he’s lying through his teeth. It’s getting harder and harder to holdback my true feelings. I just want to fucking explode. I want him tofeelmy heart breaking. I’ve been so perfect and pliant for everyone—my professors, my employers, my mother. I’ve never been afforded the luxury to,pardon my French, lose my shit.
“Bullshit! We were good. We’vebeengood. You started acting weird after that altercation with Leif.”
Hemmed in mistakes, Knox grinds his teeth together, his muscles coiling under the waterlogged cotton of his shirt. “This isn’t about Leif,” he growls, still choosing to brave the tempest instead of sharing the safety of the overhang.
This isn’t the Knox I know.
“This can’t be about us,” I cry, my voice tipping into disbelief.
