She doesn’t try to move anymore, she’s frozen still.
Tension is a live wire between us, and I feel like I’m moving through water when I snatch her hand from the counter, settle my palm over hers. She’s trembling, but she doesn’t look nervous. I hold her tighter though because of it, curling her fingers around the handle, then I bring the muzzle to my chest, press the metal to the center.
And when I lift my eyes, let them touch hers, I watch hers harden.
“What are you…”
I don’t let her finish. I work her thumb back on the safety, the click echoing around us, then I force the barrel over my heart deeper.
My eyes don’t lift from hers when I rasp, “The only way I’m leaving you again is in a fucking body bag, Laiken.” I grab her waist, pull her against me, let my forehead touch hers. “So, pull the trigger. End me.”
She wets her lips, keeps her hand as steady as her body will allow, all while simultaneously oscillating her eyes between mine.
But too much time passes and when she closes them, her truth whispers.
I knew firsthand that when you really wanted someone gone, uncertainty never had the chance to take root. You drove the bullet in, then you wiped your face clean.
It’s how I felt when I pressed the muzzle to my father’s temple and squeezed the trigger.
There was no space for anything but spilled blood. Becausetheydidn’t matter.
So, why was she flinching? And why did she flinch when the same gun was in her mouth?
I’m about to ask her again when she speaks, and what she says next, and the way she says it, tremble fiercely along the cadence of death.
Her words connect like a hammer.
“Is that what you really want, Chase Keller?” She lifts her chin, her lips a ghost over mine, her nose too. I close my eyes, breathe her in.
Laiken pushes the metal deeper between my ribs, twists it, waits formyflinch.
I don’t fucking dare, but I do peel my eyes open.
“You want me to carry your blood on my hands?” She chews the inside of her cheek. Tears are in her eyes. They slide in a silent sheen down her cheeks. She catches one at her top lip. “Tell me, why would I do that when you’ve never had the stones to carry mine?”
My heart shakes against my ribcage, something cold settling across the back of my neck.
Her words are ugly, but they’re the goddamn truth.
Laiken slides her lips back to mine, and this time, she keeps them there, hovering over top.
“I bled for you, yesterday. And you let me leave, you let me go.” She parts her lips, and I try to reach for her chin, but she’s quick to jerk her head away.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, thinking of the tunnel, the bleed out. The opportunity to right my wrongs. How I froze. How I buried myself in a familiar pussy, looking for coke.
My chest constricts.
Guilt whispers.
I palm the side of her face, she jerks again. The same way I knew she would, and still, I found enough courage to ask, bypassing all that she had just said. “Why you flinching, Laiken? Thenandnow?”
She laughs, a clipped sound full of anguish, and then she begins to slowly twist the barrel in our hands, turning it until it’s pressed into her own chest.
My limbs turn to steel.
Her hand seals around mine, nails digging into my flesh, clamping me there, the other on my arm. I keep my finger miles from the trigger, but still, it trembles harder than it ever has because something sick leaks into my gut.
A realization of sorts.
