I looked around my shitty trailer—my home, my nothing. I’d achieved nothing in my short life. I was working a job I didn’t like. I had no family. No friends. I looked over at my dead cactus on the windowsill—I couldn’t even keep a cactus alive. Maybe this was for the best.
Tears filled my eyes at the thought of dying, and yet it was such sweet relief too—to know that it was over. That I didn’t have to do this anymore. That I didn’t have to pretend to be strong.
The knocking came again.
Was I ready to say goodbye to the world?
There was so much I hadn’t done.
So much that I wanted to do. Places I wanted to go.
I hoped that people would remember the good about me when I was gone.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. Headlights filled the doorway and I was momentarily blind as the dark night evaporated into brightness. I held a hand up to my eyes to shield them, but it was still too bright so I closed them and said a silent prayer. I’d rather not see who killed me anyway.
“Belle.” A deep voice said my name and I sobbed at the sound on his lips. “Belle, look at me… Turn those fucking lights down, brother! Belle!”
The lights dipped but I still didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted it to be over with. Life was hard and I was soft. Too soft for it. I just went around hurting people.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Another voice, even deeper than the first.
“Is she fuckin’ sleepwalkin’?” Another voice, sounding slightly hyper. “You can’t wake her if she is, brother. You can give her a heart attack or some shit if you wake someone when they’re sleepwalkin’.”
“So what do I do?” the gravelly voice closest to me said.
I was tempted to look.
Tempted to see the faces of my killers.
“Just pick her up and bring her with us,” the deeper voice said.
“And how is she supposed to stay on the bike, motherfucker? Bitch will just slide right off the seat. Maybe we could use a belt.”
“A belt?”
“Yeah!” the hyper voice said. “You ever seen the mark from a belt to the ass? It’s fucking beautiful.”
“Will you shut the fuck up!”
“Yeah, you know, like wrap it around your waist and then around hers to keep her on it.” A deeper voice now.
“Oh, oh, she might even think she’s ridin’ the bike in her sleep and just hold on automatically!” the hyper voice said, sounding even more hyper at his awful idea.
“I don’t think that’ll work…”
“Oh, so you’re a sleep expert now are you?”
“And you are?..”
“Well, not to brag or anything, fuckface, but my grandma, she put me in for this sleep program when I was a teenager because I was like justonall the fuckin’ time and wasn’t sleepin’ ’cause my mind was going constantly like a set of drums in my brain, a million thoughts an hour, da da dum, da da dum, da da dum…”
“And what did they find out? That you’re a moron?” the deeper voice asked.
“Nah, motherfucker! They said I was taking too many drugs!” He broke into raucous laughter. “Fuckin’ grandma kicked my ass when she got the results through.”
“Can we get back to the problem at hand?”
“You got beat up by an old lady?” the deeper voice asked, amusement in his tone.
