Page 50 of At The End Of The Day

Ice rolled through my veins, and I choked on a breath, opening my eyes to stare at the dirt. Panting heavily, my heart sank to the pit of my stomach, the urge to puke once more rising to the surface. “No…fucking…way.” Very reluctantly, I lifted my head and gawked.

Melanie stood a few feet away. Five foot six, her wavy black hair fell around her tiny shoulders, her light brown eyes glowing with disapproval. Her tanned skin shimmered under the bright sun, her hands on her hips…the bullet hole between her eyes still bleeding.

“Oh, shit,” I rasped, trembling a bit.

“Look what’s become of you, Jackson. Face down in the dirt, crying like a baby. And to think, I was once afraid of you.” She snickered and shook her head, leaning her weight to one leg while crossing her arms. Completely naked, there was blood smeared between her thighs, as well.

“This isn’t real.”

“Oh, I’m real, all right.” A brow arching, her focus lowered, following my line of sight. “Oh, you like looking at what you did?”

I licked my lips and gulped, my focus darting between her face and pussy.

“Yeah, I probably should have just let you fuck me, huh? Had I not said no, I might still be alive right now.”

My sight met hers, my heart thumping at my temples.

“But you still wouldn’t have let me go to college, now would you? Just like you wouldn’t let that little girl go. Why did she miss registration, Jackson? Hm? Because you had her running errands for her until the last day and then, oh!” she exclaimed, covering her mouth with her fingers. “She leaves her house to find out she has a flat tire. Guess who didn’t make it in time?”

Rage festering, I hissed, “She didn’t need that school—”

“Just like I didn’t need it. Why do you get to decide for everyone what they do and don’t need?”

“I know what’s best for mine.”

She pouted. “I was yours. Look what that got me. Look what you did to me, Jackson!” she screamed, bending at the waist and pointing to her forehead. She scoffed and shook her head, looking off to the side. “I guess I should be honored since I was your first kill. After you raped me, you killed me. I see you haven’t changed or grown up. Still just a scared little boy—”

“I ain’t scared!” I shouted, panting harder, my pulse about to explode.

“Then why won’t you let her think for herself, huh? What are you afraid of? That she’ll finally figure out what a loser you are? That she’ll realize she’s not in love with you? That poor girl doesn’t know what’s up and down unless you tell her. You fried her brain and now she can’t even see that she’s a goddamn puppet.”

Cathy suddenly appeared beside her, resting her elbow on Melanie’s shoulder. “You are such a coward,” she giggled, plucking a twig from her hair. “Sending a little girl to take care of me. Wow. That is what I can’t get over. Not that you killed me, that you used a little girl to do it. Pathetic.”

Melanie snorted and turned to look at her. “Did you see what he did to me?”

She clucked her teeth and stared at the bullet hole. “Pathetic.”

Melanie shrugged her off and crept closer, squatting in front of me. Her head tipped, her bottom lip was puckered. “I loved you so much, Jackson. You promised to marry me and protect me.”

Grief twisted my heart, my focus concentrating between her eyes.

“You broke me, Jackson. You broke my heart, then my body, then you killed me. After promising me so many things, you couldn’t follow through because you knew you were too weak.”

My eyelids rounded, my focus dropping to her light brown irises. “Weak?”

“Only a weak man is so threatened by a woman having a powerful job, he goes out of his way to kill those dreams. You’re weak.”

“Pathetic,” Cathy sang with a giggle.

“Shut up. Both of you, shut up,” I whimpered, turning my face back into the dirt. Covering my head, I was sniveling, confusion spinning my brain. “Just shut up and go away.”

“Get the fuck up, you fucking pussy.”

Snorting on a sob, I bolted upright, my ears momentarily deaf to anything but my pulse. Blinking, I saw a vague, blurry figure through the heatwaves in the distance. Rubbing my eyes, I squinted to focus. “Oh, shit,” I croaked, hopping to my feet.

Frozen in place, I was numb with shock as I strolled closer. Looking like I normally do with my face and head shaved, the bandana was wrapped around it. The toothpick rolling from one corner of my mouth to the other, I raked my sight along me with disgust. “They’re right, man, you are pathetic. What the fuck happened to you, huh? You got pussy whipped, that’s what. Ain’t no bitch worth this. When the fuck did you let a goddamn whore break you down like this?”

Panic racing through my blood, I stiffly shook my head. There was no way I was seeing this, no way this was real. What was happening? The pain, lack of sleep, and malnourishment were taking its toll and my mind was deteriorating.