the way. Neither Bobbi nor I were obscenely strong. Our advantage was the same: one of surprise. It would’ve been easier if Bobbi would’ve stabbed me in the back, but I supposed that wouldn’t have fit her narrative as well.
“Just die,” Bobbi hissed.
Since our hands were at a stalemate, I decided to go at her from a different angle. I let my body fall to the side as I let go of her wrist; Bobbi pushed the knife down, but instead of impaling my chest, the knife’s sharp edge slid into my upper shoulder. Pain sliced through me, searing and blinding, but I managed to do what I set out to by moving in the first place.
I shoved my fingers so far into her eyes that I felt their gooey roundness.
Go for the eyes, Jacob had told me, and then run.
Only problem here was I didn’t plan on running.
Bobbi cried out, losing her grip on the knife as she went to reach for her face. Some people would’ve taken the opportunity to run, but what good would running do me? Look at all that had happened, all that had been lost, and tell me that running was an option.
It wasn’t. Neither one of us was going to run from this.
My heart pounding, I grabbed her wrist again and pushed her to the floor, holding the knife back. I slammed the back of her hand onto the tile below, and combine that with the pain having her eyes practically poked out, Bobbi made the mistake of letting the knife go. All of this happened within seconds.
The knife felt heavy in my hand, the blood dripping off its steel blade a reminder of what she’d done, who she’d hurt. All because of what? Because of a girl and two boys, because of what those boys did three years ago?
I brought the knife above Bobbi’s chest, but she had started to struggle, finally back in her right mind enough to curl her fingers around my wrist and try to stop the knife in its descent. Unlike when she had me cornered on the cabinets, I had a better position now. I could literally put all of my body weight behind my hand… and that’s what I did.
Even Bobbi couldn’t hold my entire torso up, not when I gave my everything to pushing down that knife.
The knife cut through her shirt, and her eyes widened. I met those eyes—those hazel eyes I’d stared at so often while talking with her at school, at the choir concert, even here. I met her stare and held it as I felt the knife meet a bit of resistance below. Alas, the resistance wasn’t enough; the knife cut through her skin and the underlying muscle, sharp enough to slide all the way down into her chest.
Bobbi’s stare blinked and the hands trying to futilely stop me fell to her side. A wet, liquid-filled gurgle escaped her lips, a thin trail of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth; I must’ve punctured a lung or something, because for the few breaths I heard after that, it sounded like she was drowning in her own blood.
Good.
I said nothing, watching as the girl I used to think was my friend breathe her last breaths. I watched as those pupils dilated and her body relaxed. I watched as she died, and then… then something took over.
Yanking the knife out, I spoke through ragged breaths, “You killed my mom.” The words fell on deaf ears, dead ears, but I still said them. The blood currently dripping from the knife was now a mixture of my mom’s and hers.
My hand didn’t shake, the adrenaline inside me fueling me, the desperate, crazed feelings inside me made me do what I did next.
Or maybe I just wanted her to pay, even though she was already dead.
I brought the knife down again, this time over her shoulder. The knife cut into her easily, blood splattering from the fresh wound when I took back my hand and the knife. I was never a fan of blood, but hers? Hers I would see spilled.
As the air grew to be tangy, metallic and heavy, I realized I couldn’t stop. Halfway out of my mind, I kept stabbing her. Her chest, her stomach, her neck. I lost count. Blood splattered on me, but I didn’t care. How could I ever care about anything again?
Bobbi’s body shook with the force of my blows, her entire front seeping red now. I plunged