me, quietly, carefully. There was no harshness to his stare now. It jarred me. Made me feel uncomfortable. Too breakable.
“You think I’m going to break down because I shot the man who broke into my home, watched me sleep, probably intending on raping and murdering me in the name of love, obsession, or devotion?” I clarified.
“Killing someone, no matter what their sin, it’s not something you just handle,” he said.
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’ll develop a drug habit, spiral into a depression, break down in tears at the grocery store—though, I doubt that—but right now, I’m going to assure you I’m not going to fall apart.”
He was testing my words, probing for weakness.
There was none.
My voice didn’t shake, neither did my hands. I felt calm, too calm, perhaps, but not on the verge of any great breakdown. I wasn’t sorry for killing him, Jacob. No. He had walked into this house with death on his mind. That’s why he named himself after a mild-mannered character, bullied his entire life, who starts to hear voices telling him to murder and eat all of his heroes so he could absorb their greatness.
Yes, I had made the right choice, shooting to kill.
Saint looked down at my bare feet. They were still stained.
I hadn’t showered yet.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen death,” I told him.
Don’t say it, my brain said. It will rattle too many boxes. Give him too much power over you.
“My brother, Cody, he died right in front of me,” I said, my interior voices not strong enough to stop this. I’d never said it out loud before. Not once. Sure, reporters could dig deep enough to find birth records, death records, the newspaper articles. But anyone who tried to ask about it in an interview were immediately stopped and blacklisted from ever having contact with me again. Word got around quickly, since I wasn’t forgiving and I didn’t care about the caliber of the publication doing the interviewing.
“We were playing in the yard,” I continued. “Throwing a football. My mother hated that I did that. Thought I should’ve been inside, learning piano.” I wanted to smile at the look on my mother’s face when I’d caused the piano teacher to cross herself, then all but run out of our house and never return.
I did not do well with my mother trying to control me. And my father did not have her back in those matters. Unlike her, he just wanted me to be happy.
I glanced back up at Saint, not realizing my gaze had wandered. Losing eye contact was a sign of weakness. “Maybe that’s why she hates me,” I said. “Blames me. Because if I had been the perfect daughter, I wouldn’t have been outside, throwing a football that went into the street. The one my brother chased, the same time as he teased me about my shitty aim.”
I shook my head as if the memory could be jerked out of me. “He was a kid,” I whispered. “Stupid kids. Get caught up in things like throwing footballs. Forget about the fact the world is basically just a melting pot of assholes. The asshole across the street had been laid off the week before. His wife went to work, children probably parked in front of the TV. He had run out of beer.”
I shook my head at the simple reason behind it all.
“We didn’t know that until after. He ran out of it because he’d drunk it all. I think it was before lunch.” I screwed up my nose. I’d used to think he was a total lowlife for drinking all that beer in the morning before he killed my brother. But then I started my own morning drinking. I never drove, though.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “You think I’d remember every single part of that day or forget it all. But it doesn’t work like that. I remember all the unimportant things, like my brother’s last words to me. Or exactly what time of day it was when he died. But I remember the fact that the asshole ran over his head. Squashed it. I shouldn’t have been able to hear that sound. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I created that crunching, squelching noise after. After I saw my little brother’s eye popped out of his socket, half of his brain leaking from out of his skull.” I shrugged. “But I still hear that noise sometimes. I don’t remember the rest. I remember blood on my hands but I