“Fuck that! You’re going to explain this shit once and for all!” There he is. My dark prince with more passion to give than love. Unfortunately, he deserves someone else. Not someone like me. A burden.
“I don’t have to explain shit to you, Bishop! Get out!”
“If I get out of this car, Madison, it will be forever.” There’s no lie in his statement, and the words slap me right across the face.
“Please do.” I don’t finish the last word before he ends the conversation by slamming the door.
“Madison…” Tillie’s voice filters through. I almost forgot she was there.
“Don’t. I don’t deserve him, and there’s so much…” I bring my eyes to hers. “You’ve always said that we love each other a lot. But there’s such a thing as loving someone too much, and that’s Bishop and me, Tillie. It’s not that we don’t love each other enough, it’s that we do so much that it consumes us.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tillie reaches for my knee, squeezing reassuringly.
“Okay.” I smile up at her.
But she won’t.
She won’t see me tomorrow.
None of them will.
Sometimes it takes bringing a life in to know that you don’t want yours out…
I’VE ALWAYS LOVED GUNS. EVEN when my apparent mother shot herself in the head with my father’s shotgun, I still loved them. I’ve never felt so connected to an object more than I ever have with a gun. Well, that’s not true. I liked them a lot more when I was younger, but as I’ve aged, I’ve found myself too busy to go to the range. Despite what people might think, though… I do think that people who own one need to know how to operate it.
I’m not just talking about the logistics of one either.
Mentally.
I twist the barrel around, checking the chamber.
Four rounds.
One filled, the rest not.
Tears spill down my cheek, but it doesn’t matter anymore. The drive and will to live that I’ve always felt, that beautiful spark of warmth that the sunset would give me inside is dead. I’m a withered soul with a body that no longer wants to carry the burden of it.
“It’s fitting,” I whisper out loud, inhaling deeply and closing my eyes as the sun sets across my face. I feel the warmth of the retired rays, but no comfort like I used to.
Much like mine and Bishop’s relationship.
Reaching forward, I graze my fingertips over the cursive writing of each envelope.
Tillie
Tate
Nate
Eli
Brantley
Hunter
Cash
Jase
And simply… B.V.H. My heart cracks in my chest as I run my finger over the H, a sob escaping my stubborn lips. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t—”
I fold my legs beneath my butt, flexing my finger around the trigger and bringing the gun to my mouth. The sun burns against my back, and I know I’m being cruel, doing it here. Where my brains will be splattered all over the beautiful glass windows. The same ones I promised Bishop that I’d keep clean. And right opposite the front door, so that when he opens it, it’ll be the first thing he sees—right beside the envelopes for each member of my family.
Saliva rolls down my chin as tears drown my face.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I press the trigger.
Click!
My heart stops racing, but my breathing deepens. When I crack my eyes open again and see that I’m still here, I throw the gun down onto the floor as a scream tears its way up through my throat by its claws and I howl fucking murder.
I lean forward until my hair shades my face from the world. The world that doesn’t see me. The world that moves without me. The liability. The damaged brat that can’t do anything right.
Taking three more deep breaths, I pick the gun up again, flick the chamber, push it back in, and pull back the hammer, bringing the barrel to my mouth.
One.
Two.
Three—
I pause before I press the trigger again. Slowly lowering the gun from my lips, I rest it on my lap and sit as seconds turn to minutes. Three. Third. Jumping to my feet, I run into the bathroom to search for my phone, opening the app that tells me—
“I’m late.”
My phone slips from my fingers, falling to the floor as dread fills my belly and spreads all the way to my toes. “I’m fucking late.” I attempt to run dates in my head as I make my way back to the bedroom. I can’t know. I won’t know. “Shit.”
Scrubbing the tears from my eyes, I run back into the sitting room and gather up the envelopes. My hand hovers over the metal gun as my barely beating heart continues to thud in my chest. I gently pick it up and take everything to the bedroom, unable to check the chamber. I can’t know.
Closing my eyes tight enough to try to rub the guilt from my mind, I throw everything into a Givenchy shoebox and hide it in my closet, beneath the Louis box but on top of Prada. Bishop doesn’t look through my shopping addictions.
Gathering up my phone and a black trench coat, I shove my Chucks on and swipe my sunglasses up on the way to the elevator.
I need a test.
I need one now.
The pace I walk to and from the drugstore two blocks over is probably the quickest I’ve ever done, and I’m back home with my purchases along with juice and water before twenty minutes has passed.
So much water.
I’m sucking down a gallon of pineapple juice and moving to our bedroom before I dump all of the tests out over our black bed cover. When I say all, I mean I bought every single brand of pregnancy test—twice—just to be sure.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I take the first test to the bathroom and pee on the white stick, before placing it on the counter. Pacing back and forward in the bathroom, I run through the scenarios. Maybe I’m not. Then what? Then go back to trying to kill myself?
God. I could be dead right now and never know.
Chewing on my bottom lip, I suck in a deep breath, reach for the stick, close my eyes, and exhale as I flip it back over.
Two pink lines.
I’m fucking pregnant!
“Fuck…” I drop it onto the floor, run to the room, and go through the motion of every damn test I bought until I’m sure I’m going to piss blood instead of urine. Every single one is positive, in one way or another.
Falling onto the floor, I draw my knees up to my chest. What the ever-loving fuck am I going to do? Bishop will not think it’s his. Since the cheating, he’s fucked me once—and that was for his hindered masculinity more than it was for pleasure.
I know what I have to do.
I pick up all of the wrappers from the floor before starting the gas fire in the sitting room, tossing them all into the flames. Gathering the littered tests, I throw them all into the Givenchy box and slam it closed, sliding it back into the closet.
“I know what to do.”
I’VE LOOKED DOWN THE BARREL of fear many times in my life, and all of them began with a wrist bound by the luxury of Rolex. Except for that time. The time I don’t talk about. He was my nemesis, but also my best friend. The man I hated with all of my heart, but loved with every ghosting of my soul. Unlucky for me, my soul is bigger than my heart.