Out of all the mistakes I've made, this one hurts the most. I just murdered somebody, without even thinking. All I could see was red when he was holding Lizzy on the ground, and all I wanted was to hurt him.
As I stare at the body laying on the ground, I contemplate how I will fix this mistake. Most mistakes are fixable. They take apologies, or bribes, or something. This one, however, I cannot fix. And I regret it entirely.
Justin walks out of the warehouse and slams the door. Lizzy stares at me for a while, and before I can even ask her, she responds, "I'm fine... What are we going to do?" I'm still mute, unsure what I'm supposed to say. We obviously can't get rid of his body. Rich is going to learn about this. It's inevitable. Justin already knows, so if we get rid of it we'd be forcing him to go with the lie. I do the only thing that I can think of.
I cradle him in my arms, and carry his limp and lukewarm body through the door. Lizzy walks a distance behind me. I'm a little worried that it's because I scared her with my temper. Otherwise, she's walking behind so Rich can't hurt her when he finds out.
As we walk down the street, people run out onto their porches and watch me carry him down the street. It feels like torture having all these eyes on me. Everyone in this nice, peaceful community is either judging me or wanting to hang me. Rich's house is at the end of this street, and I try to slow down a little to avoid the inevitable.
By the time we reach the driveway, I start to notice the crowd following behind us. I'm not sure if they're just interested in how this will play out, or if they're actually feeling sad for me. I reach the front door. Lizzy goes to push the doorbell. As she pushes it, I gulp and it's a little louder than I expected it to be.
The sound of footsteps approaches the door. Holding his body, I wait for my inevitable death. The door slowly opens, and Rich rubs his eyes as he opens the door. "This better be important, waking me up at fucking 3 in the morning-" He stops mid-sentence when he sees him. The images of Rich's expression changes make an imprint on my mind.
After a mixture of emotions, Rich looks up at me with anger burning behind his eyes. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?" He screams at me, and pushes me onto the ground. I drop his son's body and brace myself when my head hits the concrete. I'm almost confident that I just cracked my head open. Awesome.
Rich is on top of me now, and he's slamming his fists into my face from all angles. I can't tell how many times he's hit me, but all I know is that I deserve this. I deserve all of this. I start choking on blood, and at this point I feel Rich's body being lifted off of me by an unknown force. It surprises me when I see through my blurry and bloodied vision that it's Justin trying to help me.
He lifts my body up off the ground, and tries to help me to stand. I stumble a bit. After a few tries, I'm standing but slightly leaning against Justin. "Why the hell are you defending him?" Rich yells at Justin. "I've known you for your whole life. I kept track of you when your parents were doing drugs. I practically fucking raised you, and you're defending him?"
Justin takes this situation a little more calmly than I personally would. "Your son's death was no accident, Rich. I've told you before that he needed to be controlled. He had a gun pointed to his daughter's head," Justin points at me. "And if you're saying you'd kill him for harming your son, then he has every right to feel the same about his daughter."
Rich stands in silence, stunned at Justin's response. I can truly sense now that these two have a very deep connection, and they're silently communicating through their eyes. "Fuck you," Rich says to me. He lifts his son's body off the porch, carries him into the house and slams the door behind him.
Justin looks at me, and before talking to me he addresses the crowd. "Go back to your homes. This is over. Have a good night." People grumble, probably because I deserved justice. My damn face hurts, I know that for sure. They want death. "I told you this wouldn't go over well. You were brave. Stupid as hell, but brave." Justin shoots me a frown, but I can tell he means the remark lightly. Walking back down the street, he waves and shouts, "Have a good night."
Lizzy walks over to me. "Where are we staying, Dad?" I look over at her. She has her head hanging down, afraid to look at the mess that I've caused. "Follow me." I grab her hand and lead her down the street.
When the porch creaks, the front door flies open. Christy shoots me an angry look but then instantly turns concerned. "What happened?" she asked me, guiding me into the house. I plop down on the couch, and Lizzy heads up the stairs. I can hear the fridge open and the cracking of ice separating. I'm greeted with a frowning Christy, holding a homemade ice pack.
After icing my face for a while, she lifts my hands and puts the ice pack on them but I pull away. "I didn't hit him back," I cooly respond. "My hands are fine." She pulls away the ice pack and inspects them. After all this time being away from her, she'd still expect me to lie to her? Man, I fucked her up.
She blinks for a while as we sit in silence. "Why?" She lifts the ice pack to my face again, and I wince at the pain it causes but loosen up as my face numbs. "I don't think you want me to talk about it. You'd be pissed." Christy frowns at me again. "Well obviously, you've forgotten who I am and what we dealt with. At this point, I'm used to you telling me stuff that frustrates me. So spill."
I let out a long sigh. She'll eventually learn the truth anyway. "This guy... he was attacking Lizzy. He thought she was trying to steal food or some shit, and he... he had a gun to her head." Christy stares at me, waiting for more. She can probably already guess where this is somewhat going. "I panicked. I wanted to protect her, so I... I kicked him across the room, and I... I shot him." She looks surprised.
"Okay, but why are YOU so fucked up?" Christy asks me. "I... I unknowingly shot Rich's son." She covers her hand in shock, and now we're back to sitting in silence.
"Are you pissed at me?" I ask her. I start getting flashbacks to our arguments, when I would come home drunk and she would ice my hand in the kitchen. She'd hate me for why I fought, but then we had the best sex ever once she forgave me. "No," she sighs. "I'm not pissed at you. I'm nervous that we might not get to stay here anymore, but I get exactly why you did it." After some more silence, Christy quietly whispers, "Thank you for protecting Lizzy."
I watch her as she sits on the couch, staring into space. She looks so... natural. I missed her so much. Her hair is a little messy, so I think our fiasco throughout the whole town woke her up. I can't remember the last time I was this close to her for this long.
"Did you hear me?" Christy's looking at me, and I'm brought out of my trance. "No, sorry. Repeat yourself?" I ask her. "I said it's crazy how that felt so natural." I'm a little confused by her statement.
"What do you mean?" I ask her. She slightly smiles, but I can see the depressing memories flashing before her eyes. "How I was ready to instantly ice you again, and talk to you about what happened. I was just so used to it before. It never occurred to me that I would be doing it ever again."
I wince at the pain behind her words, but I can also feel the love behind them. Deep down, she's always loved me. Sure, she hated the fights and the drama and the drinking. But I know she loved me for who I was when I was sober. I tried to be the best husband I could be, I just wasn't good enough.
Christy's eyes start to well up, and I reach out for her hand. "Christy." She pulls her hand away, and walks back upstairs. "Have a good night, John." I lay down on the couch. The image of her wiping tears from her eyes while ascending the stairs plays throughout my dreams; however, they quickly turn into nightmares.
☠
I wake up in the morning to the smell of bacon. Sunlight peeks through the windows. God, I'm so hungry. I start to get up off the couch, but Christy gently pushes me back down. "Settle down. I don't want you to have to get up. I'll bring you food, and then we'll see how you feel after eating."
I smile at the sweet thought, and even if she didn't mean it that way, it still makes me happy. Carrying a plate of bacon and eggs over to me, I sit up slowly. My brain still aches, but my physical pain feels like it has eased up. After finishing my plate, I slowly stand up. Christy smiles at me, happy that I can still walk okay.
"By the way, Rich came by earlier," she grabs my plate and heads into the kitchen. "He wants you to go by his house today." I laugh, thinking she must be insane if she wants me to walk into my own funeral. I already gave the guy his chance. "I'm serious, John. He was really apologetic when he came by, and he just lost his son. Just give him the opportunity."
Fuck, I hate when she does that. Or when she did that. Whatever. "Fine, I'll head up there." I slowly walk towards the front door. As I walk more outside, I can tell that I'm eventually walking better. I can do this.
It feels like forever, but I finally make it to Rich's house. I hope he's still here after it took this long to get here. I push gently on the doorbell. The events of last night come flooding to me, and I still feel horrible about what happened. No matter if I was protecting Lizzy or not, I shot his son.
The front door slowly opens, and I'm greeted with somber eyes.