I Don't Want To Kill You (39 page)

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Authors: Dan Wells

BOOK: I Don't Want To Kill You
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I pulled up the side of the sheet, exposing her arm, and stroked her fingers. ‘My dad left when I was seven. He was a jerk, and he beat my mom, and he hit me and Lauren a few times, and we hated him – but we loved him too, you know? That’s what you do; he’s “Dad”. I don’t think you can help it. And then he left, and it broke my heart – broke it so hard I didn’t think I even had one any more.’ I held her fingers tightly in my own, staring at her lifeless face. ‘I’ve never told this to anyone – not to Mom, not to Doctor Neblin, not to anybody. I suppose technically I still haven’t, since you’re not even here, but it feels good to say it, anyway.’
 
I looked back at her hand, feeling the ridges and bones of each knuckle, rubbing them between my fingers. ‘Now my mom is gone too, and I know it sounds totally crazy, but . . . it’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me, and one of the best. She died, and it broke my heart again, and that means . . .’ I looked back at her face, then up at the ceiling, watching the ventilator fan turn slowly behind its hard metal grate. ‘I think that means that I have a heart.’ I huffed, half a laugh and half a cry. ‘Who’d have guessed?’
 
There were tears on my cheek, cold and wet. I let go of Marci’s hand to wipe them away, then pulled the sheet back down to cover her arm. ‘Listen, I’m no good at this. I’m still a mess – I’m probably a bigger mess now that Mom’s dead - and I can’t just change overnight. You’re the lucky one in this relationship, getting out before you had to know me any better and see how messed up I really am. But I wanted you to know – or I wanted to tell you, anyway – that you helped a lot. Mom’s death showed me that I’m not as lost as I thought I was, and I can still have some kind of normal life, but you’re the one who showed me how. How to live. I’m sorry you’re not here for it, but . . . wherever you are, if you’re anywhere, maybe it’ll make you happy to know that you helped me.’
 
I paused, watching her, then leaned down and kissed her - a tiny brush of lips, almost nothing at all. ‘I think I finally know, now that you’re gone, that I really did love you. I just didn’t know how.’ I straightened up. ‘I guess that isn’t very funny either.’
 
I pulled the sheet back over her head, walked to the door. ‘Goodnight, Marci.’
 
I paused. ‘I love you.’
 
I turned out the light and closed the door.
 

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