Young Love Murder (45 page)

Your eyes weren’t shining with happiness then, but with the sorrow and tears I put there. I wish you would have looked at me like you hated me at that moment, instead of just looking so incredibly sad, even disappointed. 

We loved each other so much. Do you still love me now? Have you seen your parents or mine in the afterlife? If you see mine, tell them that I love them. If you see yours, tell them that I’m eternally sorry. 

Yours Forever,

Gabriel

*****

Glancing in the rearview mirror, I realize I need a shave. Probably won’t do anything about it, though. My almost black facial hair is growing in with a red tint to it, mismatched with my dark brown hair. The beard and mustache, combined with the faded brown hoodie I’m wearing, make me look homeless. Like a homeless man driving a stolen Ferrari. 

Settling back into the leather driver’s seat, I sit and stare at the building in front of me. Empty and for lease most of the year, in October it’s brimming with business with the temporary Halloween store occupying it. 

Thinking back a year ago, to the time when Anna and I came here together, makes me want to burn the building down. I don’t even know what I’m doing here, torturing myself with old memories. I’m stalking a god damn costume store. 

Disgusted with myself, I pull out of the parking space, driving down the boulevard to my original destination upon leaving the house, the grocery store. 

October 17th

Annabelle,

I left the house today for the first time this month. Went to the grocery store for essentials, milk, bread, peanut butter, etc. My aunt says she isn’t doing it for me anymore, that it’ll be good for me to get out and run my own errands. After checking out, I was pushing the cart out to my car when a black SUV with heavily tinted windows slowly drove by me. It felt as if my heart had stopped beating, I was so sure it was Jackson. After almost four months, my thought was, ‘about time’. You can imagine my disappointment when the driver parked the SUV and out of the vehicle climbed a soccer mom and her brats.

When is he coming? How long will he wait to avenge your murder? For killing you, I deserve to die a horrible death. Why didn’t he do it in Sweden? Maybe he plans to prolong my suffering. If not him, you’d think he’d sic Brent or Simon on me. How much longer will he make me wait? 

I love you.

Yours forever,

Gabriel

*****

January 5th

Baby,

I just woke up from a horrible nightmare. The clock says it’s just past three a.m. In the dream, I was holding you while you were bleeding again. This time there was so much more blood, not that there wasn’t when you actually died. In the nightmare, the entire room was flooding with your blood and I was swimming in it, trying to keep your head above it. No matter how hard I tried to swim to the hotel room door, so we could escape, the waves of blood kept crashing into me, pushing me towards the far wall. 

Tears were streaming down my face when I woke up and, even now, I don’t dare dry them. They’re where they belong. 

The good dreams are the ones where I’m living that day all over again and asking you to come with me back to Miami, to my mother’s funeral. You console me, and I let you. We say love words to each other and at the funeral, you hold my hand. 

Even when I’m awake, I’m drowning in my own regret and sorrow. Looking at your picture, I remember that fantastic week in Barbados and live off the memories. Sometimes I hate having that picture of us, of you. Seeing what I had, and literally killed, makes me so angry. 

I realize how sick I am too, because, to me, you look so damn sexy in that picture and in my memories. Becoming aroused by thoughts of you seems so fucked up. I’m your murderer!

I can’t help it. I love you so much. I still need you. Do you need me? Will we ever be together again?

Yours Forever,

Gabriel

*****

March 10th

My beautiful girl,

Happy Birthday, baby! You would have been 19 today. Aunt Lucy insisted on taking me out for my birthday last month. Max even flew down from New York, though I told him I didn’t feel like celebrating. Of course, he completely ignored my wishes, even picked out the suit for me to wear. The relief on their faces when I told them that I’d resumed my martial arts classes would have been comical had I been in the mood for humor.

Who else is thinking about you today, Annabelle? Are Jackson and Brent together now, getting drunk in your honor? When they toast, do I get mentioned in it? Are they planning my demise even now? If Jackson’s goal is to torture me, he’s doing a damn good job of it. I’m living in my own personal purgatory. 

I’ll admit it. I’m wasted as I write this. I drove to the beach house today, figuring that if you were still alive, this is where I’d want to take you on your birthday. The place where we first made love. 

I drank half a bottle of something. I don’t know exactly what because I just grabbed the first thing I saw when I stopped at the liquor store on the way here this morning. I’d thought about getting a birthday cake, but decided that was too morbid. Plus, I don’t have much of an appetite today. 

If I hadn’t killed you, would we have been married by now? Would you have said ‘yes’ had I asked? Or would you have been too independent to want marriage and labeled us life partners instead? 

The ‘what ifs’ are a bitch. I miss you so much.

Love you, my angel. 

I’m an idiot.

Forever Yours,

Gabriel

Closing the journal, I throw it against the nearest wall. Then, drunk and in a panic, I fall out of the dining room chair and crawl on my hands and knees to retrieve it. Once it’s back in my hands, relief rushes through me.

Please hear me, Annabelle. Please answer back.

Chapter 35

Gabriel

July 1st

Annabelle,

You’ve been dead over a year now. At this point I’m starting to think he’s not coming for me. Maybe Jackson’s dead too, killed while on an assignment. I wish I knew where your grave is. I’d keep it overflowing with flowers. It’d be something to do, at least. 

I’m about to do something I’m not completely convinced I want to do. Max came home at the end of May for the summer and has been badgering me to move to New York for the start of the new school year in August. He claims NYU would suit me, whatever the fuck that means. At the very least, going to classes would get me out of this hermit existence. Do I deserve even that much of a life, though? No, but I don’t know what else to do. Jackson didn’t come as I’d expected, I’m starting to think he might not.

I tried using running the businesses I’d inherited from my dad as an excuse, but Max called me out on it. I haven’t done a damn thing in regards to them in the past year and my aunt Lucy has a handle on them. I’m not needed to run them and I’m not in the least bit interested. 

Sometimes, I wish my dad really was the monster you claimed him to be. Maybe then, I wouldn’t have shot you when my mom killed herself over him.

No amount of remorse or guilt, or even love, can redeem me of my crime. It hurts just to wonder what you were thinking and feeling as you died. Did I break your heart? I know I broke my own. Did you hate me? Did you curse your love for me? The betrayal you must have felt because of the promises I broke. But I didn’t break one promise. I promised to love you forever and I do, I will. 

Maybe going to NYU will provoke Jackson into action. If he thinks I’m moving on with my life and happy, will he kill me then?

Yours Forever,

Gabriel

*****

November 24th

Anna,

Max and I are flying down to Miami for Thanksgiving break. Aunt Lucy has a big dinner planned for our dwindling family of three. When we return to New York next week for the final weeks of the semester, there’ll be term papers to write and exams to prepare for. 

When Max asked me to move to New York with him, I think he had something else in mind. After spending his first year in the dorms, he thought us getting a penthouse together would be good times. He’s been so disappointed. He hasn’t been able to turn me from a hermit into a wild college student. 

Besides going to class, the gym or out to eat, I rarely leave our apartment. Being out in the crowded city doesn’t make me feel any less alone than I do in my bedroom. At least in there, with music playing, I don’t have to deal with the noise and foot traffic. 

I’ve never been such a good student before. Class and homework being my only responsibilities, it isn’t hard to keep up with them. In Miami, all I did all day was stare at my bedroom walls, think of you and hate myself. Here, in addition to doing those things, I read my notes and textbooks. I haven’t declared a major and am thinking that just being perpetually in school sounds like a plan. There’s nothing I actually want to do with my life anyways.

Thinking of you, sometimes I fantasize that we’re attending college together. You’re not an assassin and you never killed my father. In my fantasy, you had a normal childhood like me and we fell in love in the normal circumstances that teenagers do. We plan to marry after earning our degrees and travel the world before settling down into a house in the suburbs.

To be honest, any life with you would have been wonderful, assassin or not. If only my shot hadn’t been fatal. If only I hadn’t shot you at all. If only Jackson would kill me.

I’m an idiot, I know. 

Yours Forever,

Gabriel

*****

Storming into the apartment, I slam the door behind me. Max is cuddling on the couch with some brunette chick, her name is Heidi or Hannah or something like that. Walking through the living room, Max stands up, looking wary. “Hey, how’d it go?”

The girl is looking at me like I’m a freak as I glower at my cousin. “Not now, Max.”

Brushing past him, I stalk down the hallway and into my room. Tearing at my clothing, I undress and turn the shower on to the hottest temperature I can stand. Scrubbing myself with soap, I want to get rid of the dirty feeling on my skin. Reaching out of the shower, I grab my toothbrush and toothpaste from the countertop. Brushing hard, I can’t get the bitter taste of self-loathing out of my mouth. Turning off the shower a few minutes later, I still feel disgusting.
Disgusted
. Without bothering to dress, I wrap a navy towel around waist and go to my computer desk. Opening the top drawer, I pull out my journal and begin to write . . .

April 13th

Baby,

My hand is shaking as I write this confession. I feel like I’ve betrayed you and our love all over again. Max finally talked me into going on a date with one of the girls he knows. I did it just to shut him up, but didn’t expect to feel this way.