Last week, I posted something from the beginning of a short story. This week I'm posting something from the middle of that same short. I'm hoping that next week I'll have something from the end of it (gotta get over my inability to write short fiction). On another random note -- writing shorter stuff is a nice break from revising ze novel.
And when it was over, when you were breathless and I was breathless and I brushed a piece of your long, shaggy brown hair behind your ear because it was tickling your forehead, you said, “I love you” with that crescent moon grin on your face.
Just like any other Friday night. Any other Friday night for the past two months.
“I’d bring you the world, Tea,” you said. Do you remember how you used to say stupid things like that?
Do you remember how I never believed you?
I spread my fingers, a web against your chest and gently pushed. Pushed you back and off and said, “Okay. Goodnight.”
You used to say I was cold, then. Do you remember, how you used to say that, on the afternoons we’d sit beside the fires and you’d read me stupid poetry and I’d laugh at you and drink to you and call you an ass? But I wasn’t cold. I was never cold.
I just knew you were lying. You would never bring me the world.
You would only bring me to Andy McTavish. You would put a gun in my hand. And you’d have a gun in yours, holding Andy at arm’s length. You would only say, “I can do this for you, I can, but I need you to do this. I need you to do this.”
And so I kissed the gun to Andy’s temple, ignored his pleading. Ignored his sweat. Ignored the way it smelt like he’d just shit. “Please –“ he whispered to me, but how many times had I said the same thing to Andy? How many times had he ignored it?
I pulled the trigger.
And you. You thought you had brought me the world.
