In order to expand my creativity, I decided that every day, while I'm quarentined, I'm going to generate a random prompt and write for 30 minutes, then post it here. With a lot in my head and the usual urge to write, I thought that this was a great idea.
This... whatever this is evolved from the lone sentence, "So I suppose you want to ask me why I killed her." Now, my creative writing is unlike my blog writing--I write incredibly psycholoical. Just to put that out there!
This is a little different, but I thought it'd be fun and, well... it's me! Enjoy!
So I suppose you want to ask me why I killed her. If I told you that doing so wasn’t the original plan, I doubt you’d believe me. If I said it was an accident… well, regardless I’ll end up in jail. I mean, who’d ever believe a murderer? And even if they did, what could be done now?
I loved her. I swear to you that I loved her dearly and whole-heartedly and although it is true, it is real--I killed her--I can hardly accept it. What I did was so terribly wrong but if you’d just listen, just for a moment, I could explain, and then maybe, possibly, you’d realize that what I did was so incredibly right and not wrong. Not wrong at all.
Grace was a loveable person. With her radiant smile and yellow aroma and overall charisma and optimism, who could not love her? When I saw her standing there in that bright, oddly warm bar, I knew, very clearly, that I had fallen hard for someone dangerous. I could see it in her large, blue eyes--this girl was a hugable monster in disguise, and I let myself fall for it, her kind, devious face and perfectly curled locks and small waist. I swopped in and bought her a drink and from that night forward I can honestly say that I was in love with this woman.
We dated for many months, nearly a year. We grazed books with our fingertips and flipped through records and sipped on our sugary lattes like every other hipster couple in Seattle does on spontaneous dates. We’d read thick novels to each other with our backs leaned against the leaky windows that played as a home for trickling raindrops, our feet tangled in her duvet comforter. I work from home, so I mostly lived at her place, cooked warm meals in her kitchen and woke her up to the smell of strong, dark roast coffee. I’d prepare her breakfast-in-bed and she’d sit there, dazed and smiling with her wild, frizzy hair and flattened cheeks. She loved me. She never admitted it, but it was clear by the way she looked at me that she did. And it was clear she fell fast, too. Maybe even faster than I did.
By two months I was meeting her parents. They loved me and my strong handshake and fashionable attire: a white dress shirt, a navy blazer, khaki slacks, and white sneakers. I wasn’t surprised that they loved me--all parents love me.
Grace never met my parents because, well… they’re dead. Gone. Hell, I have no earthly clue whether they’re alive or not or where they are now, but that doesn’t matter, and I explained this to Grace and she didn’t really understand. In fact, she kept pressing that I connect with them and that was our first fight which I will honestly admit ended with a slap to her face. And I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry about that. I never meant to hurt her. I loved her. She didn’t understand that, though, and she ran away.
I didn’t speak to her for nearly a week.
When miraculously, she messaged me, and she asked to meet for a sugary latte, and I said “yes”. We started our usual routine--me at her place, cooking her food and brushing her messy hair and being her boyfriend.
And it was great. It was wonderful. At least for a while, until she told me she had to go away for a few days for her job. I was completely okay with this. Obediently, I packed up my things and pecked her on the lips and when I asked whether she needed a ride to the airport she politely said, “No thanks, my girl best friend Elizabeth is going to take me.” I remember when she said that. Because it made me wary at first and she had to calm me down and after an hour of me worrying and her calming, I left.
The first night in my house was quiet and eerie and I couldn’t stand it. Besides our week apart, I hadn’t slept in my own bed in quite some time. The sheets were cold and my head was spinning and the darkness was consuming me, speaking to me, and voices were coming from everywhere and nowhere and soon enough I lept out of bed and raced to Grace’s apartment. Even though she wasn’t there, I had a key and I could stay in her bed and smell her warmth and at least feel a little better about her absence.
When I opened the door, wearing my PJs and a backward baseball cap and holding a six-pack of beer I saw Grace in the bed with another guy.
But not just another guy--the guy who sold us sugary lattes at a neighboring coffee shop. His name was Jim and at that moment I hated him more than anything else in the world.
“What the hell!?” I screamed.
“I completely forgot I gave him a key,” Grace muttered, her eyes wide and in shock.
Jim stood up and approached me and I sat down the beer and braced for what was about to come, my heart pounding in my chest, my sweaty fists clenched at my sides. He told me to leave, and I said no, and he said she never loved me and that she loved him the entire time, and I said no, and then he threw a fist at me, and I kicked him in the inner thigh and he nailed my jaw and I tackled him to the floor and all the while Grace was screaming, covering her naked body with the same duvet comforter I served her breakfast on. I looked up at her in the corner of my eye and in that moment, she was much less beautiful. Her eyes were colder than my room at home and her body was bony and frail and her lips curled into something evil and menacing and not something I could ever love.
I didn’t mean to kill her. I never planned on it. Even then, as my blood boiled and her face became uglier and uglier and everything began spinning and the voices got louder, I never planned to kill her. I had just knocked Jim to the ground, unconscious and torn apart and I remember staring at Grace and asking her, “Why?”
She said nothing, and I couldn’t take it, and when I woke up she was on the floor and the breakfast tray sat there, right beside her, and by then the police were there and I couldn’t explain myself. In their eyes, it was my fault. All of it. But I promise to you that I had a key. I promise that Grace loved me, and I loved her. She never said it, but she loved me. And I never said it, but I loved her.
I bet she was just confused. I bet she felt bad, doing what she did. And I feel bad doing what I did. Of course, I do.
I just… I don’t think what I did was wrong. At that moment, whatever I decided to do, partially aware and in the most pain I’d ever endured in my life… I knew it was the only thing I could’ve done. I’d prefer if Jim was dead instead of Grace, of course, but, in the end, it wasn’t wrong.
Not at all.