“You can fill out a mother’s day card. I’ll make sure it’s found in your apartment and it gets back to her.”
Oh, God.
He speaks so calmly about my death. Not just my death on its own, but the world as it will exist without me. The idea of a world without him makes me ill, but clearly the same isn’t true for him. The realization makes me want to vomit. He won’t even miss me, will he? I thought I meant something to him, but I don’t.
Suddenly, something inside me snaps. As recently as a moment ago, I still wanted to be around him, but now I don’t even want to be in the same room with him. I don’t want to spend my last hours with him. If he’s going to kill me, I just want him to get it over with.
“Will you kill me, or will Sin do it?” I ask again.
“I will,” he tells me. Smiling faintly, but without real humor, he adds, “Sin took care of Cassandra. Seems like it’s my turn.”
“I am not a Cassandra. Tell yourself that if you need to, but it’s bullshit, and you know it.” He looks back at me again, and this time I hold his gaze. “If you’re going to kill me tonight, why don’t you go ahead and get it over with?”
Lifting a golden brow, he asks, “Eager to die?”
“No. Eager for you to stop hurting me. It seems like that’s the only way out.”
His face falls briefly, but he catches it and clears it, resorting to a poker face. Regardless of the impact my words may have had, he lifts his gun and runs his hand along the barrel. “Those aren’t very friendly last words, Virginia.”
“Sometimes the truth isn’t friendly,” I inform him.
Nodding his head, he lifts the gun and turns, pointing to a spot in front of him on the floor. “Come over here.”
I slide off the bed and begin to walk, but he holds up a hand to stop me. “Crawl,” he says. “Rats crawl.”
I lift my chin and glare at him. “I am not a rat, and I can’t crawl with bound hands.”
“Fine. Kneel, and I’ll come to you.”
Helpless anger roils in my gut at the massive injustice that this is happening. I’ve never found much to exalt about death. I don’t find the end romantic, and I don’t think the way you go much matters. I’ve always assumed when I died, I would feel dread. I wouldn’t be ready to go. There would still be so much I wanted to do, and I would give anything to have a little more time.
I never thought the man I loved would be the one running out my clock.
I guess I shouldn’t have loved a gangster.
If reincarnation is a thing, maybe I can instill a hatred for them in my soul so this never happens again.
I don’t want to feel like this, so I clear my thoughts, shake my head, and kneel here like a good little sacrificial lamb. I don’t care about dying well. I didn’t even live well; why should my death be any different?
I close my eyes, because I don’t want to watch. I feel him approach. For the next however many seconds I have left, I don’t want any new memories. I just want to soak in the good ones.
Rafe doesn’t speak, so it’s easy to get lost. It’s easy to find peace. I search for a favorite memory, the one I want to relive if it’s the last moment I’ll ever have. I expect it to be one of the times we were together, but the one that floats to the surface is us in my apartment after the Sugar Factory, our foreheads pressed together, the promise of a kiss in the air.
That’s us. That’s our relationship. A really heartfelt promise that just couldn’t be kept.
I smile, even though he can’t see what I’m seeing, and echo back words he said to me back when this first started. “I should’ve kissed you.”
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head, eyes still closed. “Nothing. I’m ready.”
The cool barrel of his gun comes to rest against my forehead. I feel strangely calm, considering this cool metal will be responsible for clearing my mind of every last memory and leaving me in a lifeless heap on Rafe’s bedroom floor.
“Any last words for me, Virginia?”
“Yes,” I say, opening my eyes to look up at him. “I hope someday you will find someone else who loves you enough to bring you feel-better cheesecake after you shatter her heart. And I hope you’ll be able to trust her.”
I don’t want to see anything more, and to be honest, I don’t want to make him look into my eyes as they turn lifeless, so I squeeze them shut to spare us both that unpleasantness.