My Peace (Beautifully Broken 5)

“How do I know you will stick to your word?” I ask and my words are sluggish and slurred from the drugs.

“You don’t,” he says directly. “But I will. I have nothing against you personally. I’m paid to do a job. That is all.”

I nod.

“Anything else?”

I think on that. “I want to leave a note for my wife.”

“No. That’s not possible.”

“Will you send a message to her?” I ask. “Will you tell her that I love her?”

“If she doesn’t already know that, then you weren’t living your life right in the first place.”

“That’s true,” I agree with my captor. I don’t know why, but he sounds logical and I’m swimming in a sea of doubt.

He leaves

, just like that, without another word.

I sit on the floor and I know it’s for the last time.

I won’t have to go through this cycle again. It will be over soon.

I open the last box.

There is a .45 revolver inside, and it gleams in the moonlight. I check the barrel. One bullet is in the chamber.

The last journal page is folded beneath it.

I take a deep breath.

The drugs have dulled all of my senses. I’m not afraid. I’m not even sad. I’m an empty shell, and all I need is the last piece of this puzzle. I need to know.

I put the gun on my lap, and I pull out the paper. The ink on this page is fresh, a vibrant blue.

I’ve thought a lot over the years about why Susanna had acted like she did that night.

She rejected me, and refused to go with me, and I have to admit, that was a surprise. It took the wind out of my sails.

I know now, though, why she did it.

She must’ve thought I would kill her son.

She didn’t trust me when I said I wouldn’t.

If it had only been her and I, I know she would have gone with me in a split second. I would’ve saved her from that life. But her son came in, and she had to put on a show for him. She had to act like she didn’t love me. I know it was a show. I saw how she’d looked at me every time I delivered their mail, day in and day out. She watched me, and she was lustful and she wanted me. I know it now, and I knew it then.

But some women, their instincts to be mothers overtakes everything else.

That’s what happened that night.

I’m sure of it.

She fought for that snot-nosed kid. And in the end, I asked her why. Right before he rushed in and killed her, I asked her why she was fighting so hard for him.

She looked up at me, and her eyes were so wide and full of tears. And she said-