Page 91 of SNOB

When we’re face to face, the air around us stills and I don’t have to look around to know it’s just her and I.

“There you are, Butterfly.” My voice makes her grip on that gun tighten, both of us in front of the fountain. Without a word, she raises the gun before that barrel stares me in the face. Again. A chuckle escapes me, “We’re right back where we started, aren’t we?” Her shaky hand raises the gun higher. “I’ll say what I said before, put that down and drop to your knees. I’ll pull my cock out and you can apologize with those very pretty lips. And that talented throat.”

Her eyes narrow as she moves that gun towards my torso. Right where she got me that night. Another chuckle leaves me. She always knew how to take me out. A quick death would be too easy. She knows what this means to me.

She wants me to suffer.

“What, you gonna shoot me again?” Taking another step forward, I call her on it. “Do it. Do it so the entire Hill can see the stupid maniac you are. Drive that bullet into me again. Drive that bullet into my heart. Do it and end us. We don’t deserve us.” Her eyes blur but I don’t stop. “Tick-tock, Butterfly.”

“Jake’s dead.” Her words hit me like that bullet in the barrel. “And you should be too for what you did.”

“So you threaten my life again? The only idiot stupid enough to have your back and you’re making me the enemy.”

“You are the enemy.” Her voice shakes, a tear streaming from those glossy eyes. “You always were. You don’t deserve me.” Her Oxfords take another step closer, that cold metal of the gun pushing into me. “You don’t deserve anyone. Or anything.”

“So do it, Ember.” My lips hover over hers, those bloodstone eyes like cloudy crystal glass. I don’t take my eyes off them. I don’t wipe those tears. I don’t reach my hands around her throat. “End it.” She closes those eyes, cocking the gun. “Don’t be a fucking coward, look at me.” She does. “Good girl.”

“Stop!”

A voice comes from the end of the quad and I take one more chance to put her in her place.

My hand wraps around the gun.

Her eyes widen.

“Stop!”

POW!

The eyes of my Butterfly are the last things I see before I let darkness finally consume me.

TWENTY-SEVEN

MAC

“Mac?”

“Jake’s dead.”

“It’ll be hard to come back from this.”

“Mac?”

“Jake’s dead.”

“You’ve suffered so much trauma it’ll be hard to play again.”

“Hey, Mac?”

“Jake’s dead.”

“Mac? Are you with me?” Janine’s hand comes to my back, startling me out of the broken record playing in my head. “That’s uh, that’s pretty dark.” Staring back at the canvas in front of me, she’s right. A mix of red, black and dark blue creates a mess. A circle of chaos. Just like us. “But I’m proud of you for pouring that onto your canvas. I’m happy to be working with you on this.”

Art therapy.

It’s meant to process my feelings from being out of the game again. To process the physical and emotional pain of taking yet another bullet.

To process loss.

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