Page 41 of Hold Him Like Gravity

“Yes, you are. You belong at home with me. Where I can take care of you.”

“Take care of me?” I’d scoffed, a strange, hysterical kind of laugh escaping me. “All you have done is hurt me.”

The argument escalated from there as he continued to approach me, to close me in, to make it impossible to escape when he finally started to strike.

It was when he pinned me against the dumpster, the metal crushing against my shoulders and hips, that I remembered the pocketknife I had in my back pocket.

I don’t know if I was consciously thinking of that random guy at my old job and his pen-to-artery instructions when my hand slipped into my pocket to close around the metal that was warmed from being against my skin.

All that seemed to cross my mind was that I needed this tostop. That I never wanted him to put his hands on me again.

I flicked the knife open as his hand closed around my throat, starting to cut off my air, making my face and brain feel fuzzy.

“You belong to me,” he’d snarled in my face.

Not anymore.

Never again.

And I just… raised my arm and started stabbing.

Once, twice, three times.

More? I don’t know. It was all an adrenaline-filled rush, making everything sharper—the stink of the trash behind me, the sweat from the heat soaking my shirt, the bright, red color of his blood as it started to flow out of his body—but also strangely far away. Like it was something I was watching, not something I was doing.

Kyle’s hands pressed to his neck, the blood flowing between his fingers, as he fell back, then slid down the brick wall.

I didn’t really think then, I just… walked away.

I walked back inside.

Like nothing had happened.

I went into the bathroom, washing my hands and arms.

Then I… went back to work, sure that any moment, the cops would come rushing in with guns drawn, ready to take me in for murder.

But the cops never came.

Numbly, I finished my shift. Then, when my relief came in the morning, I gathered my things and I just… left.

I went to Jake and Bobby’s, grabbing as much as I could as quietly as I could, so I didn’t wake anyone up.

Then I walked away.

Out of the apartment.

Out of the Bronx.

I stopped at a seedy hotel where I showered then just sat on the bed, waiting for the police to find me.

They didn’t that day.

Or the day after.

Or the day after that.

Despite having used my credit card for the room.

---