Page 32 of Only Forever

As horrifying as the blood stains were, the lack of life in her face was what ripped my heart open. She looked cold, and expressionless…and gone.

The blood rushed to my ears and popped, and suddenly everything was crystal clear. Sounds were unmuffled and time snapped back into regular speed. I grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her up and awaken her.

“Mom!” I screamed, not feeling the tears running down my face. “Mom, wake up!”

I was horrified when more blood gushed out of the wounds in her chest. I looked up at Keith, scared she was gone.

“Help her!” I screamed. “Call an ambulance!”

That’s when I saw it. The knife clutched in his hand. The blood on his clothes. The dazed look on his face.

This couldn’t be real. Keith couldn’t have killed her. I had never even really seen them fight. Sure, they argued, but nothing beyond some cross words. Most of their disagreements between them were about my current state of life, but even then, Keith had just expressed disappointment, not rage. He had never laid a hand on her. He was a mild-mannered man that seemed to worship the ground my mom walked on. Keith couldn’t have done something like this to her.

But what I was seeing was undeniable. His bloody hand that had been clutching the knife opened, and the knife clattered onto the floor. I stared at the knife on the floor, at the blood on the blade. My mother’s blood. And then I looked up at him.

“What did you do?” I hissed. I felt no fear. I wasn’t afraid of Keith. I just felt an overwhelming rage. Anger wasn’t a strong enough word to express what I was feeling. The emotion erupting in me wanted to tear Keith limb from limb with my bare hands.

“Daphne.” Keith’s voice was shaking and he looked scared. His gaze shifted to his hands, covered in blood, and he shook his head.

“No,” he wailed. He dropped to his knees next to my mother. His hand reached out towards her, but I pushed him away.

“Don’t touch her!” I screamed. “What did you do to her? Why?”

My last word came out in a howl. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. Why did he hurt her?

“I don’t know,” Keith said, sobbing. “I don’t know. We were arguing and the next thing I knew, she was on the ground andthe knife was in my hand. I must have blacked out. I don’t remember anything. It’s like I had a mental break. I swear I would never hurt her, I love your mom. She’s my life.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.” Tears streamed down my face and I screamed it again. “I don’t believe you!!”

My blood ran cold when the despair dropped from his face like a mask and he smiled. “That’s too bad. I thought I was pretty convincing.” He shrugged his shoulders, standing up. “I’m sure the police will believe me, though. I was just having a psychotic episode.” He put his finger to mouth, tapping his lip thoughtfully. “I’ll be the doting husband who lost his mind. I’ll get the insanity plea.”

“But why,” I sobbed. Who the hell was this man in front of me acting like a psychopath? This wasn’t the man my mom had married. “Why would you do this?”

Keith’s lips thinned. “You don’t need to know. Just feel lucky that I didn’t stab you in your sleep.”

Something in me broke. I got up and rushed towards him, gripping the pocketknife still in my hand. But Keith was too fast for me. His hands came up quickly, grabbing my wrists. His eyes looked crazed as they bored into me.

“Now, now,” he said tauntingly. He squeezed my wrists so tightly that the pocketknife dropped out of my hand. “That was stupid of you. I guess you have to die, too.”

I shrieked in feral anger and pushed against his grip, causing him to stumble backwards. He let go of my wrists and fell back, his head hitting the floor hard. He groaned, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

I backed up from him quickly, and grabbed my phone from my pocket. I needed to call 911 before Keith became conscious again. I prayed my mom could still be saved. Maybe she wasn’t dead.

“911. What’s your emergency?”

“My mom,” I sobbed into the phone. “My mom has been stabbed. Please send an ambulance as fast as you can.”

I gave the 911 operator the address to the house as quickly as possible, and she told me police and ambulance were on the way and to stay on the line with her. She started asking me more questions, but my eyes were glued to Keith, who was still laying on the floor. Something deep inside me awakened, and an unfamiliar feeling surged inside me. What if he got away with this? What if he played the insanity card and got away with it, just like he said? What if he was somehow able to convince a judge and jury that he had been out of his mind?

“My stepdad, too,” I said to the operator. “My stepdad has been stabbed, too.”

The operator started to ask more questions, but I hung up the phone. I stood up and walked over to Keith.

Keith moaned and I saw his eyelids start fo flutter. He wouldn’t get away with it. He would pay.

It was as if I was watching a version of myself, like I was outside of my body. I watched myself take the knife he had used on my mother. I put it in his hand as if he were holding it. I slashed the knife down in a flash, my hand gripped over his. I was surprised at how little resistance there was as it went through the flesh of his stomach. I would have thought it would have been harder, but it was quite easy to stab someone.

I let go of the knife and backed away. The knife was sticking out of Keith’s stomach, his shirt rapidly staining red, and blood gurgled out of his mouth.

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