Page 133 of Three for a Girl

“You know I didn’t mean physically.”

Carter lay only five yards from where he was digging, completely still. Chad didn’t know whether he faced the night sky or whether Romeo had rolled him over into the dirt, but there was a dead person right in front of him.

Under normal circumstances he’d be called to such a person. The scene would be cordoned, any evidence documented, and someone would take photographs of Carter from every possible angle.

Chad was a foot away from rolling Carter into the hole and dumping earth on top of him.

“I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

“Good.”

“And I’m happy you got to let the monster out.”

“You enjoyed it?”

Chad looked away, whispering a yes to the wind.

“But?”

“I won’t be satisfied until those people in the woods are discovered. Those teenagers, those kids. Missing people who have family, and friends desperate to find them, even if they don’t, even if they were like me, with no one who cared, they deserve to be found.”

Romeo nodded. “They do.”

“I’m burying his body like he buried all of theirs, but I don’t want him to be found. I don’t want him to be unearthed or discovered, he doesn’t deserve it.”

Chad started shoveling again, heaving mud into the pile. The clang and thud of earth was oddly soothing. Romeo had stopped panting behind him, but Chad could feel his gaze on his back. He sensed Romeo’s agitation, and frowned, turning to face him.

Their eyes connected, and it was Romeo that looked away first.

“What is it?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Marc?”

Chad stabbed the spade into the ground, and leaned against the side of the hole. “I don’t know.”

“I know I’m new to this, being in a relationship, caring, but I mean it when I say you don’t need to hide anything from me.”

“I … I was hurting, and at my lowest, he made me hurt even more, in ways I couldn’t imagine. I was nothing but some helpless puppet, strung up and used. Then you came into the room and it was like a dream. You killed Marc, you set me free, and I didn’t want you to know because…”

“Because what?”

“Because you might not have wanted me anymore. If you realized just how broken I was … you might not have come back. You might not have waited for me outside of the hospital. You might have walked away once we got here.”

Romeo shifted to the edge of the hole and dangled his legs over. “You really thought that? Jesus, Chad, I escaped prison for you—”

“Exactly, and you found what was left of me. If you’d have known how weak, how pathetic, how helpless…”

“You’re not weak and you’re not pathetic, and you’re not helpless.”

“I couldn’t risk it.”

“There was never any risk. You don’t need to hide anything from me, ever.”

Romeo waved him closer, Chad lowered his gaze, rocking back on his heels.

“You like taking things apart, putting things together, working things out. My heart, my soul, everything is broken, and I can’t be fixed. I’m not a game that came be won, or a puzzle that can be made.”

“I don’t want to win you, or piece you together. There’s no joy in something being finished, or completed, or done. That’s the end of something, the cutthroat moment that leaves you empty. I don’t want to ever reach the end with us, we’ll always be broken, unfixable, incomplete, imperfectly perfect."

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