Page 59 of Serial Killer Games

“I want to be with you. I think you want to be with me too.”

I’m flushed and sweaty. My scalp prickles.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

His life has been so unhappy, but there must have been a period in his childhood where someone took very good care of him for him to be able to say exactly what he’s feeling like that.

It’s not a shabby offer. His love, his attention, his fun—to be at the center of the intense focus of this intelligent, handsome man…and he’s not asking for anything in return, except my presence. I let him hold my hands, and I let myself picture it one more time.

“We’re married,” he says quietly, like he’s still wrapping his head around it and is afraid to say it too loud. “Let’s go on a honeymoon. We’ll quit our jobs. No work, no responsibilities, no crazy roommate, and definitely no cat—”

Cat.

Cat.

I’m so glad he says it, because it’s there, rightthere, that he goes too far and makes it easy for me to say no. For him to suggest that I ditch her for him—that I leave her in the lurch for a few weeks while I indulge in a dalliance—that I would be the sort of person…

This last remaining piece of Neil is the reason I get up in the morning. The reason I stay up half the night on my stupid laptop. The reason I cling to that mind-numbing job. I’ve done terrible things, but my love for her is the best and most redeeming thing about me—

It hits me that I’ve been terrible.

I’ve worked so hard to build a new life, a life I was supposed to have with Neil, a life that honors his memory, and here I’ve been acting like an idiot, leaving her behind, risking my job, binding myself legally to someone I barely know. I’ve been completely unhinged these past few weeks.

I make myself sick.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I know exactly who it is. I wrench my hands from Jake’s. I could throw up. He needs to know where we stand. I need to remind myself where I stand.

“The thing is,” I say, “I have a life.”

It comes out so much harsher than I mean it to, but it’s like I have two settings. Cruel, and even worse. His face goes blank. A thrust, and now a twist:

“I have an actual life. I have love, and a home, and a purpose.” I’m solucky, in spite of all the bad luck that came before. I have so much now, even if I lost everything once. Casino bravado has steamed off like a mist in the bright light of day, and I can admit to myself I’d fight till I’m red in tooth and claw to not lose it all again. I’ll fight Jake if I have to. “At the end of the day, when we’re done playing our stupid serial killer games at the office, I go home and my real life begins.”

His face shows utter betrayal. He’s been the other man this whole time, the one I cheat on my real life with. But I’ve decided either I hurt, or he does. Except I still hurt. My phone vibrates again. I plunge my hand in my pocket and squeeze it.

He stares at me, his face turning red. “Is this the same real life you’ve been escaping from the whole time I’ve known you?”

I stab him right back. “You don’t even have a real life.”

“Thiscould be real life,” he says, and there’s a shearing sensation in my chest. Organs twisting until they split.

“For the rest ofyourlife, I guess.”

It was self-defense, Your Honor.Jake drops my hands.

Buzz.

“Real life calling?” Jake says sarcastically.

I press the phone to my ear and walk to the other side of the newsstand.

“I got the flight cancellation email,” my neighbor says without preamble.

“I’m already boarding a different flight,” I lie, and my neighbor sighs with relief.

“Good. She misses you. When I woke up this morning she was curled up on the foot of my bed.”

I wait until I’m sure my voice won’t crack. “Can I say hi?”

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