Page 41 of A Forgotten Mistake

He loosens his grip just enough that I can see his smug face a moment before I drive the screwdriver I’ve managed to grab into his throat. He reels back, but I don’t let him get far. I send him to his knees as I stab him again.

Jonah clutches his throat as blood leaks from between his fingers, a look of shock on his face.

“Are you sure I don’t have what it takes?” I whisper before the next hit makes it so he can never smirk again.

I stare at his unmoving body sprawled out on my tarp.

He’s finally dead. The man who invaded my waking hours and every nightmare.

Dead.

I gasp for breath, pleased that I can finally breathe again. How long has it been since I’ve been able to breathe? Since my mother died, for sure. Since the death of my father wrapped another noose around my throat.

I can breathe. I really can breathe.

I’m afraid if my mother saw me now, she’d think that I’m a monster. But I’ll be a monster so people like him can’t freely walk around feeling smug about what they’ve done.

A part of me just wants to sit here, unsure how to even keep moving. It’s like my entire purpose is now gone. Of course I feel euphoria over it, but this obsession had masked everything else I was feeling. It allowed me to be numb as I moved through thisworld. But now that he’s dead… is there really any use in moving forward?

I shake those thoughts out of my mind. I have to clean this mess up. I have to move his body before his girlfriend comes and finds the house empty.

It’s the push I need to get to my feet and start cleaning up the mess I’ve made.

I’m meticulous—making sure everything is back in place, making sure there’s not a single drop of blood that someone could find, and it’s what I need to move forward. It gives me something to do, knowing that I have to dispose of the body, and once that’s over with, I’ll be done. Then I’ll really be done.

I get him in the trunk of the car and then head back into the house to look through the window at the driveway to make sure the dark is adequate for hiding me. He even graciously parked his car on the road to give his girlfriend a place to park and space for me to back out.

Did she know he was a monster? Or was he kind to her? Was he caring? Or did he hit her? Hurt her?

I hurry back into the garage and fix the garage door opener before hitting the button, but what I see standing outside of it is the very last thing I ever imagined I’d see.

Abby.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she demands.

It’s like my brain and body don’t even know how to react to this new information. What the fuck am I doing is a very good question, but how the hell do I answer it?

She looks beyond me, like she’s expecting to get to see something behind me that will give her the answers she’s seeking for. The only way she’s going to find answers is if she looks in the trunk of the car.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

She’s watching me closely, like judging my face will help her see what’s happening here. “I followed you. And then you just… went in there and never came out. What are you doing with that guy? At first, I thought you were up to something with him. Like drugs or… sex, but I saw you pick the lock. Where is he?”

What’s a good lie? What could I possibly say to draw her attention off this?

“I buy weed from him on occasion. Not my fault I’m better at hiding it than you are,” I say since Lisa caught her smelling of it just last week.

“Why’d you change your clothes? Why’d the garage door not work for him but worked for you?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Because I didn’t want to smell like weed. Abby, come on. I have to get home.”

“Good, you can drive me home.”

My plan is quickly being shredded the longer she stands here. “You found your way here, you find your way home.”

“So let’s get this straight. You meet your…drug dealerat a bus stop where you harass him. Then you go to his house, park your car in his garageafterbreaking in, and then wait with all the lights off forhoursfor him to get home. Still don’t turn any lights on… and leave. You know… I want some weed too; think he’d sell to me?” she asks as she pushes past me into the garage. “Drug dealer, are you in here? Hey, drug dealer… you in here or are you in the trunk?—”

I slam her against the wall and press the knife I’d planned to use on the man in my trunk against her neck. “Get the fuck out of here.”

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