Page 8 of Sinners Atone
Good.Bitter amusement washes through me as the realization drains all the color from her face. I can practically hear her little bubble of delusionpop.Maybe now she’ll fuck off and leave me to die in peace.
But seconds scratch by, and she doesn’t move. She just stares, blank-faced, at a lone red droplet snaking down her thigh. It dribbles over her knee, along her calf, and disappears into the instep of her boot.
“Blood’s a bitch to get out,” I say, only to twist the knife further.
“Only if you don’t know how to clean it.” She dabs at the red trail with the cuff of her coat and flashes me a limp smile. “Nothing hydrogen peroxide, enzyme cleaner, and a little elbow grease can’t handle, honey.”
My eyes narrow. What the fuck does she know about getting blood out of clothes? A river of curiosity runs thin beneath my skin, but then common sense gives me a weak kick. My view of the world is so skewed that I’d forgotten normal people clean for cleanliness’s sake and not just to hide a body.
Letting out a labored breath, I finally give in to the weight of my eyelids.
Rule seven,my father hisses from between the trees:The Villain never taps out.
Yeah, well. Here I am, old man, finally tapping out.
I’ve fought my whole life, and I’m tired of it. I don’t even care to make it to the church anymore; I just want to go home.
There’s nothing left to do now, apart from watch The Middle bleed into The End.
I roll my head to the side, and my cheek smacks the “play” button. The clicking and whirring are weaker this time, the memories on the backs of my eyelids little more than flickering shadows and whispers.
Eighteen, no candles. My father honks his horn outside my window for the last time, and so begins the long drive to hell.
A pile of dead friends. I stacked the bodies high enough to climb on top and claw myself out.
My brothers glancing at me over the dinner table.
My mother crying a year’s worth of tears.
“Where have you been?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabriel.”
“Hey.” Warm fingers grip my jaw and tilt my head back to the sky. “Talk to me.”
“Can’t.”
“Then what are you doing right now, silly?” When I don’t reply, she pokes me square in the chest, and her huff skitters along my jaw. “All right. Listen, then.”
Something foreign probes at my ear.
“No—”
“Shh.”
My protest melts under the palm on my cheek. I swear, all the good in the world is behind it. It seeps through my skin and churns my blood into butter. Then it clots at the base of my throat because it’s notright.It’s too soft, too kind.
I’ve done nothing in this lifetime to deserve it.
I realize the thing in my ear is an earbud when a familiar piano run fissures out of it. Forcing my eyes open, I wait for my vision to sharpen, and find her at the heart of it, grinning.
She adjusts her own earbud. “It’s ‘Dancing Queen,’by ABBA,” she says proudly, as if she wrote the fucking song herself.
“Get it out,” I grunt.
“No, it’ll make you feel better.” When met with my glare, she adds, “Seriously, it’s scientifically proven that ABBA songs make you happy. With ‘Dancing Queen,’it’s because both Agnetha and Anni-Frid are singing the same key—which literally never happens in a duet, by the way—and at a really high register. When you hear it, your brain signals to your body to produce adrenaline, which, in turn, reduces the feeling of pain.” She glances down at my blood seeping out from beneath her thighs. “I’d say Google it, but there’s no signal. And well, you know…” She gestures down at me as if the sweep of her hand will finish her sentence.
