Page 178 of Perfect
they found the tracker
“The doctors found it during an MRI after they stabilized her. She’s known about it since she woke up,” Elise says quietly. Something inside of me breaks completely as I stare at the note.
Alex isn’tafraidof me.
She fuckinghatesme.
“Leave,” I choke out as a black hole forms inside of me, every ounce of energy sucked out of my body. I return to my cell in a daze. I don’t eat or sleep, and time starts speeding up and slowing down at random until I lose track of the days.
I’ve felt like this before, when Melissa left or when I lost Ashley, and even a little bit when I killed Jason. Still, in comparison, none of those things even bothered me. Nothing has ever felt this bad.
If I had the energy to kill myself right now, I would.
I’ll do it later. I have nothing but time now.
Dr. Mills visits twice a week for therapy, but I don’t see the point. She reminds me that seeing her is part of my parole, andsince I’m stilltechnicallyon parole, I’m required to sit in a room with her for an hour twice a week. She tries to speak to me, but I stare at the clock, not really seeing or hearing her.
She has me put on suicide watch, which is fair.
***
Time without Alex blurs and stretches oddly. The arraignment happens, but I barely notice. I show up at the courthouse, Elise enters a plea of not guilty by reason of self-defense, bail is denied, and I go back to jail.
I know that Alex will be fine eventually, but without her, I don’t care what happens to me anymore.
Elise visits to talk about next steps, to discuss offers for plea deals and talk about the vague possibility of trial, but I don’t care. My only request is to get out as soon as possible so that I can kill myself in Yachats, where I got to make Alex happy for one weekend.
A week after the arraignment, Elise tells me we have a potential plea deal, but it would mean ten more years in prison. Ten years is a long fucking time, but Alex should have the option to talk to me before I kill myself. I know I’ll probably never see her again, but she’d know where to find me if she wanted to talk to me.
Ten years is long enough that she might even want to.
I tell Elise I’ll think about it.
53
ALEX
TWO MONTHS EARLIER
FRIDAY, MARCH 1
I don’t know what being dead is supposed to feel like, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be this painful.
I can hear a soft beeping somewhere, and as I open my eyes, a dimly lit ceiling slowly comes into focus. I close my eyes again, muddled thoughts drifting across my mind.
Everything blurs and I fall asleep again, or maybe I don’t. I can't tell.
Once I’m fully awake, an older woman with greying blonde hair appears in the room and introduces herself as Dr.Goodman. I’m too tired to respond as she tells me I’ve been out for a few days, that I got to the hospital just in time, and that I’m lucky to be alive. She tells me something nicked a small branch of my femoral artery and I lost a lot of blood, and that’s excluding the rest of the injuries.
Injuries?
Danny.
What happened to Danny?
A vague, blurry memory of screaming and gunshots and so much blood flits across my mind.
Theohappened to Danny.
