Tiger Print Sheets and Cigarette Smoke.

The cold winter air bites my skin as I walk down the street, forcing me to pull my scarf higher to cover my mouth. The stale stench of cigarette smoke lingers in my mouth and on my clothes, the head rush from my first cigarette in four days still not quite dissipated. The main road, illuminated by artificial yellow light, was still busy, even long after nightfall as this was. The speeding cars rushed past me, the air they disturbed catching my coat’s hem and swirling it around, like some modern-day and less-iconic version of Marilyn’s famous scene.

I know they’d never have let me out of the house if I’d told them where I was going. They always told me that you were bad news. I wouldn’t listen to them, and I think after a while they realized that the only way I was ever going to learn was for me to find out by myself. I wonder if they had their suspicions that I was walking the dangerous route to your house after dark alone. They always knew I was drawn to you like a magnet, like a moth to a flame – like a bull to a matador.

I think they always knew how it would end, too. The bull doesn’t know that this elegantly dressed man is going to torment it and then finally kill it. The crowd does. They watch our sick dance, waiting for the second you change the rhythm, like they know will happen. We could waltz until our toes are bleeding on the floor, but they know how it ends.

I turn onto your street and the familiarity and the strangeness rips me to shreds. How many times did I walk down this pavement, my heart beating faster and faster, knowing that whatever was troubling me would evaporate into the air when I saw your face?

And no one but me would notice the little changes. The way that there are a few new cars, and the cat that was always sat on the wall outside Mrs. Next-Door’s front door is gone. The tree outside your window has been cut back – I bet it doesn’t tap your window in strong wind anymore, does it? Your marker-pen name has been removed from the lamppost; the initials that you wrote in the wet concrete outside your house filled in and covered up. No one else notices that it’s now a different girl you let in with a smile and a warm embrace and a kiss on the cheek.

I rap my knuckles on the door with the secret knock that you told me to use. You probably already know it’s me standing on your doorstep, don’t you? I know you’re in – your light is on in your room. I can hear the music through the single pane window. I know it’s wrong that I’m so accustomed to listening to the slight change in the volume of your music, it’s even worse that I can just-about hear your door creaking open and you stomping down the stairs, probably ranting about ‘who’s this knocking at this time of night, who do they think they are?’ like an old man. I laugh at the mental image, but realize it’s not a time for smiling lips and toothy grins.

I touch the metal silhouette in my pocket, just to check it’s there like they do in movies.

You open the door. The dim light casts shadows on your face at odd angles, but it doesn’t matter. You are still utter perfection. You beckon me into the warmth of your house and as I step in, I accidentally breathe in the smell of cigarettes and coffee and that teenage stench of deodorant and shampoo – the smell of you. You grin and wrap an awkward arm around my shoulder, “what brings you here tonight then, love?” I shrug and wrap my arms around your waist, accidentally-on-purpose breathing you in and resting my head in the crook of your neck for a second too long.

I hope to god you can’t feel the metal shape between us.

“Mum’ll get here in an hour or two, so do you want to go upstairs and I’ll bring coffee up?” I nod and pull my fingers from my gloves, and unwind the scarf from my neck. “Fags are on top of the telly, have one if you want.”

And all too soon I’m sat on these familiar sheets, tiger print and polar bears clashing together in a way that just makes me laugh. Posters of bands still decorate your walls. My graffiti, Sharpie name has been scribbled out and replaced by your new girlfriends name. I pretend that the thought of you and her here on the bed we shared doesn’t make me sick and crush my heart all at once. I take the proffered cigarette and light it, trying desperately to steady my nerves.

And then you’re ascending the stairs slowly, with two cups of tea (you don’t really know how to make coffee, do you?), trying not to spill them. I realize my time is running out. I can’t stay and chat. You won’t even realize you’re doing it, but you’ll dissuade me from doing what I need to do. I need to be free from you at last, and no one can understand that. Not you, not them. I just need to get you out of my head.

And the next thing I know is that you’re lying on your bed, the bullet hole in your chest seeping red liquid onto your tiger print sheets. I try not to look at your face. Seeing your sky blue eyes blank and glassy would make it real, make the monster that I’m trying to keep at bay drag me under with a vengeance.

Oh God oh God oh God.

I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster.

The gun is still lying on the bed, still where I dropped it when I realized what I’d done. I want you to know that I’ll never forgive myself. Just so you know. Love isn’t supposed to end like this. Love is never supposed to end, it’s supposed to be forever.

And here we are, your skin getting colder and waxier by the second.

Heathcliff had it right. You say I killed you – haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe — I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

I touch your hand goodbye and the iciness shocks me. How many times did I complain of being too cold, just to get you to take my hand or wrap me up in your arms? The paragraph on death on that outdated medical dictionary doesn’t tell you how terrifying it is to watch the warmth and the life trickle away from a body, how horrific it is to watch beautiful eyes turn empty and soulless.

I take one final look at your room, the organized mess still cluttering every available surface as I’m used to. I don’t look at her Sharpie name on the wall. The cloying smell of cigarettes still clings to the fabric of the room, but it’s right – like that is how it’s meant to be. Your CD player is still churning out music even now, I don’t know the song but I can guess the band. The metallic taste of blood in my mouth from biting my lip annoys me, and in any other situation, I’d scramble through your room looking for a chewing gum, but I can’t bring myself to disturb anything. My hands are damp with sweat, but I pick up the gun again, it sort of slipping in my hand.

I can feel the metal barrel pressed against my mandible. All I have to do is pull the trigger and I’m free. I try not to think about the mess the back of my skull will look when they find me, but realize that I don’t really care at this point.

No.

I lie down next to you. It would have made my skin crawl (you know me, I’m ridiculously squeamish) any other day, but somehow it doesn’t matter now that I’m only minutes, seconds maybe, away from it myself. I move your arm slightly, and lay my head on your shoulder. Your blood staining my clothes doesn’t matter anymore. I have no doubt that the forensics team will figure out what happened. I yank the rosary beads from around my neck and lay them between us. You always did think they were pretty. I kiss your cheek one last time. It reminds me of all the times I spent with you, not caring about anything other than that look in your eye when you looked at me and thought I wouldn’t catch you.

Maybe that’s my version of my life flashing before my eyes. I’ll take this version any day, I’d rather spend these penultimate moments with you rather than mundane memories of nothing in particular. Or maybe it’s fate trying to tell me that you are my life. Maybe that’s why I could feel every emotion that flickered across your face when you realized what I was going to do. What I had to do. Maybe we are a part of the other. Maybe our soul is shared.

I press the barrel to my mandible again. This time it seems to fit better. My free hand touches yours. I pull the trigger, millimeter by millimeter.

Heathcliff had it right, of course. I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!