Keeping Promises

I crouched down low, hoping that he wouldn’t see me. I hated being afraid, but I couldn’t help it. I knew he’d seen me, and I remembered what he’d said the last time he’d spoken to me. He would kill me if I didn’t leave, and I wasn’t about to do it. I loved Marilyn, and Tim suddenly being in the picture wasn’t going to change that.
“Get out here, you son of a bitch!” Tim Skold’s voice was sharp and cruel. “Come on, little Twiggy. It’s time to teach you a lesson.”
I felt my breath hitch as something tugged at my hair. I knew it was Tim. He had found me.
“I warned you to leave it alone, but you just couldn’t, could you? All I asked was for you to leave, to let me replace you. That’s not so much to ask, is it? No, I don’t think so. But you won’t listen. You’re such a stupid fool, to think that I would let you keep me from my destiny.”
“P-please!” I squealed, as Tim yanked me up by the hair and pinned me to the wall.
“It’s too late for that. I already told you. Pack your shit and get out, or stay here and I’ll kill you. You made your choice. Now, you die.”
“Marilyn doesn’t love you!” As soon as the words had left my mouth, I regretted speaking them. They were true, but still, I shouldn’t have said them.
“Of course he does. You’ve seen how close we’ve gotten lately.”
“You’re nothing to him. Nothing! He love me. He’s mine.”
Tim slapped me hard. “Shut up! You’re nothing but a toy to him. He uses and abuses you. If he loved you, don’t you think he’d be here now?”
“He’s got a press thing. You know that.”
Tim shook his head, his white-blonde hair bouncing against his cheeks. “Marilyn is mine. He loves me, he just doesn’t know it yet. Once I get rid of you, he will see.”
I scratched at Tim, trying to free myself. Of course, this only angered him more.
“Enough talk. It’s time to end this.”
I watched as he reached into his pocket. I expected him to pull out either a knife or a gun. Instead, it was a needle. He rammed it into my neck before I had a chance to react. I felt myself drop to the floor, unable to move.
He crouched down, and started punching me, though I could only watch, I couldn’t feel anything. He hit me for what felt like an eternity. He then crossed the room, and returned with a decorative marble ball about the size of a softball. He had a smile on his face as he crashed it against my skull. I saw white spots, and then, nothing at all.

Marilyn returned from the photo shoot feeling instinctively that something was wrong. He went up to the hotel room that he and Twiggy shared, and was somewhat alarmed to find the door ajar. He pushed it open, and saw Twiggy stretched out on the floor, in a pool of blood.
“Damn, damn, dammit!” He grabbed the phone, and demanded someone to get a doctor or a paramedic or something.
“Twiggy? Baby? Can you hear me?”
He looked at the wound on his head. His skull looked pushed in. There was so much blood matted in the dark hair that he couldn’t really see anything further.
“Marilyn!”
He looked up to see Tim standing in the doorway to the bathroom, blood on his light grey shirt.
“T-Tim? What…?”
“Don’t worry, Marilyn. We can be together now. I got rid of Twiggy. Now, I can be your bassist.”
“Are you crazy?”
Tim only smiled. “Crazy about you.”
Not wanting to do anything other than protect Twiggy, he stayed low to the ground, blocking Tim from touching the person he’d so brutally attacked.
“Marilyn, I did this for us. Don’t you see?”
“I see that you’ve hurt Twiggy. Do you think that makes me like you more? If so, you don’t know me at all. I love him. He’s my best friend. My partner.”
Tim scowled at Marilyn. “He wasn’t good enough for you. Let me show you, I can be so much more. We can be happy.”
Marilyn watched as Tim came closer. “Stay away!”
“Oh, honey, you don’t mean that.”
Before Marilyn could stop him, Tim leaned over and attached his lips to the singer’s. Reacting the only way he knew how, he grabbed him by the hair and slammed him down on the floor as far away from Twiggy as he could get him.
The hit to the head was enough to subdue Tim. He lay still until Marilyn heard the sound of the door to the room opening.
Strangely, it was the police who came, not the paramedics.
“Arrest him,” Marilyn said softly, gesturing to Tim. “He tried to kill my friend. He’s crazy.”
The police officers dragged Tim to his feet. He was coming around again, which made it easier for them to deal with him.
Focusing his attention back on Twiggy, Marilyn gently stroked his bloody hair. “Don’t worry, baby. He’ll never hurt you again.”
With Tim gone, Marilyn could now sit unafraid with Twiggy, until help arrived. He hadn’t even struggled as they’d taken him away in handcuffs. He’d only smiled that deranged smile of his.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I knew Tim was crazy. I just didn’t know how crazy. You hang in there for me, okay?”
Paramedics came, and examined Twiggy for a few minutes before putting him on the stretcher. When they’d finished, they covered him with a sheet, and started to leave.
“Don’t touch anything, okay? This is a crime scene,” one of the paramedics said.
Marilyn looked at him with confusion. “Can I come with you? I’m the closest thing he’s got to family.”
“Uh…I don’t think so. There’s really no reason for you to come.”
“Why not?”
“We’re just taking him to the morgue.”
Marilyn felt his stomach turn. “The…morgue?”
“That’s where the dead ones go.”
Marilyn sunk down to the floor. “No. Twiggy’s not dead. Tim didn’t kill him.”
The paramedics left, taking Twiggy’s body with them.
“Oh, God. No. NO!” Marilyn screamed, slamming his fists down on the floor. He couldn’t think straight. Twiggy was dead. His Twiggy. How could this be right? He wasn’t supposed to leave him. They’d always said that they’d die together.
Suddenly, Marilyn knew what he had to do. He picked up the bloody ball, and crashed it against his own skull. As he felt the blood drip down, he smiled. Soon, he and Twiggy would be together again.

I saw my Marilyn hit himself in the head with the marble ball that had crushed my own skull, killing me when bone fragments had been pushed into my brain. I screamed out to him, but it was in vain. He wasn’t going to die this way. I wouldn’t let him. I loved him too much to let him die as I had.
I got down on my knees, and felt for his pulse. It was weak, but he was alive. I left his side to begin throwing things, trying to attract the attention of someone who could help. I was only a spirit now, not strong enough or visible enough to communicate with the living on my own.
I watched Marilyn open his eyes. He spoke my name, and I stopped what I was doing, going to crouch down beside him. “I’m here, Marilyn. I’m right here.”
His mix-matched eyes focused on my face. “Twiggy. You’re okay.”
I smiled. “You can see me?”
“Sure.”
“That can’t be good. Don’t look at me, okay?”
“Why?”
“You have to stay alive. I want you to stay alive.”
“But, Twigs, we always said we’d die together.”
“I don’t want to see you take your own life. It hurts me, Marilyn. Tim took my life. We can’t change that. But you…you can go on. You can do all of the things we were going to do together.”
“Twiggy, I don’t want to do anything without you.”
“I know, but you have to.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the way things have to be. It was my time. It’s not yours.”
“This is all my fault. I brought Tim in. I thought he was a friend. I never meant for this to happen.”
“I know.”
“I don’t love him.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I nodded, gently touching Marilyn’s cheek. I could hear footsteps in the hall. Help was coming. It was time for me to leave. I gave him one last kiss, and turned to leave.
“Twiggy, don’t leave me.”
“I won’t. I will be with you always. Always in your heart, Marilyn,” I smiled, patting my empty chest.
It killed me, watching him cry, but I knew that I had to leave, at least for now. “I’ll see you again,” I said limply. “I promise you, I’ll be around.”
He looked at me, his eyes locked on mine. I knew that he could really see me, even though I wasn’t sure how.
“This isn’t goodbye, okay? I may not be alive, but I’m still with you.”
The door opened, and I allowed myself to vanish. I hoped that I had gotten through to him, that he would continue on with his life. Maybe he would never really be happy again, but as long as he was alive, that was all that mattered to me.