Page 37

37

Jonathan

I need to leave.

I killed her fucking fiancé. I triggered her childhood trauma. I ruined her life, and she has no idea, and all I can say is “I’m so sorry.”

This is no longer an escape. This is something to escape from. I should run, and yet I feel the magnetic pull of her sadness, like I have been engaged, assigned: Fix this.

“You can leave, if you want to,” she says suddenly, reading my mind.

“I don’t want to leave.” I cradle her chin. I can feel the blood pumping in her neck, the puff of her breath on my cheek. “I am so sorry.”

She forces a smile. “It’s not your fault.” Well . She moves in closer, burrows her head into my shoulder. She sighs into my chest. “What about you? What was your childhood like?” she asks, as if this is a trade, as if my secrets might cure hers. I have a feeling that is not the case.

“Nothing like that,” I say. Although it was similar; people did die.

“You can trust me.” She burrows deeper into my chest. I roll onto my back, and then she rests her head on top of me. It rises and falls with my breath. “After all, we’re only here for a limited time.”

If I tell her, that limited time will end now.

—

She falls asleep first. Of course she does. I never sleep. When you do wrong, the saying goes, How can you sleep at night? I never do, out of respect for whoever coined the phrase.

I watch her sleep. At around three o’clock, she has her nightmare. The one I contributed to. She jerks on the bed. She cries without tears. I hold her in my arms, like I can slow her beating heart.

I wish I were someone else, someone who could protect her from me. I need to leave her. It might hurt her in the short term, but it will save her in the long term.

It is the right thing to do.

But when have I ever done that?