Page 39 of Kill Your Darlings

“I feel the same way,” Wendy said, telling the truth. She had no interest in being normal, not really, although she certainly

had interest in appearing normal, considering what they were planning on doing.

“I’ve thought a lot about this,” Thom said. “It’s all I think about. But I just keep coming back to this strange feeling that

this is fate. We’re not supposed to scrimp and save and have uninspiring jobs. We were meant to kill to be together. We were

meant to be special.”

“What I keep thinking about,” Wendy said, “is how, if we do this, and if we get away with it, I’ll be able to buy my mother

a house for her to live in for the rest of her life. Right now I pay her rent, but if I divorced Bryce, then... And when

I think about it that way, it’s not a hard decision at all. If I could press a button that wiped Bryce off the planet and

provided protection for my mom, then I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“So, let’s do it. Let’s press that button.”

She placed a hand on the side of his neck. “You’d be doing it, of course. The act.”

“ We’d be doing it together, but yes, I know what you mean.”

“I need to know you’re okay with it. I need to know that it’s not going to haunt you forever.”

“Tell me the plan again. In detail.”

ii

At five in the morning Thom got out of Wendy’s bed and dressed as quietly as possible.

Wendy slept, curled up in a ball like some small animal in its den.

He’d told her just before she’d fallen asleep that he would slip out at dawn, so that he didn’t need to wake her and tell her he was going.

Still, it was all he could do to not shake her awake, give her one more kiss.

It was unbearable, almost, to think about how long it would be until they saw each other again.

They’d talked all night, going over the plan in detail. Wendy had devised most of it. She’d memorized the dates and times,

and if everything went perfectly, this time next year they’d be together, starting a new life.

In the downstairs lobby of the hotel, a woman in running gear said “Another early riser” to him as he passed.

“Yes, I am,” he stupidly said back to her, and moved quickly for the door. He’d parked on Main Street, and the short walk

to his car felt surreal and ghostly. The day was going to be hot and already mist was lifting off the front yards, making

everything seem a little out of focus. He was happy when he arrived back at his own cheap motel, where he immediately stripped

and got under the sheets, telling himself he might as well attempt some sleep before driving back to Connecticut. Checkout

wasn’t until noon.

He did manage an hour of deep, dreamless sleep, and then he was awake again, going over the plan in his mind. He’d brought

a blank notebook with him, one in which he’d begun to outline a short-story idea about a high school boy who falls in love

with an exchange student visiting for two weeks. He flipped ahead to a blank page and considered writing down the details

of the plan. He could always rip those pages out later and burn them. But he talked himself out of it. It was important that

there be no evidence whatsoever, that it was all only in his mind.

On August 21, Wendy was going to fly to New York City to attend a college friend’s art opening.

On that same weekend, Thom would visit Austin and stay in some cheap motel.

His college friend Samantha was now living there with her boyfriend, Ethan, an aspiring country singer who was performing on the Sunday night of that weekend.

His trip could be to see them. It would be easy enough for him to drive on Saturday to Wendy’s house outside of Lubbock.

She’d told him that every night before he went to sleep Bryce would go outside and walk around the pool and smoke a cigar.

All Thom would have to do was push him into the deep end and make sure Bryce didn’t pull himself back out.

She said that he could barely swim and that pushing him in was maybe all he would need to do.

Wendy also told him about the Happy Lake Baptist Church, where he should park, and how to get to the back side of the Barrington property.

They both agreed that the most important thing was that it appear to be an accidental death.

If it looked as though Bryce had been murdered, then the suspicion would fall onto Wendy, even though she would be away at the time.

The Barrington family wouldn’t necessarily be able to stop her receiving Bryce’s money, but they could try.

The last thing Wendy had told Thom was this: “If something seems off, remember that you don’t have to go through with it.

If anyone is there with him, then simply turn around and go back. Or even if you have a bad feeling, or decide that you can’t

do it, then just don’t do it. That’s more important to me than getting his money. We’ll still have each other.”

“Okay,” Thom had said.

“I mean it. Come end of summer we will be together, one way or another. But here’s the thing. If you do succeed, then everything

that we do afterward has to be perfect. No signs that you were ever at the house. No getting stopped by the cops on the way

back to Austin. No drunken confessions. No remorse. If we’re going to do this, then we’re going to do this right. We’re going

to have a good life together, and Bryce is going to wind up exactly where he should wind up. Okay?”

Thom was nodding his head, but the room was dark, and he said, “I won’t let you down.”

He checked out of the motel. They’d held on to a credit card for incidentals, but he paid in cash.

Before leaving, he watched the girl at the reception desk rip up the slip of paper that had his card’s imprint on it and put it in the trash.

During the long drive back to Connecticut, he kept thinking about what Wendy had said about the end of summer, how they’d be together.

If only he could snap his fingers and time would rush forward to that instant, like in a movie, or a book.

He tried it in the car, snapping his fingers, but he was still behind the wheel, trapped in this particular moment.

It will happen , he said to himself. If we’re careful, it will all happen exactly as we planned it.