Page 102 of The Tenant

Yes, of course they were gambling debts. Does anyone really borrow money from a loan shark to pay for theirmother’s chemotherapy? Give me a break. I’m not Pollyanna. Anyway, my mother is an alcoholic who barely looked at me through my entire childhood, and if she got cancer, I would happily watch it eat away at her until she died.

I’ve done a lot of rotten things in my life—call it bad upbringing. But I’d never killed anyone before. Still, I wanted my life back. And it didn’t feel like I had much of a choice.

“Fine,” I told him. “I’ll do it.”

Ironically, the night Krista stabbed me, I had planned to kill her. Like Krista, I was thinking that Blake would go down for it. I didn’t like him much back then, and anyone could see that he was falling apart. I had already pegged him as the one who killed Mr. Zimmerly next door. None of it happened the way I expected, but in the end, I was the one who killed Krista. I did exactly what Frank Gallo asked me to do, and he has assured me that my debt has been paid.

So you see, when I stabbed Krista that night, I wasn’t saving Blake’s life.

I was saving my own.

I bet you five bucks Krista never saw that coming.

THE END