We walk to the edge of the park and wait. I am there for a reason, after all, and that reason is walking through the park as we speak. Gillian, the nurse who ruffled my hair in the hospital, is walking toward us. If she hadn’t been so nice to me, I would never have tried to find her again. But she was, and now I can’t let it go. I just can’t.
She is on a cell phone, laughing, completely unaware that she is about to be stabbed to death in her own house.
We follow her, keeping back a ways so she doesn’t notice. She’s pretty, just as I remember, with dark blond hair and a wide smile. When we get to her house, I tuck Kim behind a group of bushes, stand at her back door, and wait. This is the moment I saw in the hospital. The orderly is in love with her, but she just wants to be friends. He is not taking it well.
Then again, things could’ve changed. I’m hoping that they did, in fact. I’m not sure if fate is set in stone, but I figure any number of things could have happened that would set the orderly, Donald, on a different path. That was years ago. Maybe he found someone. Or has learned to take rejection a little better. Or died in a freak defibrillator accident. Surely someone has to clean those.
Sadly, that is not the case. I can feel him. He’s already inside.
I try the door. It’s locked, naturally. I shove it with my shoulder. Normally, knocking in a door wouldn’t be a problem, but since I’d recently gotten the shit kicked out of me, the door was proving more of a problem than I’d expected. By the time I push hard enough to crack the doorframe, Donald has stabbed her.
They are in her kitchen. She is screaming as he raises the knife again. Pleading with him to stop. I walk up behind him. She falls back against the refrigerator, and he is just about to plunge the knife into her heart when I say, “You’re going to hell eventually anyway. Why put off the inevitable?”
He stops and whips his head around, which helps the momentum when I snap his neck.
Gillian is horrified. She gasps and throws blood-covered hands over her mouth. Then, as Donald is crumpling to the floor, I slam his head into the countertop.
“He was hiding in your house when you got home,” I say to her, letting his body slump the rest of the way to the ground. “He attacked you.” I pull his legs out a little so it looks like he fell. “You fought back.” There is a glass of water on the counter. “Pushed him.” I throw the contents on the floor. “He slipped. Fell against the counter. Broke his neck.”
She doesn’t acknowledge anything I say. She slides to the floor herself and stares in horror, completely blindsided on two counts: his and mine.
I go to her. Take her shoulders. Shake her until she focuses on me. “What happened?”
Her lids flutter. “What?”
I shake her again. “What happened here?”
“I— He was in the house.”
“Waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me. He attacked me. He stabbed me.” She gasps when she realizes she’s really been stabbed. Starts to hyperventilate. I lift her off the floor and sit her on a chair.
“What next?”
“I— I pushed and he stumbled back. He fell. Hit his head on the counter.”
“You have to slow your breathing.” I put a hand on her back. “You’re going to pass out and you need to call an ambulance.”
She nods, scared out of her mind, and gradually begins to recognize me. I see it in her expression.
I change mine. Harden it. Shake my head. She nods again, understanding.
I lean over her and kiss her cheek. She wants to hug me but she doesn’t. I think she doesn’t want to get blood on my clothes. I’m wearing the hoodie, so she doesn’t know my clothes are already bloody.
“Call the police,” I say.
She puts a hand on my cheek. “He would have killed me.”
“Call the police,” I say again. Then I leave.
I hear a whispered thank-you as I hurry out the door.
I can’t see what happens to her anymore. Her future is hers now. Donald was slated for hell the minute he made the decision to take her life, so even though he didn’t get to kill her, he is still going down. I don’t stick around long enough for the floor to open up and swallow him, though. I’ve seen only one person go to hell. I have no desire to see it again.
Kim and I walk back to the apartment, and I wonder why I did that. Why I stuck my neck out for Gillian. She was supposed to die. I wonder if I’ve thrown a wrench into some cosmic order in the universe. I wonder if that one simple act will cause the destruction of our world in a hundred years. Then again, I could just as easily have saved it. It’s impossible to know what one tiny change will do. What kind of effect the butterfly will have. Maybe the tsunami will happen whether the butterfly flaps its wings or not.
We get back before Earl does, and Kim washes the blood off me again. Gets me a clean shirt. Makes me spaghetti. She wants to ask what happened, but she doesn’t. Which is good. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve just killed a man. If I can do it once, why can’t I do it again?
No. I can’t. I can’t risk going to prison and leaving Kim alone. She would be put in foster home after foster home. At least in our situation, I know I can take care of her. I can be here for her.