Whatever decision I make in the next few moments will have a cascade of consequences. I have no idea what to do.
The woman can’t do anything but stare at Jimmy’s body as she continues to scream. A man runs over and looks down as soon as he’s in full view of the scene.
“Jesus,” he says. “Did someone call 911?”
“I just did,” I lie. I begin sidestepping toward my car.
“What happened?”
The woman tries to speak but only manages a muttering of syllables. The milk has moved up from around Jimmy’s feet all the way to his thighs, making him appear painted on canvas. The other groceries have scattered around the woman’s feet, and I can’t picture her calm enough to ever pick them up.
“I saw him waving a gun,” I say. “He yelled at me to get out of my car, which I did. I think he’s just some strung-out homeless guy. Then, there was a bang, and he just fell over.” I look over to the woman to see if she immediately contradicts my story, but I don’t even think she’s processed my words.
“He shot himself?” the man asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so.”
The gun rests a few feet from Jimmy’s hand, next to the front left tire of the Challenger.
The woman finally speaks.
“Is…is he dead?”
I don’t answer.
Three other people are coming our way, and I know I have to make a decision soon. A quick glance at the parking lot lights tells me there aren’t any security cameras out here. For all I know, this woman is the only person who even saw me attack Jimmy, and she couldn’t have heard our conversation.
I realize I have Jimmy’s blood literally on my hands, and then add, “I tried to help him, but I don’t have any medical training. I didn’t know what to do.”
The man nods at me and then puts his arm around the hysterical woman and squeezes her shoulder. His close-cropped hair, square jaw, and solid build assign him an authoritative look. Military, even.
“Come on,” he tells her. “You don’t need to be looking at this. There’s nothing we can do… The police are on their way.” He turns her away from Jimmy, then bends down to pick up her groceries.
“Look,” I say to him, “I don’t want to be involved in this.”
“I think you have to wait for the cops to come,” he says. “They’ll need statements.”
This is when I make my decision. I like to think it’s a calculated one, that I’m playing to odds I’ve fully weighed, but the truth is I’m scared. I’m getting the hell out of here.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “I’d like to help but I can’t talk to the police. I… There’s someone looking for me, and I don’t want him finding me. If I’m in the paper, he’ll know I’m here. I can’t keep running.”
My words are only half lies. As I walk to the car, I half expect this man to stop me, yet he lets me go. But as I pull away, I look in the rearview mirror and see the man holding up his phone at eye level. He’s taking a picture or video. Of my car. My license plate.
My hands start to numb as they grip the steering wheel, an icy flow that starts at my fingertips and makes its way up my arms, through my shoulders, and then finally fills my chest, making it difficult to breathe. My limbs begin with that familiar, prickly tingling. Panic attack coming. I can feel it as much as I can feel the stickiness of Jimmy’s blood on my fingertips. I’m due for one. Overdue, really. I made it through the events in London without one, and I was beginning to think that confronting my fears head-on was curing me. Seeking Mr. Interested in earnest, visiting the site of my attack, taking control for once—that somehow those were steps to freeing myself of constant fear.
But now I feel it all slipping away with every shallow, gasping breath.
I’m on the highway before I even consider the idea of going back home. I can’t be alone for this. Not this time. This is going to be a bad one. I keep going, gaining speed, focusing only on the road, the white lane markers slipping by in a blur, knowing after thousands of them I’ll be at my mother’s house. I’ve never wanted to be taken care of as much as I do in this moment. I want to surrender and have someone there to hold me when I do.
My phone buzzes, pulling me out of my trance. A text. I glance down at the console where the phone sits. It could be anyone, but of course it isn’t. I know exactly who it is. I can’t not look at it, just as I can’t stop any of this anymore. I reach for the phone and flip it over, and there’s only a one-sentence text waiting for me from an unknown number.
I’ll always be there to save you, Alice.
These words fill me with dread, because the pattern is now both obvious and insane.
Mr. Interested forced Jimmy to threaten me, just so he could then kill him.
Yes. All the same pattern.
He told Freddy Starks where to find me, then planted a gun to let Thomas and me kill him.
He sent a man to confront me in London, and probably would have done something to stop him, had I not attacked the man first.
And it all started the moment he called the police when I was bleeding to death in Gladstone Park.
I’ll always be there to save you, Alice.
It’s a circle, a demented, fourteen-year-long cycle of abuse and rescue. Mr. Interested has a savior complex. He’s been tracking me for years, probably fantasizing about the high he got rescuing me. But only recently did he finally act on it.
Because he’s sick, I tell myself. He said he was dying. So now he’s living out his fantasy before he no longer has the chance.
I fall back into a trance, trusting instincts to guide me to my mother’s house. I’m slipping away, and I’m not sure any amount of breathing exercises will keep my car from careening over the median into oncoming traffic. Or even if I want it to.
Focus. Keep focusing. One mile at a time. Don’t think of anything. Clear your mind. Let go.
I am in control, I tell myself. Then I say it again, this time aloud.
“I am in control.”
Over and over again, hundreds of times, each aloud, and it’s just enough to get me to the exit at Arlington. I weave through the small city streets, past Mount Pleasant Cemetery, until finally I jolt to a stop in front of my mother’s house. The second I open my car door, all the focus and control I’ve clung to spills from me. The dam has burst. I nearly collapse as I stagger up the steps and grab the doorknob.
Locked.
I pound weakly on the door, then ring the bell over and over again. What if they aren’t here?
Then I hear movement inside, and I lean against the sun-warmed door, using it to heat my freezing bones.
The door opens, and I fall into the house, weakly bracing myself with my hands as I hit the hardwood floor.
My mother stands over me, and for the first time in a very long time, I’m happy to see her face. She is my mum, and she’ll take care of it.
“Alice, dear. My God.”
Then I slip beneath the surface into the silent, deep, dark waters.