Page 21 of The Road to Ruined

God, please don't tell me this one is going to come already. He better at least get me off.

"You're that freak, aren't you?"

My heart sinks. "What?"

"That fucking groupie freak," he says. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his cell phone, and I realize what he's doing—he's trying to take a picture of my chest so he can tell everyone he hooked up withthat freak.

I grab the phone from his hand before he gets the chance and throw it hard against the wall. "Get out!" I scream, scrambling for my shirt. "Get the fuck out of my house!"

"What the fuck?" Crossing the room, he picks his phone up from the floor. "You broke my phone, you psycho bitch!"

"What'd you just call me?" I ask calmly. On the inside, I'm not calm at all. I grab the butcher knife from the side table and clutch it in my fist. He sees it but calls my bluff.

"I said…you're a fucking psychopath Frankenstein-looking bitch. And you're going to pay for my fucking phone."

I smile, turning the knife over in my hand. "I was hoping you'd say that."

I cross the room in three strides, kicking the door shut as soon as he pulls it open and grabbing him by his hair. I hold the knife just under his chin.

"I just wanted to get fucked, Max, but you know what? This is going to be so much more satisfying." I get off a little bit onthe paradox of it, thinking of how many women worry about scenarios exactly like this anytime they go home with a man they don't know. But men like Max never walk into the home of a girl like me and worry it might be the last thing they do. I lean in, pressing my lips to his ear. "I like the sound it makes when the knife goes in," I whisper. "It's been too long."

Max elbows me in the stomach hard enough to get free of my grip, and the knife slices the base of his throat in the process. It's superficial, nothing deep or detrimental, but it bleeds, pooling at the collar of his t-shirt. He brings his hand to his throat, covering it.

Now between him and the door, when I lunge for him again, he runs through the back of the house, looking for another exit. I turn the corner, chasing him down that back hallway, but I'm stopped by strong hands tightening around my wrists and pinning me against the wall. He slams my right hand against the wall until I finally release the knife, and it falls to the ground.

"Stupid fucking girl," Bone Saw grumbles.

"Get off of me!" I shout.

He's not real,I remind myself. But my wrists hurt, and the knuckles on my right hand burn from where they scraped against the plaster, and now I'm not so sure. I squeeze my eyes shut, attempting to force the hallucination back into whatever dark corner of my mind he crawled out of.

Then, I hear the sliding back door open, and when I look again, I'm alone—just me and the bloody knife on the floor. I slide down the wall and onto the cold tile.

I pick up the knife, examining it in the moonlight. I stabbed my booty call—I would have killed him if I could have. I wanted to kill that fucking nurse who bled me, too.

Maybe he's right. I run my tongue over the blade, licking it clean, moaning when I taste the warm, coppery liquid on mytongue. I close my eyes and let it sit there. I don't swallow, I just kind of wait for it to dissipate. Maybe I am a freak.

Afterward, I clean the knife in the kitchen sink, first with soap and water and then with vodka before replacing it. Then, I look for more bloodstains on the tile, scrubbing them clean and disposing of the evidence.

And once I'm finished and it's nearly midnight, I head upstairs, strip down, turn off the lights, and crawl into bed. When I roll onto my side, he's there again, sitting in my chair in the back corner of the room with his arms crossed in front of him.

"You're a problem, little monster," he says. "You can't run around stabbing frat boys."

"Do you think he's going to tell anyone?" I whisper. "Like the police?"

"No," he says.

"It was nice for a minute, though—being touched, feeling wanted. I'm so lonely."

"Of course you are," he says. "Things like you don't belong in places like this. You'll always be lonely here."

It's nothing I don't know, but then again, how could it be?

"I'm not a thing."

"You're not quite a person, either, are you? What do you think is going to happen?" he continues. "You're going to get a job, fall in love with someone normal, live in a neighborhood like this, and no one will notice what you are? Please." He scoffs. "You're going to snap again and wake up in a puddle of blood. Maybe it'll even be your parents; my money's on the sister."

"I wish you were Luca," I tell the thing in the chair before turning to face the wall. "I hate you."

---