Page 73 of Swerve
She leaps from the bed, running to the small kitchen with its row of drawers. She yanks each one open, praying there is a knife inside, anything sharp enough to slice her wrists, allow the blood to flow out of her body, releasing the life they are going to take anyway.
But the drawers are empty, and she collapses onto the floor, sobbing so hard she cannot breathe.
The door clicks, and there is the sound of keys turning multiple locks before it swings open, and the hulk of a man who had brought her to this room steps inside, a syringe in his hand. “Proprietor says you are to have this. You have an appointment this evening, and you cannot greet your first customer with a face ruined by crying. You will sleep until you are needed.”
“No,” Mia screams, jumping to her feet and running to the far side of the bed.
He doesn’t bother to chase her, merely pulls a gun from his coat pocket and points it at her. “I am allowed to use this as a last resort. Do you want last resort or syringe?”
Mia stares at the gun, wanting so badly to tell him to shoot her. But she won’t. That would be leaving on their terms. She’ll leave on her own.
She sits down on the side of the bed, her shoulders slumping, and waits for the needle to do its work.
Emory
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
?Friedrich Nietzsche
WE AGREE TO start online. This time at Knox’s apartment.
We’d been closer to his place than my house when we’d left the store after our talk with Jason. Knox had asked if I would mind if he changed clothes and said we could use his laptop.
And so I find myself standing in the center of his living room, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from his bedroom that indicate he might be in a state of undress.
I focus on my surroundings, noting the fact that the walls are bare, the furniture is minimal, and it really does look like the kind of place a person would do nothing more than eat, sleep, and shower in. A place where a person has not chosen to create a life but rather an existence.
I circle behind the sofa to the lone table backed up against it. A single photo sits in the center in a silver frame. I pick it up, recognize Knox—a younger, obviously happier Knox. He’s wearing a tuxedo, and the woman on his arm, a wedding dress.
They’re both smiling, looking into each other’s eyes. She’s utterly beautiful. She’s holding a bouquet of roses, and they look as if they can’t wait to start the life ahead of them.
And yet, there was no ring on Knox’s finger now. Yes, I’d noticed. No white telltale imprint to indicate he’d recently removed it to hide the fact that he was married. This definitely wasn’t an apartment made to look like a home by a loving wife.
The bedroom door opens. I attempt to place the frame back on the table, but set it down too quickly and it turns over, glass down.
I glance up to find Knox staring at me. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay,” he says, walking over to right the frame.
The silence that follows is awkward, and yet I find myself saying, “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “She is.”
I want to ask, but I don’t. It’s none of my business, but I’m surprised when he says, “She deserved far better than what I ended up being able to give her.”
“You look so happy in the photo.”
“We were.”
“What happened?” The question is out before I realize I am asking it.
He runs a finger along the top of the frame, his voice regretful when he says, “I guess I wasn’t able to be two people. The man you see in this picture. And the one who came back from Afghanistan. That wasn’t the same man she married.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I really am. It seems so unfair that two people could begin a life together, certain of what they had, only to find it all torn apart by something as horrible as war.
“So am I. But she’s happy again. Remarried. And that’s good.”
“Do you mean that?” I ask, my psychiatrist’s curiosity surprised that he could want something for her that he clearly no longer had.
