by Korry Smith
Copying Alex’s technique, I crawled out and hung my legs down. My fingers clenched and clung on to the lip of the wooden windowsill. It was a simple calculation. My height minus the height of the building, give and take that each floor was ten feet and that it equaled to assert—Fuck! Alex was, at least, eight feet below me, and still encouraging me to let go?
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Banging my forehead on the concrete, I took one last deep breath and said a prayer. Unclasping my fingers one at a time, I let myself fall. It was quick, and a short distance, but Alex caught me in his arms.
He set me down on my feet and turned me around, brushing the strands of hair from my face. “You all right, baby? Are you hurt?”
“No, yeah. I’m okay,” I said, shooting my head back up and seeing how far up our window was. It made my stomach cramp with anxiety. “Let’s not do that again. Okay?”
“Deal,” he said, throwing the bags over his shoulders. “Now, we got to fucking move.”
We ran, hard and fast, across the field, heading for the forest line, and distancing ourselves from the gathering police. Through our labored pants and stomping feet against the earth, we heard more sirens ascending upon the quaint Super 8 Hotel. We never looked back and kept a straight trajectory into the brush. Once the pine trees hid us from view, we slowed to a walk, out of breath and exhausted.
It was crazy, this life of mine was in a constant state of flux, rapidly chopping and changing. We never sat still, and I doubt that we ever would.
“Fuck!” Alex yelled. The booming sound of his voice echoed throughout the woods, scaring off some birds and sending them into flight. “What the fuck are we going to do now, Mad? Huh? We don’t have a fucking car.”
He dropped my hand long ago and was now several paces ahead of me. I followed behind him, trying to keep up, but my feet were clumsy and awkward and got tangled up in some underbrush.
“I’m sorry about your car, Alex.”
“Oh, now she’s fucking sorry.” He laughed dryly, keeping his back to me.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was just...”
“No, you never do, but somehow, shit keeps on happening around you, doesn’t it? Is that a fucking coincidence? No, I don’t fucking think so.”
It stopped me short, the tone of his voice, and his anger directed towards me. I glared at him, burning a hole in the back of his stupid skull. “You know what, asshole; you’re as much of the blame in all of this as I am.”
“What?” He swung around to face me; his eyes crazed with rage. “You’re the one who never fucking listens to me. I have these fucking rules in place for a reason, Mad. It’s not because I want to ruin your good time, all right? They’ve kept my fucking ass out of jail. Do you get that?”
“Yeah, I get that,” I spat, pushing past him. He grabbed my arm, tightening his fingers around it, and I jerked it away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” he said, grabbing my arm again to prove his point. “You’re my girl.”
“Oh, really?” I shot back, seething with anger. I yanked my arm from his grip, and I narrowed my eyes. “You may have your name inked on my skin, but you don’t fucking control me.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed, nodding his head towards our hotel, now swarming with police. “That’s fucking obvious. If there were any way to control you, we wouldn’t even be in this situation. We’d be at home, fucking high and fucking.”
I stepped back from him, shocked. “So, all that shit you said was a lie? And you do blame me for everything: the Lamborghini, the assault on Terry, and all that shit with your father? Everything is my fucking fault.”
“No, Jesus, woman.” He groaned with frustration as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t fucking lie, all right?”
“I admit that I fucked up royally today, okay? But you’re so arrogant. Where the hell was this level head of yours twenty minutes ago when we could have been making our grand escape, huh? In your dick, that’s where! You didn’t seem so concerned about losing your car when you were fucking me.” I shoved him hard into his chest, sending him back a couple of feet. “Get away from me.”
Stunned into silence, he gave me full berth to storm ahead of him. I didn’t know where I was going, but right now, anywhere was better than being with him.
“So, what?” Alex said, jogging after me. “I’m not allowed to be fucking angry with you? You’re just going to turn this shit around on me, and somehow make it all my God damn fault?”
“No, you’ve made it pretty clear whose fault this is. I get it. I’m a strain on your perfect little existence,” I said, keeping my eyes straight and away from Alex’s beautiful and alluring…ugh. No, I hated him. He was an asshole. I had to remember that. “That’s why I am doing us both a favor by ending this before it gets worse.”
He got ahead of me, blocking my path. “Ending what?”
The words left my mouth before I could rethink them. “This train wreck of a relationship we have. It’s not fucking working. We’re toxic together.”
It was the most idiotic thing for me to say, and there was no way I would ever be able to live without him, but I was mad. And to be perfectly honest, I was testing him. It was one of those things where you wanted them to say how much they didn’t want things to be over. You hoped that they would contest your decision.
He bobbed his head and rolled his eyes. “You want to fucking break up with me now? Is that how you want to play this?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t see this shit working anymore.”
He stared at me, looking for any small fallacy to my words, but there was none. My poker face locked on tight.
“All right, fuck it then,” he said, waving me off. “Leave. Go, and do whatever you want, kid.”
The indifference in his voice broke me, and I had a hard time keeping up a brave front. Somehow, through my anger, I managed to choke out a sentence that didn’t reveal how much I was dying inside.
“Fine, I will then, and don’t you dare fucking follow me,” I said, stomping my feet like a five-year-old through the forest.
It didn’t take me long to get lost. I was unsure of what direction led north or south. Alex was no longer at my side and had fallen back some distance, and it wasn’t until I came to the main road that I’d noticed that he wasn’t anywhere behind me. He was gone, and I was alone. I didn’t even have my bag or purse. Alex had everything that belonged to me—even this piece of a shit heart of mine.
“Fuck,” I hissed, falling to my ass on the soft grass.
There was nowhere for me to go. The highway stretched out into the endless road in both directions, and across the way was just another forest line. God knows where that’ll take me. The smart thing to do was to sit still for a moment and plan out my next move. There weren’t too many favorable options at my immediate disposal.
In fact, they all sucked.
I couldn’t go home. That part of my life was over. It was jail or die for me now.
Bloop. Bloop.
My eyes shot over to my right and saw a police cruiser flying down the highway. Panicked, I lied down flat on my stomach in the tall grass, hoping the slope of the ditch would hide me from the cop’s view. The car flew past, the tires kicking up pebbles on the side of the road, as it faded away in the distance. I continued to lie there, face deep in my shame, not wanting to move. It was when I heard a car pull over to the side and feet crunch on the dirt did I push myself up into a sitting position.
It was Alex, and he was still a few yards away from me. He was running his fingers through his shaggy hair, eyes frantic as he half-whispered and half-shouted my name. He hadn’t seen me there lying in the mud and hiding from the law. I got up to my feet and brushed off my pants, throwing my shoulders back, and trying to pretend that I had some dignity left.
He looked relieved when he saw me, taking a significant stride across the field. “Thank fucking God. Come on, Mad, let’s go.”
“Why?” I replied. “We’re over.”
“Baby,” he said, glancing back up at the road. “Please, just get in the car.”
“No!” I said, shaking my head, and walking away from him. “Get the fuck away from me.”
Alex grabbed my wrist and yanked me back, pulling me into his arms. He gripped the sides of my face, keeping me still as he kissed me forcefully. I struggled, trying to get away, but he was strong and held his sweet lips firmly glued to mine. The softness and warmth, mixed with the taste of him were intoxicating, and all of it made me dizzy.
“Get in the fucking car,” he whispered. “Please.”
Pushing against his chest with my fists and stumbling back, nearly tripping over my stupid feet and falling on my ass, I spoke with as much venom as I could sustain. “We’re broken up, remember? It’s over. We’re over.”
“The fuck we are!” He growled, picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder.
“Alex, stop! Damn it, put me down!”
“Fuck you,” he said, holding me tight and keeping my legs restrained as he walked me back to the car on the passenger side. He opened the door and gently tossed me in.
I could’ve left as he walked around to his side, but fighting against my heart was a pointless venture, and so, I buckled my seatbelt and got comfy. Alex joined me a second later, shifting the car into drive and peeling out into the road, heading in the opposite direction of the hotel.
It was quiet for a moment as I assessed my surroundings. The car was an Acura sedan, very much stolen, with dark tinted windows. Alex blasted the air conditioning on my flushed and heated face. It was after the AC cooled me down did my anger flow out of me, allowing me to see reason.
Alex loved the Chevelle, and now because of my thoughtless actions, the police had it impounded as evidence. There weren’t enough words to express the immense guilt and shame I’d felt in that moment.
I would have to make do with sincerity.
“Babe,” I said, twisting my hands in my lap, and glancing up at him. “I’m sorry—about everything. It seems like you keep sacrificing things that you love for me.”
“Hey, I love you,” Alex said as he reached over and rubbed my leg. “It’s just a fucking car, Mad. I can replace it, but I can’t replace you.”
“I love you.” Leaning over the center console, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “You let me get away with far too much shit.”
“Isn’t that the fucking truth?”
I sighed as the pang in my stomach returned. “I am sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean for you to lose Tanya. I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid.”
“It’s fine, baby. I promise. It makes me realize how silly the tattoo on my arm is.” He shrugged and gave me a sideways glance. “I guess that fucking prick was right after all. Well, except for the fact that he was talking about the wrong lady.”
It was two months into our road trip, and we were somewhere in Iowa at this fleabag hotel, where the criminals and sleazy people squatted. The managers didn't care who we were or what law we broke, cash spoke their language, and that was all they wanted. It was the safest place to be for the time being.
The scandal in Missouri and Montana had continued to spread nationwide. It loomed over our heads like a black cloud and became increasingly harder to avoid. The mainstream media publicized our crimes to an outrageous level, and it continued to grow. Everyone was talking about it: all the news stations, the radio, random people chit-chatting in the booth next to us at a restaurant. They had put our faces out there for the world to etch into their brain, but that wasn’t even the problem. I could live with that. It was the lies and gossip that drove me nuts.
One news source would pick up a tiny detail of fact, and the other would expand on that, twisting and mutating it until that one detail was at myth-like proportions. They did it without remorse, and it made me second-guess everything I heard in the news in the past.
Was anything true?
Alex told me it was the lying cops and media propaganda that crushed Bonnie and Clyde.
The point was that they didn't want America to forget. They didn't want us to forget. How could we fucking forget? It was impossible to hide from it—if that's what we were doing, but we weren't, not even a little bit.
In total, we had robbed six stores in the last five weeks. The money in a single holdup was less than a hundred dollars. It was barely enough to hold us for two days. I expected Alex to focus on the bigger game, robbing a bank or something, at least aiming his sights higher so we could ride out the score a little longer than a day, but he was content on keeping our activities small and local.
He was staying close to the senator, hopping around, and going back and forth between state lines. If we were smart, and not fucking crazy, we would be heading down to Mexico, but we were always playing with fire by sticking our hands in it, testing our boundaries, and getting off on the excitement. The danger of burnt skin was the last thing on our minds.
This desire, somewhat of a compulsion, was a deadly habit: robbing stores, running from the cops, sticking our guns in people's terrified faces, and ripping each other's clothes off when our arousal came too much.
Everything we did was for our amusement, and not a necessity.
It was a drug, plain and simple: Potent, and it altered our judgment, making us feel as though we were invincible.
It was highly addictive, and I wasn't ready to give it up.
No matter what the consequences were.
"It's unclear where these two are headed or where they'll strike next, but one thing is for sure, mark my words, America, they will be caught. The question is, will they go quietly? I don't see these two young, and highly volatile lovebirds, going down without a fight, and in the end, it could lead to another unnecessary tragedy, whether it is their lives or lives of their innocent victims. So, get ready, America, because this crime spree is about to end in the same way it had ended nearly eighty years ago: with the bloody and bullet-riddled extermination of these two criminals."
"Oh, shut the fuck up," Alex growled, turning off the TV. He scooted down in the bed and pulled my body close, wrapping his arms around me. There was this feeling of need to ease his mind that I was there alive and bullet-free.
Burrowing my face deep into his bare chest, I breathed him in deep until I was inebriated and dizzy. "I take it that you're not a Judy Grace fan?"
"Fuck no, I hate that woman," he replied, hugging me tighter. "I know shit is crazy right now, kid, and our prospects aren't looking so good with the cops and media all over our ass, but I swear to you, I'm going to make sure that you have a life again. Give you some fucking normalcy with school or college or whatever the fuck you choose to do. I promise. There are just a couple things we got to do to make that happen, okay?"
I shook my head slightly, saddened by the idea of being ordinary. "I don't want normal."
"No, baby, you do. Spending the rest of your life in prison is not the life for you. Believe me; I've been there—multiple times. Being normal and boring is better."
He wasn't referring to himself because he loved the thrill of living outside the law, and if it weren't for me, he would continue to do just that. I was the issue. That pedestal he held me on had kept him looking ahead at a straight and narrow life, a brighter future. He wanted to do right by me.
"Yeah," I said, listening to the slow and rhythmic beating of his heart. That sound and feel of him against my skin was the main selling factor for me. I wouldn't be able to let him go. "I know what you mean."
It was quiet for a moment as we lied in bed, covers wadded at our feet, and just held each other. This life was peaceful. My eyes got heavy, and with my thoughts blissful, I felt myself slowly drifting off to sleep.
"I'll make you safe again. If it's the last thing I fucking do," Alex whispered so intensely and earnest.
It came out of nowhere, and it woke my ass up.
"What are you talking about?" I murmured, sh
aking my head, and feeling an argument coming on because, honestly, he was absurd. The guilt he was feeling about me, and my safety was unwarranted.
Alex didn't force this life on me. I willingly chose it. The only thing he did was make me love him, and even that wasn't intentional on his part. He fought hard against my advances for two months. I pushed and pushed until I got what I wanted.
This crime spree was no different.
Lifting my head up, I propped my elbows on his chest to get a better look at him. His tired and sad eyes met my curious ones. "You don't have to make me promises…" I started to say, but he stopped me short.
"Give me one more week to fix this fucking mess."
"A week?"
He nodded.
"To do what?"
"To bring that fucking bastard down."
Questions. There were many questions. They overwhelmed me, and I couldn't decide on which one I wanted to ask first. Alex was giving me a nugget of hope, and a promise of a fairytale ending, but I couldn't see how he was going to get us there.
It seemed impossible.
In the end, after staring at him with a dumbfounded expression, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind; albeit a fumbled and incoherent thought.
"How...I mean, why? What's the point? With all the media attention on us, and the polls still in that man's favor, how do you expect to bring him down when nothing we've done thus far has worked? The voters fucking love him, Alex."
"Yeah, I know, and that shit is fucking pathetic. The things that some voters are willing to overlook just because a candidate is a smooth talker, and that's all he is, Mad, a smooth fucking talker," he said, clenching his jaw, biting back his hatred for his father. "There is no redeeming quality about that man. We just got to bring to light something that the voters won't be able to ignore. Something so incriminating that even the law can't ignore."