Fling Confessionals: NICK

by Grace Charles

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you mean 'cut'?”

  “Cut,” he reiterated. “As in, somebody took a knife or some farm sheers, and cut the fuckers.”

  I couldn't believe my ears, and immediately started thinking who would've done something like that? But the moment the denial and fear subsided, only one name came to mind. Something I didn't want to believe, there was only one person I could think of that would be so mean, so vicious...so crazy even.

  The police eventually joined Daryl and me at the van, and Daryl explained what he'd found.

  “Do you know anyone who would've done this?” asked the officer.

  I wanted to tell him, but could've been wrong.

  “Uh...no. No,” I decided to say as believably as I could.

  “Anyone?” the officer asked again. “Somebody you've been having trouble with? An ex-girlfriend maybe?”

  Brian came walking up just as the cop asked that, and I immediately gestured him not to say anything.

  “What's the deal?” asked Brian.

  “Well, turns out your breaks were cut,” informed the officer. “I was just asking your friend here if he could think of anybody that would do something like that?”

  Brian must've thought of Heather too, because he looked right at me with that look as if I should've said something.

  “How about you?” asked the cop turning to Brian. “Can you think of anybody.”

  Bran hesitated with his answer, still waiting on me to say something. But once he realized that I didn't want to imply that Heather had done this, he shook his head and finally spoke.

  “Uhm...no,” he said uneasily. “No. I don't have an idea. But whoever it was is one sick fuck, and needs to get some fucking help before they do worse.”

  I knew he was talking to me, but played it cool.

  “Well, if you think of anything,” said the officer handing us his card. “Make sure to give me a call as soon as you do. There's no telling what this person could do next?”

  “Thank you, officer,” I said taking the card.

  The cop finally walked away, and Brian went back to staring at me.

  “Well, I've already called the company and they're having me tow you guys away,” said Daryl packing up his equipment. “You guys need a lift?”

  “Nah,” I waved him off. “I'm taking the rest of the day off, so I'll just catch an Uber home.”

  “I'll take a ride,” said Brian heading over to Daryl's tow truck. “It might not be too safe to drive with this motherfucker.”

  All I could do was stand there looking at him, but I couldn't argue. After all, if Heather had been the one to cut our breaks, maybe it wasn't safe for anyone to be around me. But there was only one way to find out if Heather had actually done it, and that was to ask her personally. So I decided to catch an Uber to my car, and then I went to see Heather at her job.

  * * *

  The moment I showed up at her job, I found Heather sitting at her station and scrolling through her phone. She was as beautiful as ever and dressed in her usual cute way, but I wasn't there to admire her. So I just walked up to her and stood there.

  She didn't even bother looking up at me, acting like I wasn't even there.

  “Hello?” I said with a bit of an attitude.

  Heather glanced up at me and just went back to her phone.

  “Hey,” she barely greeted.

  “Uh, can I talk to you in private?” I requested gesturing outside.

  “About?”

  “I just need to talk to you...in private.”

  “I don't think we have anything to talk about, Nick,” she dismissed me. “Not unless you wanna apologize for lying to me and treating me like a whore?”

  “Like a...”

  I couldn't believe my ears.

  Heather was even more delusional than I'd thought, and I really started believing that she was in fact the one who cut the van's breaks.

  “Heather,” I dropped my head before losing my temper. “Can we just go outside?”

  Heather stayed looking at her phone, but eventually obliged me.

  Her walk was full of attitude, but I almost dismissed it when checking her out as she led the way. I mean, she still had a hold on my heart even then, but I had to keep myself in check. She wasn't normal, and I needed to make sure she wasn't a murderer on top of it.

  “What do you want, bro?” she asked facing me with her arms crossed.

  “Something happened this morning,” I started. “Something I need to make sure you didn't have anything to do with.”

  Heather didn't reply, her facial expression of somebody who just wanted to punch me in the face.

  “Listen, Heather,” I took a deep breath. “I thought I saw you this morning. I was working, and I could've sworn I saw you walking down the street. Then when Brian and I were driving, we almost died because somebody cut the breaks to our van.”

  Heather still didn't say anything, but looked to be getting angrier as I went on. Her cheeks flushed, her brow furrowed, and her jaw muscles started flexing.

  “I guess because of the way you acted at the restaurant the last time we were together, I just wanted to make sure you weren't the one who did that,” I continued. “So...am I crazy for thinking that?”

  Heather stared at me for a second before saying anything, but then she allowed a smirk to come on her face.

  “You're not crazy, Nick,” she said staring into my eyes.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said you're not crazy,” she clarified. “When you hurt somebody, manipulate them, you should expect them to do something about it.”

  “Heather?” I stalled for a moment. “I didn't...What are you saying?”

  Heather stepped up to me, fully allowing a sadistic grin to distort the image of beauty she usually was.

  “Nick, Nick. Nick,” she shook her head. “I loved you, decided to dedicate my life to you, and you just threw me away like trash. And it wasn't until that night at the restaurant did it finally dawn on me that you'd been lying to me the entire time. So tell me, what would you do if you were me?”

  “But Heather, we weren't dating,” I tried explaining. “We only knew each other for a day. How could you possibly be in love with me? You don't even know me.”

  And shockingly enough, that's when the truth hit me in the face.

  There I was telling Heather that she couldn't have been in love with me because she didn't know me, but yet, that had been me. For three weeks, I'd been in love with her, seen her as the woman of my dreams, but I hadn't known her either. I hadn't known this side of her, the side that was too much for me to handle. In the end, if anybody had been crazy, it had been me.

  I'd stalked her, made her see me, and then existed for her.

  This was my fault, and that alone crushed me.

  “I'm sorry, Heather,” I said dropping my head out of shame. “I--”

  “Nick,” she cut me off. “I love you. I've loved you ever since that day we ate together, but you hurt me. And now...Well, now you have to pay for that.”

  “Wha--”

  “Stop it! Don't say another word,” she interrupted with a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You'll never prove that I cut those breaks, but know that I did. And what could've been a simple death has now gotta become something brutal. Because in the end, it's not fair that I'm in love and you're not. It's not fair that I have to carry this alone.”

  “But--”

  She leaned over and kissed me.

  Those soft lips, the warmth they carried, none of that was there anymore. Now all I felt was anger, regret, and most of all, fear.

  “Be seeing you around, Nick,” she smiled walking away. “I'll make sure to bring the solvents next time.”

  And with that, she was gone, leaving me standing in front of her store all alone. She could obviously see that I was bothered by what she'd just said, because the smile she gave me was a condescending one, one warning me that she wasn't kidding about what she had planned
.

  To tell you the truth, I was scared shitless and didn't know what to do. So slowly walking away from her salon, all I could do was pray that she'd get over it. But something inside me told me that, that wasn't the last time I was going to see Heather, and that I'd better be on guard from now on.

  * * *

  For the next four days, I was keeping an eye out everywhere I went. Whether it was my usual Friday nights of excitement of sitting in a bar instead of in front of the television to just going to work, everywhere I went I kept my eyes peeled for Heather.

  Brian didn't want to work with me anymore, but hadn't told the company why. He'd just said that we weren't getting along, and decided to work with another guy named Joel instead. Meanwhile, I was stuck with training a new guy named Phil, and spent most of my time full of anxiety. Then I started seeing Heather all over the place, staring at me, smiling at me, letting me know that she wasn't out of my life.

  It was like she wanted me to call the cops, the way she appeared from out of nowhere. She even showed up during the hours when she was supposed to be at work, and that made me worry even more. I mean, here was this girl that had once been a smiling angel with friends all over the place, and now she was even missing work to follow me around. Needless to say, it was unnerving, and I couldn't deal with it for much longer. So one night, I went to her house to ask her to stop, but that's when I found her standing outside of her apartment with the first guy I'd ever seen her with.

  They were arguing about something, and Heather just started hitting him. And though the guy was twice her size, he actually looked like he wanted to run.

  “I've already told you, I don't want you!” she was screaming. “Just move on already!”

  “But I love--”

  Again she hit him across the face, nearly causing him to fall over the railing.

  The dude eventually ran down the steps and made it to his car once Heather ran into her apartment. But just before he pulled off, Heather came running back out with a huge kitchen knife in her hand.

  “Get outta here!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, practically taking the steps by threes after this guy.

  Luckily for him he was able to pull off just as she reached him, only to have her try to stab the car. She then turned to head back to her apartment, and spotted me sitting in my car. Amazingly enough, she didn't look shocked or angry. All she did was smile at me, brandishing the knife she was carrying.

  I'm not going to lie, for a moment there, I actually wanted to run over her with my car, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Her smile was still so beautiful, her walk so graceful, her hold over me so strong. But I was awake and didn't allow myself to get confused by what I was seeing.

  Stepping out of my car, I stopped Heather dead in her tracks and she turned to me with that smile of hers.

  “When are you going to stop this, Heather?!” I shouted at her. “You obviously have a guy who wants to be with you! Why don't you just leave me alone?!”

  “Who, Micky?” she asked standing on the steps. “Micky isn't you, Nick. I don't love him.”

  “You don't love me either!” I shouted. “Stalking me everywhere I go! Hiding behind corners! Threatening me! That's not love! That's crazy!”

  Heather stopped smiling the moment I said that.

  “Didn't I warn you about calling me crazy, Nick?” she asked slowly descending the steps and walking toward me. “I could've sworn that night in the restaurant I told you not to call me that.”

  “Actually, you didn't say anything that night,” I replied taking a better position behind my car, and putting some distance between us. “You just threw a glass at my--”

  The knife came flying at me, and I quickly jumped out of the way before it hit me in the chest.

  “What the--”

  The moment I looked in her direction, I found Heather running up to me at top speed.

  The only thing I could do was run to the other side of the car, avoiding her wild approach.

  “Heather!” I screamed.

  “You destroyed us, Nick!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “You took everything beautiful that we'd made together and fucking destroyed it!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?!” I dashed to the otherside of my car when she tried catching me. “We didn't have anything! We never had anything! You're fucking crazy!”

  Heather stopped chasing me at that point, and just stood there staring at me.

  “Face it, Heather!” I screamed at her. “You're a crazy bitch! And you need to leave me alone!”

  “Nick,” she said with a crack in her voice. “I can't. I let Micky go for you, and you broke my heart. I didn't even know you. You're the one who came after me.”

  “No--”

  “Don't lie to me!” she snapped. “You think I didn't know you'd been following me all that time? What? You think I'm stupid or something? The park? The laundromat? The coffee shop? The diner where I ate lunch? I saw you. I always saw you. And I always waited for you to approach me. But you...No, Nick. You don't make someone fall in love with you and just throw them away.”

  “Heather,” I caught myself before saying anything.

  So she had known I;d been stalking her, following her, desiring her from afar. But of course she had, and I was a fool to have ever thought otherwise. And now...well now I was paying for it in a major way.

  “I'm...I'm sorry,” I said lowering my head. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “No?” she asked with tears running down her face. “You didn't?”

  “You gotta believe me, Heather,” I said taking a deep breath. “I was in love with you, and I did want nothing more than to be with you. But sometimes...Sometimes things just look better inside of a store, you know?”

  Heather winced at what I'd just said to her, then dropped her head.

  “I guess,” she whispered, but I still heard her. “But that doesn't change anything, Nick. It doesn't change the fact that you hurt me, the fact that you lied to me, the fact that you...”

  Her bloodshot eyes looked up at me, and through her smile appeared that sadistic look I was really beginning to dread.

  “Be seeing you, Nick,” she said heading back to her building. “Sooner than you think.”

  And with that, she just started heading up.

  “Heather,” I called out.

  But she didn't look back.

  “Heather!”

  She wasn't listening to me any longer, and just walked into her apartment, slamming the door shut behind her.

  All I could do was stand there for a few minutes longer, the thought of Heather wanting to kill me playing over and over in my head. Impossible to shake such a feeling, it didn't help that her silhouette remained at the window the entire time, never once parting the curtains for me to actually see her. It was exactly like the times when I used to sit outside her house dreaming of being with her. But now...Now I was standing there in a nightmare.

  I existed for her, and I was going to pay for that.

  SIX

  I hadn't seen or heard from Heather in about a week, when I received a phone call from the company asking me to take a job. When I arrived, I was surprised to discover that it was actually Brian's house that I was being called to.

  Poor Brian had been a victim of a break-in that had turned fatal. From what I was told, he'd caught an intruder in his house and tried apprehending him, only to be stabbed twenty seven times. Of course, I was devastated to hear the news, and could barely get myself together when I started cleaning the house.

  Phil was there with me, but didn't seem so taken back. He didn't really know Brian all that much and took up much of the slack. Luckily for me, because I was too focused on the fact that someone I'd known had actually been murdered. It was obviously different than cleaning up after some stranger that had had their lives taken, but Brian, though not a friend, was still someone I'd known personally. All I could do was hope they found the perpetrator before they struck again, all
while trying not to think about Brian's final moments.

  Anyway, by the time the preliminary cleaning was done, Phil was all but ready to leave. But I couldn't do that quite yet. So I agreed to meet him at the house later the next day, while staying there to take in the scene.

  Some stuff had been broken and there was still some signs of a struggle in the living room. I mean, I just couldn't believe it. And of course, it brought me back to Heather, and whether or not she'd had anything to do with it. But I concluded that I was just being paranoid, or at least I'd hoped.

  “Hello, Nick,” I then heard a voice greet me from out of nowhere.

  Turning, I found none other than Heather standing behind me with her hands behind her back.

  “What the fuck?!” I jumped for my life. “What are you...What the fuck are you doing here, Heather?!”

  “I just stopped by to see you,” she smiled. “Is that a problem?”

  “You're not supposed to be--” I looked over at the locked front door. “How'd you get in here? The door was locked.”

  “Well, you don't have to use a door when you've been here all the time, silly,” she giggled. “I've been hiding around the place waiting on you.”

  “Wha--” my heart skipping a beat kept me from asking the question. “Oh my, God.”

  “Yeah,” she shrugged. “Brian was cool, but you have to admit that he was an asshole.”

  “But...But--”

  “Oh, how'd I do it?” she asked, though that wasn't going to be my question. “Well...”

  She took a step toward me, forcing me to back away from her.

  “I followed Brian from a job he was working on in Queens,” she began explaining. “You remember that place over in 'The Hole', our first date?”

  She still had her hands behind her back when she took another step in my direction, again forcing me to look for an escape.

  “Anyways, I followed him when he was done, and approached him while he was getting some food from a gas station down the street from here,” she went on. “I guess you'd told him about what was going on between us, cause the guy turned into a total bitch when he saw me.”

  Heather dodged after me and finally revealed the bloody knife she had in her hand.