by S.J. Finch
***
When Ryan awoke, the bed was bathed in a ray of mid-morning sunlight. He felt Vanessa’s body against his back and craned his head around behind him. She too, had fallen asleep and her petite frame rose and fell with every breath. He felt her body gently push against his, then recede, in a hypnotic rhythm.
The room was all pastels, down to the lavender bedspread beneath them now. The cream colored walls however, were almost completely covered by hundreds of photographs of different sizes and subjects. Some were candid shots of friends and family, but most were artistic. Ryan had never grasped photography as an art form until Vanessa had taken up the hobby years ago. Most of the high school photography Ryan had seen were snapshots zoomed in on a portion of a sneaker then Photoshopped it into black and white. Vanessa, however, was different. She shot on a high-end SLR and developed all her own film. She didn’t even know how to use Photoshop beyond cropping. She studied and emulated Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Lange, and the result was four walls that Ryan could spend hours staring at.
The cheery simplicity of the pastel yellows and blues was offset by these pictures that were anything but simple. The colors of the room were further interrupted by the silver and black of the powerful desktop computer and photograph scanner on Vanessa’s desk, along with stacks of photography magazines, movie and CD cases, the odd piece of classic French literature, and at least half a dozen empty soda cans perched precariously on the stacks of everything else.
Ryan had often wondered what Vanessa would have been like if she had grown up with female best friends instead of Ryan and Eli. The bedroom, as well as Vanessa herself, still maintained a distinct femininity, but in Ryan’s eyes she embodied just as much “puppy dog tails” as she did “sugar and spice”. Ryan loved that about her, the balance. To him it meant that they could enjoy a spirited discussion on government attack chimps or Over The Top, and that although she loved shoe shopping as much as the next girl, she had never once dragged Ryan along.
He lay there for a while, enjoying the sunbeam and Vanessa’s silent company. Ryan’s mind had been in a whirlwind when he’d first arrived. Thoughts and feelings had been whipping past his consciousness over and over like a tornado. Now however, here, his mind was blissfully clear. To Ryan, the photographs on the walls represented a world full of pure, innocent, beautiful things. Ryan knew he was none of those anymore, and so he didn’t belong. The man, the thing, he was now could never exist on these walls, in this world. In her world. There was no more doubt, no more fear, no more guilt. Ryan knew exactly what he had to do.
Vanessa’s mother ,had become paranoid about home security since she had divorced Vanessa’s father. When she had first purchased the revolver from a pawn shop, she had shown Ryan and Vanessa where it was kept, in case there was a break-in during the many hours of the day when she was not at home. Ryan entered the empty master bedroom and found the gun right where it had always been in the top drawer of the nightstand. He didn’t have much experience handling guns, mostly from video games, movies, and his brief stint as a Boy Scout before he had lost interest in basket weaving. This gun however, was as straightforward as he could have hoped for.
It was a snub-nosed, double-action revolver. A .38 Special with a black frame, cylinder, and barrel, with brown wooden grips. It was heavier than it looked and Ryan hefted it in his palm, getting a feel for it. There weren’t many moving parts, and even with Ryan’s limited experience, he had it figured out in seconds. He went back through the drawer and found a small box of ammunition. He loaded a round in the cylinder and clicked it back into place. He ran through the mental checklist: safety off. Hammer back. Point. Shoot. Simple.
Ryan walked out of the master bedroom and back to Vanessa’s room. He looked down at her as she slept and tried to consume every detail. The gun grew heavy in his hand. The longer he stood there without acting, the more of his determination Ryan felt slip away. If he waited to do it any longer, he knew he’d no longer be able to do it at all.
He tore himself away and walked down the hall to look for a suitable spot. Bright rays of slatted light poured into the dining room. The French doors opened onto the back patio which was bathed in warm, morning sun. He looked out into the backyard, into the sunshine.
The grass was tinged an autumn brown, but it was still green enough to look cheerful. Beyond the grass of the yard was an irregular line of planted trees that stood between the grass and the high wooden fence. The deciduous trees were exploding in beautiful colors in everything from deep reds to bright yellows, and even a few lingering greens. It was the same sight Ryan had seen a thousand times over the years he’d been coming to Vanessa’s house, but today it was more beautiful than he’d ever seen it. The colors seemed richer, the sunlight seemed brighter, the shadows seemed fewer. The birds that cut lazy circles high in the blue sky above him seemed nearer, slower, more peaceful. This was a good spot.
Ryan double-checked the gun and made sure it would fire with the first pull of the trigger. Safety off. Hammer back.
He stared up into the sky and lifted the gun to his temple. The barrel felt cold against the side of his head and seemed entirely too small for the job he needed it to do, but Ryan had faith.