by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Twenty Three
In the dark living room Michael stealthily made his way to the couch, its back facing him. From his angle he could see only a wisp of brown hair. Lengthy for a man. It didn’t occur to him that it was a woman. Trent lived alone, Eddie had said, so if someone was here it was Trent.
There was a blanket covering his body up to his face. Michael looked around for a light switch, found one on the wall near the entertainment center. He stepped to it, flipped the lights on (two lamps flickered on) and aimed the gun at his quarry with an I got you, motherfucker grin.
The woman gasped and sat bolt upright, eyes wide with terror. Michael gasped with her, lowered the gun but only slightly.
“Don’t scream,” Michael said.
“Who the fuck are you!” She looked behind her to the door, then to the hallway leading to the bedroom. “Trent?”
“He’s not here.” He lowered the gun, his jaw dropped. “Oh… my… God…” he whispered.
Mae covered her mouth, eyes as bright and round as full moons. In a voice octaves higher than any Michael had ever heard, she said, “Michael? Is that you?”
“Mae, I’m so so sorry!” He dropped the gun to the carpeted floor, touched the side of his face in his bewilderment.
“What’s going on?” She stood up, stepped to him. “What’s going on!”
He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. “I need to sit down.” He went to the couch and took a seat.
“Why are you here and why do you have a gun!”
“Keep your voice down, please. I… I don’t want the police to come.”
“Is this a dream or something? Is Michael really here with a gun aimed at me?”
“It’s not aimed at you anymore, nor will it ever be again. Mae, it was a huge mistake, a total misunderstanding.”
“Explain yourself. Why are you here?”
“I thought Trent would be here. I had no idea you’d be here. I didn’t know you and Trent were… whatever you are. Boyfriend and girlfriend?”
She nodded.
Things started to click into place for Michael. “Ah. When you stopped visiting me, your mom said you were out on a date. With Trent, huh?”
She nodded again.
“That makes sense.” A horrible fucking realization occurred to him, and there was no way Mae would know anything about it. Trent killed her parents, and his motive was pretty easy to guess at, and simple. To be with her. To get them out of his way. They must have forbidden her to see him, so he remedied the problem.
“Answer me, Michael. What’s going on here? You show up to Trent’s with a gun? You were going to kill him?” She said incredulously.
“Yes.” He couldn’t believe he answered that honestly.
She was agape, tears puddled in her eyes. “I liked you, Michael,” she said with great pain. “I really liked you. Yeah it ended up being Trent who stole my heart but it scares me to think that it could have been you. You who was about to murder someone! Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the police this second!”
“There is no reason. I deserve it.”
She walked to the kitchen counter, uncradled the home phone. She looked at him. Well…? Her look said.
“I never told you this,” he said thinly and evenly, “but I love you. Always have. Not just love you, but in love with you. I adore you. I know that’s a corny thing to say, but it’s true.”
She returned the phone and joined him on the couch, put her hand on his.
“I know you went through a rough time for a while,” she said. “I know you were suicidal—don’t ask how I know, I just do. I thought you got over it, but now this. I’m sorry you love me. Really I am. I wish I could return that love. I do like you, Michael. We could be friends or something, can’t that be good enough? Is it all or nothing? Did you come over to kill Trent so I’d be yours? That’s delusional. That wouldn’t happen.”
“No. That’s not it at all. I can’t say the truth. It would devastate you.”
“You are going to tell me, Michael. You don’t have a choice. I can call the police on you. Or worse yet, I can tell Trent on you. You’d prefer the cops, trust me.”
“Yeah? Why is that, Mae?” Michael said rhetorically. “Just why would it be worse if Trent found out than the cops? Trent isn’t a good guy, is he?”
“He is,” she said unconvincingly.
“Bullshit and you know it. You think it’s possible that Trent would kill me if he found out, don’t you,” Michael asked, a question he knew the answer to.
“Probably not.” She looked away. “Well, maybe. I pray I’m wrong.”
“I know for a fact he’d kill me. It’s either him or me. Either I pull it off and kill him or I don’t and he kills me. That was the risk I took in coming here.”
“Why would you want to kill Trent! Answer me, Michael! What did he ever do to you?”
“It’s not about what he did to me, Mae. It’s about…” His gaze drifted down to her mouth. His eyes prickled, and when he spoke his despair seeped through. “It’s about what he did to you.”
“And what is that?”
“I can’t say,” he squeaked, and with that he began weeping.
“Tell me,” she urged. “Tell me, tell me, tell me. Just tell me already!”
After a sob and a nod Michael said, “Trent killed two people I cared about. Two people he never should have killed. People I sought to avenge tonight, here in this apartment, with that gun.” He gestured at the Beretta on the floor.
“Trent?—kill someone?” She said with mingled humor and disbelief. “Ha! Who!”
Michael closed his eyes, displacing tears. “Mae, I swear on my soul. I swear on your soul—you whom I love with every aching fiber in my body. I swear on everything that’s holy… you must, must believe that what I’m about to say happened. On May fifteenth of this year, Trent killed two people I had the pleasure of knowing. They were wonderful kindly people. Two people I’ll never forget if I live to be a hundred, and that’s because they produced an offspring whom I’ll never stop loving.”
Mae began hyperventilating, tears dripping in rivulets off either jaw. She leaned back in the couch huffing and wheezing. “Leave, Michael. Leave now.”
“No way. I can’t leave you like this.”
She was struggling for breath. “If you… love me… and you swear you do… then leave me now.”
He caressed the back of her head. “Could you try to settle down for me?”
“If Trent shows up… you’re going to get hurt.” She looked down at the gun. “Especially if he sees that. Go. Now. Go.”
He stood up from the couch. “What happens next?”
“Nothing. I won’t tell him about this.” A thought occurred to her. “Who gave you this address?”
“I can’t say.”
“Was it Eddie?”
Michael’s eyes widened. He didn’t say anything, but he supposed his reaction was affirmation to her question.
“Are you going to tell the police that Trent killed your parents?” He asked her.
“No.”
“Seriously? You’re not?”
She muttered something that Michael wasn’t sure what she said, but it sounded like “I won’t be around so it doesn’t matter.” A damn peculiar thing to say, if that’s indeed what she said. Where might she be? Only one answer to the question seemed logical and it scared the shit out of him. And he could empathize with it, being that he himself flirted with suicide only months ago.
“Promise me you won’t do anything to yourself, then I’ll leave. If you don’t, I’m not going anywhere.”
“I promise,” she said. She answered too readily. It was a lie. He went to the kitchen counter and found a pad of sticky-notes, then a pen. He jotted his phone number down and not his name—in case Trent found it. He gave it to Mae and advised her to keep it hidden somewhere, to call him if she needed to talk, please call him if she needed to talk. She nodded, her breathing steadying a little. With
out looking at him she waved him away.
“I love you, Mae.”
“Leave.”
“Bye.”
He stooped down for his father’s Beretta, tucked it in his pants and left, using the key behind him, hiding it where he had found it. He was weeping as he got in the Buick, pulled out and drove homeward.
He ruminated over the things Eddie had told him that afternoon, such as Trent lives alone and would be there alone. Did he know Mae would be there? He could have killed Mae very easily; just aimed his gun at the heap on the couch and unloaded his magazine. Bye bye, Mae. The thought infuriated him. He had to have known about Mae, so why didn’t he say anything? Is it possible that he wanted Michael to kill Mae and not Trent? It was possible. Everything was lined up perfectly for that to happen. That sonofabitch Eddie. How could he do that to him? Had Michael accidently killed Mae, he didn’t want to consider the misery that would follow that tragedy. He’d kill Eddie because of it, that much he did know. And even now the idea of killing Eddie wasn’t a horrible one.
He needed to remain clear-headed. Eddie was his friend, they liked each other. He had a candor about him; he wouldn’t fuck over Michael like that. It must have been a mistake, it just had to be. “You didn’t know Mae would be there,” Michael said, bracing that theory. “You fucked up and I can be understanding.” Maybe he didn’t even know that Trent dated Mae. Unlikely, but possible. He’d have a nice long chat with Eddie tomorrow when he dropped his car off. Eddie better have a damned good excuse why Michael nearly killed his beloved instead of the man he hated. A damned good one.