Held A New Adult Romance(60)

I don't speak, but I squeeze her hand hard, to tell her that she's not.

"I couldn't tell him that I was still pregnant. I just kept thinking about my Dad seeing me dead on some morgue slab, and how hard his heart was going to break - first my Mom, and then me. And then it was like there little voice in the back of my head - panicking hard. Screaming, you know. And it was like 'What the fuck are you crying about? We're not dead yet - think, moron. Think.'"

Amber takes a shaky drag of her cigarette. "I don't exactly remember how I did it even now," she says. "But I said something like 'Wouldn't it be better if we went out after one last time? If we died like real lovers?'. And he liked that. He started to cry and I could feel the gun shake under my chin..."

She trails off for a second and rubs her forehead. "I don't think there was ever a moment when I knew I could kill him, but everything changed in that moment. Just that shake - that was all it took to bring me back. The real me. The me who didn't know how to live without him but was sure as hell gonna learn because the alternative? No way. It's a weird feeling, when you decide to keep on living - it's deep down, primordial stuff. I tried to make myself forget it after he d...after I killed him. But I guess I didn't. Not completely. Otherwise I would have cut deeper, or taken more pills. I don't know."

Her hand goes to the nape of her neck. I want to ask about the scar there, but I don't. She catches me looking.

"He got off the bed," she says. "Took the gun with him. 'I'm glad you saw sense,' he said. That sticks in my head. Sense? Holy shit. He went into the bathroom. I heard the water running. 'It hurts less in warm water,' he said. 'That's why the Romans always opened their veins in the bath'."

"You don't have to go on if you don't want to," I say, but she shakes her head.

"I want to. I've wanted to for a long time. It's one thing to share this with your psychiatrist or your attorney, but...well...you see - I'm never going to be able to get close to another person again without sharing this. Not really close."

She looks down at me and I can see the question in her eyes - are we really close? Do we mean something? I can't answer - not right now.

"When he came back in he had a knife - one of my good kitchen knives. He put the gun down on the dresser opposite the bed. He took my iPod and hooked it up to the speakers. That song - you know? Wonderwall." She lets out a nervous little laugh. "And I was like 'Fuck you. I'm not dying to this song. I don't even like this song. This is your song - not ours.' But in my head, obviously."

She closes her eyes, as if she's trying to place herself back in the room. "He put the knife down next to the gun. I didn't dare move, but I was starting to think clearly. I had this bedside lamp - the base was made from a solid rock from the beach. Someone had drilled it somehow to thread an electrical cable through it. He got on the bed with me and I tried to pretend I was into it - that I wanted him one last time.

"I reached out. When I went to grab it the first time the cable caught. My arm jarred and that was all it took - one split second for him to know something was up. I got him - hard, but not nearly as hard as I'd meant to. He went out - rolled off the bed."

I squeeze her hand once more, but she's not really here.

"I'll never forget trying to stand up," she says. "My legs wouldn't fucking work. I knew I had to get to that gun before he came round, get to the phone. Call the police. It was like 'Oh my God, you could be home and dry if only you could just fucking walk,' but it was like a nightmare. Every step I took I thought my knees were going to buckle. My stomach hurt and I thought I was going to throw up. Then I looked down and realised I was bleeding."

"Holy shit, Amber."

She shakes her head. "The number of times I'd wanted to see blood in the last week. And I got what I wanted. I'd never seen so much. I don't know if your sisters tell you tell much, but it's a weird thing with women - sometimes you don't feel the period cramps until you see the blood. Like it's psychological or something. But as soon as I realised I felt like I was being scooped out with a rusty spoon. And I didn't even think about losing a baby - I just thought 'Great - that's all I fucking need right now.'

"I had the gun in my hand. That nasal guy was singing about blinding lights on the iPod. I was going to shut myself in the bathroom with the gun. And phone the police. That's what I was going to do. I think. It's hard to be sure, no matter how many times I've gone through this already. That was when he got up - like something from a horror movie. I saw his hand on the side of the bed. I heard him groan. He got up. Slowly. He looked at me. He saw that I was bleeding and he had to see how hard I was shaking; I could barely keep the barrel straight in my sights.