The Girl Who Would Be King(64)

As Clark and I literally clink together our glasses for a toast at our favorite restaurant to celebrate our two-month anniversary, I feel the burn in my chest with an intensity that I haven’t felt since the fire at the grocery store a few weeks ago. I look up at Clark and push it down deep into myself, taking a bite of his scallop dish and smiling as if nothing is wrong.

By the time dessert comes, the feeling has disappeared, and over flourless chocolate cake and the last drops of the champagne we’re both too young to have bought legally, I breathe out a relieved sigh, I had a nice anniversary dinner, not diving out of the restaurant or making lame excuses, and the world hasn’t ended. I can have both things. It’s totally possible. I can make this work.

But on the walk home, two blocks away from the restaurant we run into ambulances and police cruisers in the street, all bright syncopating red and blue lights in the darkness. And I watch as they wheel nine bodies out of a liquor store with sheets over their faces, blood seeping darkly through the clean white.

“Oh man,” Clark says, pausing, eyes wide at the horrifying scene. Everything runs out of me like a river and I crumple onto the dirty sidewalk. Clark stops short midsentence and reaches out to me. “Baby, are you okay?” He bends down toward me.

“I have to sit down,” I say, my voice all breath and hardly any sound. I’m shaking and sweating, my cheeks flushed, my eyes full of tears.

“What’s happening?”

“I just felt dizzy all of a sudden.” Lies multiplying every time I speak.

“I think we should take you to a hospital,” he begins and reaches his hand out to hail a cab.

“No,” I say, my voice like a blade. “I’ll be fine.” I stand up. I can’t risk him taking me to a hospital. Who knows what they’d find, and I’d only end up putting more lies between us.

“Are you sure? You look pale, and your hands are trembling,” he says, touching my hands gingerly. I will them to still.

“I’m sure,” I say, forcing a smile across my teeth. “It must be the champagne…I’ve never had champagne before, maybe I had too much,” I say. Which, if alcohol affected me normally, would probably be true. So it’s almost not a lie. He still seems unsure, but can feel the resolve in my tone.

“All right,” he says, and takes my hand.

That night, alone in my stupid motel room I try not to cry. All those people dead because of me. This is the kind of thing that haunts a person their whole lives. How can I ever let go of it?

I can feel things peeling away at the edges.

My guilt about everything is the only thing anchoring me to anything. I’m going to have to make a choice. I can feel it coming as surely as the storm my mother has been warning me about since that first dream I had after that rainy night on the roof. Is this what she meant? Is this the storm that is going to destroy everything in my life…is the storm just me and what I am?



•

I set my hand on fire just to see what it feels like. It’s pretty horrible and I almost regret doing it, except I watch the skin knit itself back together like magic and I can’t help but be impressed with myself. The pain is excruciating but I can add ‘dying by fire’ to my list of “things that are awesome about being me” list. I also mentally add it to a new list I’ve started called “Things I Might Be Able To Survive, But That Would Be Decidedly Unpleasant.” After my rough couple days learning to swim I’ve already put drowning on the list.

For the hundredth time I look at the gun I acquired from Melvin’s safe after killing him and wonder for the hundredth time whether I should give it a try.

I’m honestly not sure I’m ready for the gun. I already know my body will heal a simple gunshot wound since Melvin grazed me in our little battle, but I wonder if I can survive something more intense. Surely a bullet to the head will put me down, maybe permanently, can a body heal if there’s no brain to heal it?

In the end, I decide to shoot myself in the leg. I screw on the silencer and go out to the patio, sitting near the edge so that the blood can roll down into the rocks. Clenching my eyes shut and aiming the gun at the meaty part of my leg (about where I shot Adrian), I pull the trigger.

The pain is like needles of fire and for a minute I think I’m going to pass out. I push through the dizziness and taste blood where I’ve bit my tongue accidentally. I stare at the wound, willing it to hurt less, and to my utter shock, it slowly does.

I concentrate on the wound with everything I’ve got and watch it slowly pull itself back together, the flesh recombining and pushing the bullet out of the wound. The bullet lands with a clink on the rocks and my skin continues to stitch itself back until there’s nothing there but a little raised scar. In a few minutes my leg is good as new.