Her eyes open wide and I can tell I’m totally making her day, like she was waiting for some sort of signal from god, some sort of affirmation, and I’m her miracle, so I just keep piling it on, talking about being a changed man, and wanting to live a good life, and spending eternity with her in heaven.
Inside I start to feel terrible, thinking about how disappointed she’ll be when she sees the news tonight—how crushing that will be for her—and I wonder if her faith will be able to withstand it.
I think god is just a fairy tale, but I’m really starting to like the fact that Lauren has faith.
Don’t know why.
It’s weird.
A contradiction, maybe.
Or maybe it’s like wanting little kids to believe in Santa after someone else already ruined it for you, or you just figured out that your parents were Santa after all and the magic of Christmas instantly evaporated. But thinking about my destroying her faith by tricking her and then killing myself really starts to bring me down, until I just can’t lie to her anymore.
“Life can be really hard, you know. It makes it difficult to believe in god sometimes, but I’m trying—for you, and maybe for me too,” I say, and then I just start to fucking cry. I’m not sure why. Man, I bawl and bawl.
She hugs me and I clutch her, sob into her neck that smells like vanilla extract baking inside cookies—so fucking wonderful!
The sad suits and briefcases pass us in droves, but no one even seems to notice us as I drink her up.
“God works in mysterious ways,” she says, and rubs my back all motherly. “This world is a test. It’s hard. But I will continue to pray for you. We could pray together. You could come to church with me. It would help you. My father will help you too.”
She’s saying all of these really nice things, trying to comfort me the only way she knows how, and I love just being on someone’s radar so much that I start kissing her neck and then her mouth. Our tongues touch, and she kisses me back for a fraction of a second— Her mouth is so warm and wet and mint-y from the gum she’s chewing and my heart’s pulsing spikes of adrenaline through my veins, which is exciting and animalistic and primal, but maybe not quite what I was expecting, because I thought kissing Lauren would be like the epic kisses in Bogie films, like the string section would kick in and I’d get that swirling feeling Baback’s playing produces, and Lauren would pause to gaze at me and say, “I like that. I’d like more,” just like Bacall says— in that infamous husky voice—to Bogie in The Big Sleep, and when I kissed her glossy battleship-gray lips again, she’d say, “That’s even better,” but instead it’s just the hot sweaty rush of bodies mangling when they maybe shouldn’t even be mingling—and she tries to push me away, but the rush forces me to hold on to her tight, even though I want to let go, even though I should really LET GO!, so she turns her face from my mouth and yells “Stop” in this high-pitched squeal that is the complete antithesis of Bacall’s warm sexy brassy voice and when I keep kissing her cheek and ear, she smashes my chin with the heel of her hand, jolting my brain back to reality and knocking off my Bogart hat in the process.
I stagger backward and then pick up my fedora.
The warm rush freezes into a heavy lump in my chest and suddenly I feel so so shitty—like I need to vomit.
“Is there a problem here?” says this subway rent-a-cop who has magically appeared. He has this dirt moustache that makes him seem about twelve years old. He’s hilarious-looking in his official uniform with the little silver badge. Almost cute. Like a kid wearing a Halloween costume.
“I’m just delivering a message from god,” I say, and pop my hat back onto my head. I’m acting again, keeping my true feelings repressed—I’m aware of that, but I can’t help it.
Lauren looks at me like maybe I’m a demon from hell or the Antichrist, and says, “Why did you do that?”
“What did you do to her?” the rent-a-cop asks, trying to look official and tough.
“I gave her a cross on a silver chain and tried to tell her I love her—I do love you, Lauren; I really do—then I kissed her passionately.”
She looks at me with her head all cockeyed and her wet lips parted.
She’s so confused.
I’m kind of confused too, because I’m not attracted to Lauren at all anymore and the kiss was a spectacular failure.
I can tell that some part of her deep inside liked the kissing, because it’s natural for teenage girls to like kissing, but she feels conflicted, like she’s not supposed to like it, that she’s supposed to deny her instincts here, like her religious training bids her, and that’s what’s really eating her up inside.
Maybe that’s how rapists justify their actions.
Maybe I’m a monster now.
Because I can see the thought process happening—it’s written all over her face.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
No.
No.
No.
I can’t.
I really can’t.
I really truly absolutely can’t.
Why did you do this to me?
Why did you make me feel this way?
Why?!?
Lauren says, “I have to go,” just before she drops her stack of religious pamphlets and runs away.
I hate myself.
She literally runs.
I really fucking hate myself.
And I don’t have the heart to chase, mostly because I used up whatever courage and strength I had just to kiss her.
There’s a part of me that still wants to believe the kissing was wonderful.
Black-and-white Bogie-Bacall perfect.
Even though it wasn’t.
My dad used to say that the last drink of the day, when the work and thinking are over and you’re just about to surrender to unconsciousness, that’s always the best drink regardless of how it tastes.
Maybe Lauren was my last drink of the day.
The tracts blow all over the concrete sidewalk like dead leaves in the breeze.
“You better work on your delivery, Romeo,” the rent-a-cop says. “Now keep moving.”
“Aye, aye,” I say, and give the kid a military salute, making my body rigid and stiff, karate-chopping my eyebrows. “Good job keeping people with guns away from the subway. You really are a fantastic rent-a-cop.”
He looks at me and puts a hand on this two-foot club strapped to his belt, probably because they won’t let the kid carry a gun. He makes this evil twisted face, like beating me to death would really make his day. The rent-a-cop actually intimidates me a little, which is ironic, since I’m going to kill myself. But I haven’t shot Asher Beal yet, and death by rent-a-cop is probably even worse than death by übermorons.
“Here’s me moving on,” I say, and he lets me, because it’s the easiest thing for him to do.
He probably makes what—eleven-fifty an hour?
A rent-a-cop’s not exactly going to take a bullet in the line of duty for that type of wage, and who would?
As I walk away, my backpack feels lighter.
I’ve delivered all of my presents, so now it’s finally time to kill Asher Beal.
Let’s get this birthday party started!
I’m so ready to be done with this life.
It will be so so beautiful to finally be end-of-the-road done.
This will be the best birthday present ever; I’m pretty sure of that.
TWENTY-FOUR