They Had To Die (I)

There were five of us to begin with. Now, it’s only me.

I killed them.

This is my confession.

*

I fell in love with Michael. I did. It was love. I’m sure of it.

Well, mostly sure.

OK, you caught me. I don’t really know if it was love. It was pretty heavy lust, that part I’m absolutely sure of.

There’s no mistaking lust.

I saw him for the first time across the room. Our eyes met, and it was… well, yeah, lust at first sight. I couldn’t approach him straight away, but as soon as I could, I did.

So I met Michael for the first time just outside of my local church. He was new to the district; I’d lived there all my life. He was unsure of whether or not he liked me enough to be with me; I couldn’t be more sure.

But anyway.

He was a pretty devout Catholic in the beginning, I remember that clearly. It was the fact that he was devout that first drew me to him. There he was, gorgeous eyes, hair, mouth… oh, that mouth… and he was sitting quietly listening to everything the priest had to say.

And what the priest had to say was pretty ironic, considering the situation.

But no matter what Fr. Gregory said, there was no denying me from Michael.

Wow, thinking about it like this, yeah, it was lust. Heh. Oh well. Disregard the whole ‘love’ thing then. I was wrong.

So, yeah, I went up to him after Mass and introduced myself. Said he looked lonely and a little lost.

“Yeah,” he nodded, his eyes staying plastered to my face like a good little boy, even though I kept running my eyes up and down his body. “I only just moved here yesterday. I thought going to Mass would be the way to meet some nice people.”

I told him everybody in the town was nice, but I was glad he’d come anyway. I might not have met him, otherwise. He laughed, then, and I had to wildest urge to throw him down and have my way with him kiss him.

But no, I couldn’t – that would have to wait until I was sure I could trust him to keep his mouth shut.

I’m getting off track. I’ll talk more about Michael later.

*

So, the next person I met – this was about a month after the Mass when I met up with Michael – was Jack. Now, he was gorgeous. A complete stunner. But he and I never would have worked; I could see that from the start, so I didn’t even try.

I loved his smile, though. I can still picture it.

Anyway, Jack and I became acquainted in the supermarket. He was the checkout chick dude, so to speak. As he beeped my chicken nuggets and my condoms toothpaste through, I joked with him a little.

I had him wrapped around my little finger in twenty seconds flat. He even offered to carry my shopping out to my car. I still laugh, thinking about that. Almost makes me wish I hadn’t killed him – he had a wicked sense of humour. And that smile… ha.

So that’s how I met Jack.

*

Vanessa and Aleesha, the twins – I met them together one night at the club. They were all over me, Vanessa genuinely and Aleesha because she was high and drunk, and while I appreciated their… smuttiness affection… I was pretty hung up on Michael by then.

By the third round of cruisers I bought them, we were firm friends.

*

And I’m the fifth. The finale. The last one left. Once I’m dead, it’ll be curtain calls for this show.

My name is Ryan. I’m seventeen years old and I’m about as low as the scum you scrape from the bottom of your shoe.

If only Michael, Jack, Vanessa and Aleesha had known that when they met me…

*

“Ryan!” my mother screeched called. I groaned and rolled over.

“It’s time to get up! Your father will be here in forty minutes!”

I groaned again.

Fucking bastard. I told him I didn’t want to see him this week this month.

Fine. For the rest of my life was what I actually said.

“Ryan!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up,” I muttered into my pillow. I stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, I was out of the shower – my hair looking perfect as always, thanks for asking – and applying my eyeliner.

Now the real challenge.

Clean clothes.

Rummaging through the piles upon piles of clothes lying on my floor, I wondered why my mother never made me clean my room like other mothers made {i]their sons clean up. I sniffed a pair of jeans.

Good enough. Getting them on took a little more effort – hey, was it my fault I had girls’ hips and had to wear… erm… fitted jeans? OK, not just fitted, tight. But I looked damn good in them. My hips did too.

A clean shirt was easy. Michael had slept over a couple of nights before and his shirt had gotten dirty. It was now sitting, neatly folded and clean, on my computer chair. He had taken one of my shirts to wear. It was only fair that I could wear his.

Striped socks and red converse completed my outfit. Wait, no! A belt as well.

I looked damn good.

I pulled my phone out of my school blazer and flipped it open, skimming down to Michael’s number. I texted him, asking him to come pick me up, quickly. He knew how much I hated my father, and he even knew why – not something I trusted with everyone.

I texted Jack too, and the twins. I asked them to meet Michael and me at the usual place.

Heading downstairs, my mother slid me my fruit-and-yoghurt usual breakfast. She noticed I had no bag.

“Ryan,” she sighed. “Sweetie. You have to see your father one of these days.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I really fucking don’t.” Don’t swear at your mother, Ryan. “He’s not worth our time, mum.”

“OK, honey,” she stroked my hair. I resisted the urge to flap my hands and screech in a move that would have me crowned Gay-of-the-Month by Carson Kressley. Not the hair…

“Michael’s coming to get me.”

“Michael?”

“Michael.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” she asked innocently, but I could see she was all ears. My mother was such a gossip. I swear she should have had a daughter.

But no, she was stuck with me, her effeminate emo girly attractive son Ryan who always had a boyfriend at least two years older than him if not more.

“Sort of. It’s complicated, mum,” I shrugged her off, digging into my breakfast.

It’s complicated… and it had been for five months… yeah, don’t worry, she knew about Michael. She was just putting on the innocent act. I wouldn’t leave my mum out of the loop for five months.

So, ten minutes later – when I said “quickly”, Michael always hopped to, one of the things I loved really liked about him – Michael beeped his horn out the front.

I kissed my mum on the cheek and said I’d see her later. I probably wouldn’t – it was more than likely I’d get back waaaay after she’d gone to bed – but she didn’t have to know that.

My phone and keys in hand, I bounced out the door.

I hoped all the neighbours could see how happy gay I looked that day.

But anyway.

Michael’s completely gorgeous. I won’t tell you his last name. All the newspapers and television shows and news reports are going to call him by his last name – all of us by our last names. I want the world to know us more personally.

I pulled him close and kissed him as soon as I got in the car. He was leaning awkwardly over the gearstick, but I didn’t care. His mouth was by far my favourite body part. His lips were so full, so soft, and almost always welcoming.

I say almost, because our first kiss was not exactly, erm, welcome.

*

Ryan checked himself once more in the mirror. This was big. His mother was away for the weekend – some conference thing in Sydney she just had to go to, and I’m sorry baby, but you’ll be fine on your own, right? – and he’d invited his… friend… Michael over to stay.

It was hard to explain, the feeling he got when he saw Michael. When he saw him smile. It was sort of the same feeling he got when he saw Jack smile – admiration, adoration, aspiration, yada yada yada – but not quite. Michael’s smile was more… intimate… than Jack’s ever was.

They’d only been friends for two months, but Ryan still felt like he’d known Michael forever.

He was sooo nervous. It was obvious he was, because he was babbling inside his head. Of course, babbling in his mind was a step above babbling out loud – babbling out loud meant he was scared shitless.

Forcing himself to calm the fuck down, Ryan took a swig of his Coke. His hands shook slightly, and he rolled his eyes, disgusted at himself. It wasn’t like he’d never had a boyfriend before.

But then again, Michael wasn’t his boyfriend. Not yet. But if everything went according to plan tonight, he would be. Pah. According to plan – as if Ryan was some incredible mastermind. No, his almighty plan pretty much consisted of kissing Michael as soon as possible to get it out of the way.

Wow, get it out of the way. He’d never thought about kissing like that before. Never thought about it like a chore or a task.

Seriously, though, he just wanted to kiss Michael and see what the university student’s reaction was. Yep, Michael was a uni student. Ryan was still in high school. Oh well. It wouldn’t be illegal or anything – Ryan was over sixteen and fully consenting. The only way it could be ‘illegal’ would be if Michael truly believed all that Catholic bullshit about homosexuality being morally wrong. Don’t swear about religion, Ryan.

If he did, well, it was no skin off Ryan’s nose. Just one more person to ignore on the street, one less face in his bed. You are such a slut, Ryan told himself affectionately.

Five minutes later, once Ryan had drained his Coke glass not once, not twice, but three times, and had practically worn a hole in the carpet with his pacing – fucking hell, anyone would think he was a virgin or something – the doorbell rung.

“No better time than the present,” Ryan said to nobody in particular. Well, he could have said it to Michael, if Michael had had his ear pressed to the door and was listening carefully.

He probably wouldn’t have been doing that.

Probably.

Ryan steeled himself and opened the door.

God he looked gorgeous.

Ryan gave in to the urge he had felt that first day during Mass, after Mass – who was he kidding? – the urge he felt all the goddamn time, stepped right up to the dazzlingly good-looking Michael and kissed him… right on the chin. Hm. Height problem.

He readjusted his aim and leaned forward again, praying Michael didn’t step back or anything, because falling flat on his face right now would be really unattractive and would kill all impression of gracefulness, practically putting all his weight on Michael.

Their lips meet. Oh, Ryan breathed out. It was everything he thought it would be. Well, except for the fact Michael wasn’t responding. Ryan’s hands rest gently on Michael’s hips, his fingers tracing light patterns as he tries to encourage Michael to move, to breathe, to do something.

Well, he does do something.

Michael punches him.

*

God, it took nearly three weeks for that bruise to fade. He was so apologetic afterwards, though. When I staggered back, grasping onto the doorframe for dear life, tears welling in my eyes from the pain – ”shit, the pain, I’d never felt anything like it” – his eyes had softened. Ryan’s acting class, one, Michael, zero.

He apologised for hitting me while wrapping a packet of peas up in a tea-towel. He said the kiss had been completely unexpected, and he’d hit me because he thought he had no other options. Holding my hand and helping me to lay on the lounge, I felt hope bloom in my chest.

Ha, how sappy stupid does that sound?

But it’s true. He was just so soft, so gentle with me, and the way he looked in my eyes as he said he was sorry over and over again – it made me believe that maybe I still had a chance, maybe I could still convince him that homosexuality wasn’t wrong, that me looking so good in my jeans wasn’t a sin… well, maybe it was, but that sort of sin is the good type.

So yeah, first kiss, not welcome.

The second, however, was a little better. He only slapped me and didn’t talk to me for a week.

They always say third time’s the charm, and in this case, they were right. It was four months, two weeks and three days after we’d first met; two months and four days since the disastrous first kiss; a month and a week after the merely horrible second – I judged it was time for another shot.

That time, that time he responded to me.

*

Ryan shifts in his seat to look at Michael. His hands reach for the arms of the armchair Michael is seated in and he turns the entire chair so it’s facing him. In astonishment, completely real surprise at the look in Ryan’s eyes, Michael’s mouth falls open but it is only momentary because Ryan climbs into his lap, his hands cradling Michael’s face as his tongue plunges into his mouth.

Michael gets the feeling Ryan has either done this all before or he had it planned out; he lets the thought go as Ryan’s tongue continues to slide along the roof of his mouth and his teeth, his cheeks and his own tongue. Their lips are pressed bruisingly hard against each other but Michael can’t bring himself to care.

He’s so thrown off that he doesn’t quite know what to do. He ends up just sitting there and letting Ryan take the lead. After all, Michael had never kissed any boys before; he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Moments pass with Ryan on top of him, kissing him, his hands on Ryan’s scrawny hips and Ryan’s knees on either side of Michael’s lap. His hair is tickling Michael’s cheeks because it's so long and there's so much of it. Slowly, seemingly reluctantly, Ryan pulls back from Michael’s lips, their lungs both working overtime.

Every time he exhales Michael’s chest presses against Ryan’s. The two of them stare at each other; Ryan unable to believe that Michael had responded and Michael unable to believe that Ryan had kissed him again after getting whacked in the face two times previously.

*

The third time was the first real time.

I somehow managed to persuade Michael that it wasn’t bad, that no, he wasn’t a sinner, that no, he wasn’t going to Hell. I don’t quite know how he did that. I just remember him parroting Bible verses at me and me shouting him down with the arguments everyone who has even half a brain uses to prove Christianity is stupid.

But he conceded. We didn’t end up having sex for another few months, though. My mother was so ecstatic I had a steady boyfriend – yeah, she knew I was a slut. I don’t know why she didn’t care. Maybe she saw in me a reminder of her own teenage years.

I miss that Michael. The early Michael. I want him back.

I won’t have to worry about that for long. I can’t live with having murdered four people.

I’m not completely soulless. Just mostly.

*

So, when Michael picked me up, I flopped into the passenger seat, turned and kissed him quite thoroughly. I buried my hands in his dark honey-coloured hair and smiled when I felt his hands slipping down my back towards my ass.

“Maybe later, if you’re good,” I whispered against his lips.

“How good do you want me to be?” he winked.

“Oh, really good.”

“I can be really good.” He pulled away from the kerb.

“I know you can,” I giggled, trailing my fingers lightly up his leg. The muscles twitched underneath my fingertips. I loved really liked the effect I had on him.

Michael didn’t even have to ask where we were going, or if the others would be there. He always knew exactly where I wanted to go, and he somehow also always knew who was going to be there. We headed out to the usual place.

‘The usual place’ was twenty long minutes out of town, but I was didn’t care. I was imagining the look on my father’s face when he turned up at my house and realized I wasn’t there. I was momentarily worried for my mother’s safety – then I remembered that, even though she was small, she was a purple belt in karate and could handle herself against him now she’d grown a backbone.

Yeah, handle herself. I bet you know exactly what I mean.

But I’m not getting into the matter of my father right now. There’s a time and a place in the story for him, and this isn’t it.

The car spluttered to a stop about five minutes’ walk from the cave. No vehicle could get closer than we currently were – probably not even bicycles. The ground is too uneven, there are branches and bushes everywhere, trees and rocks just seem to jump out at you.

It’s funny, because if you looked at me, you wouldn’t think I’d be one for bushwalks. But I was the one who originally found the cave. I was running away from, you guessed it, my father, and I just stumbled across it.

It was perfect for hiding being alone.

I wasn’t alone when I was there much any more. A lot of the time I had Michael with me, and Jack as well – the twins not so much, because while they like me, they don’t like me enough to go bushwalking for me.

I’m alone there sometimes. But it’s rare I can even get out there on my own. School takes up a lot of my time, and mum doesn’t take “I just want to go out” as an excuse for borrowing her car. Public transport doesn’t go anywhere near here either.

As for how I got out here when I first found the cave, well, I hitchhiked. And no, I didn’t get raped or murdered. It doesn’t always happen, no matter what Hollywood says.

So, Michael and I got to the cave first. And it is a cave; it’s set into a cliff face, with lots of big boulders around it, giving it a safe, isolated feel. I found a picture once on the internet that reminded me a lot of the cave – but the guy who took it said the cave he took a picture of was in Aruba… wherever the fuck that is… so it couldn’t have been my cave. Don’t swear about places and people you don’t know, Ryan.

Over the few months we’d been coming here together, we’d brought stuff with us. We had sleeping bags, non-perishable food, an esky with ice and drinks we replenished every time we came, a small radio, a pit we’d built for fires… and marshmallows. Can’t have a fire without marshmallows, we’d decided early on.

The cave was sort of like our clubhouse hideaway. I loved it, and so did the others. The twins were always trying to make it look more ‘civilised’. Once, they added curtains. The three of us laughed at them for weeks until they took the frilly things down again. Now, they just bring brightly coloured pillows and stuff like that.

I remember thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have texted the others to meet us. I pretty much just wanted to rip Michael’s clothes off and have my wicked way with him right about then, but I knew I couldn’t, because I didn’t know when the others were getting there.

*

Sighing, I managed to hold myself back from jumping Michael. I stuck my hand in the back pocket of his jeans as we trudged through the bush, though – I can’t be expected to be completely perfect.

It took a little longer than I expected – probably because of me. I can’t help that converse don’t have the best soles for walking through bush with sharp twigs and shit poking up at me. I was being careful, prudent, not a sissy like Michael said.

I didn’t admit it then, but since he isn’t going to read this, I can say that what he said really hurt – calling me a sissy. I mean, I’m gay, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I’m like one of those fahhhbulous gay guys. I like wearing nice clothes, I like looking good, I like being healthy… but I’m not weak.

Well, it doesn’t matter, because like I said, he’s not going to read this. Calling me a sissy was just one more thing he’s already paid for. Paid the ultimate price, mwahahaha. Sorry, that was really, I dunno, insensitive of me. Respect the dead, Ryan. You’ll be one of them soon.

I proved to him I wasn’t weak. That’s all that matters.

We got to the cave a little later than we thought we would. We still beat Jack there. He showed up about fifteen or twenty minutes after we got there, and Aleesha and Vanessa maybe ten minutes after that. Everyone – minus Michael – wanted to know why I’d called us together.

“Do I have to have a reason to call my friends together?” I asked when it looked like they were all waiting for an answer. If I sounded snappish, it was just because I’d been cheated out of the last marshmallow by grabby fingers belonging to a certain ditzy twin with the bleached blonde hair. Not mentioning names, of course.

*cough*Aleesha*cough*

Anyone reading this has probably seen everyone’s school photos plastered all over the news or whatever, but this is just to refresh memories. Aleesha and Vanessa are identical twin sisters, but Vanessa dyed her hair black and Aleesha went blonde. Other than their hair, they’re identical in every aspect – blue, blue eyes, pale skin, long musician’s fingers.

Jack is the darkest of all of us – he says he’s part Mediterranean because he’s got bits of everything from around there in him, all mixed up into one stunning package. He’s got perfectly straight white teeth, perfect dark, usually wavy hair and wears somewhat preppy clothes – polo tops and things. He likes to pretend he’s a city sophisticate instead of the country boy we know he is.

And then there’s Michael and me. We couldn’t be more different. I’m small, stylish and sex on a stick. Jokes, jokes. I really am pretty thin and short, though my mum just calls me ‘slender’ – way to go about making me sound more masculine, mum. I straighten my hair occasionally, when it needs it, which it rarely does. My eyes are true chocolate brown.

And Michael, well, he’s tall and skinny – not slender, more bony. He’s got these hipbones that I could just nibble on all night long. Don’t even get me started on his collarbone. But yeah, he’s got hazel eyes, thick hair the colour of honey but darker which is always flopping into his eyes, and sometimes I can persuade him to wear makeup.

So as I’m looking around our little group, I’m realising how different we are. Aleesha’s the ditz, sorry sweetie, but she is. Vanessa’s the smart one, and she really, really is. Jack’s extroverted and sporty. Michael’s shy and quiet. I’m the one with ‘a past’, and also the slut.

The killer slut. The murderer. The one you’d least expect to go on a rampage.

OK, so it wasn’t a rampage. Still. I killed people. Quadruple homicide. Does that count as genocide? How many people do you have to kill for it to be genocide? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? Hmmm, how morbid of me.

Wow, I just can’t seem to keep my thoughts on track today, can I?

Moving on.

We chatted about what we’ve been doing. The twins went to the local high school, me to the private school. Jack got a job as a bartender at the same club where I met the twins after he got fired from the supermarket. Michael is teaching a course at TAFE related to his uni course somehow. To be honest, his work doesn’t interest me. I tuned out when he started talking about that.

“I just can’t get a job around here,” I complained when Jack asked me why I didn’t work.

“It’s because you look gay,” Aleesha said matter-of-factly, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. What did I tell you? Ditz.

“Sweetie, I am gay,” I told her gently.

She looked blank for a second, then grinned. “I told you!” She pointed to her sister.

“No, he told us. The first time he met us,” Vanessa rolled her eyes, her arm firmly wrapped around Jack’s waist. Jack kissed the top of her head.

“Oh,” Aleesha frowned. “But I still told you!”

I think Aleesha felt left out. That’s why she was such an airhead, why she said such stupid things – she was basically alone in our little group of five. She and Vanessa were twins, yeah, so they’d always have each other, but Vanessa also had Jack. And Michael and I were practically all over each other. OK, I was all over Michael.

I’m pretty sure she wasn’t as dumb as she made everyone think. In fact, I think the plan was hers. Vanessa wasn’t smart cunning nasty enough to come up with a plan like the one she and Aleesha pulled.

*

We spent pretty much the whole day in the cave. It was great. Listened to the radio, read books, went for walks… made out… basically enjoyed being on our own. Aleesha, Vanessa and I played hide-and-seek for a little while. I fell asleep in my hiding place.

When Michael and I finally left, Jack and Vanessa were almost an hour gone. Aleesha got a lift with us. I was dropped home first, even though Aleesha’s place was closer.

I suppose that was it; that was when it happened.

That was the night Michael betrayed me.

Bum bum bummmmm.

*

This is just about the only way I can explain it.

Ryan loves likes Michael loves Aleesha loves Jack loves Vanessa loves Michael.

If you work that out, you can probably guess Aleesha’s – I think it was Aleesha’s – plan. Here’s how it went down, to borrow an expression from my homies our American friends.

That night, Aleesha fucked seduced Michael. Being the good Catholic boy he is, it was probably pretty easy. All she had to do was convince him that fucking me his relationship with me was immoral and wrong.

 me rolling my eyes.

So in the next couple of days, Michael broke up with me. It was a gradual thing. He showed up at my house the day after we went to the cave, I went to kiss him, he pushed me away and I remember him asking if we could just cuddle.

That alone should have been suspicious, but I guess I was just too wrapped up in the idea that my boyfriend was finally giving in to my endless requests for hugs. We laid on the lounge all day watching movies and just hugging.

I tried to kiss him again when he left, but he turned his head and I ended up kissing his cheek. He told me he was sick. I accepted it.

I shouldn’t have. I should have pushed him about it.

Oh well. Twenty-twenty hindsight, as the saying goes.

I don’t know exactly when he broke up with me. I don’t remember. He did it by text sometime in the next three days. By text. Fucking bastard.

I cried a lot. My mum must have hugged me for, like, a day. She kept saying men are bastards, and even good men are just good bastards. She said my father had been exactly the same. I wish she had known that when she married him.

I must have gained about a kilo as well, probably closer to two. My mum always takes the opportunity when I’m upset to get me to eat more.

Somewhere in between the gulping sobs and the gulping down of food, I resolved to make him pay for hurting me. ‘Make him pay’, those were my exact thoughts. Pretty creative, doncha think?

So, I called Jack. He was sympathetic. He offered a shoulder to cry on and also to take me out on the town and find me another guy. He wasn’t comfortable with gays in general, but I guess he had a soft spot for me – enough so that he’d ‘tolerate’ me making eyes at a guy instead of a girl.

Actually he was probably relieved. Vanessa had once said when she was drunk that the only reason she was with Jack was that adorable, sensitive guys like me were all gay; that if she ever had a chance with me, she’d take it.

Vanessa never would have had a chance with me.

But Michael…

Michael, she had a chance with.

But wait, you say. Wait! I thought Aleesha was the one that got with Michael…?

She was.

But hello?

Aleesha and Vanessa, identical twins.

All it took was hair dye, and the con was complete. Aleesha, her hair usually white blonde, dyed it black. Vanessa bleached hers. And suddenly, Aleesha was Vanessa and Vanessa was Aleesha.

Aleesha, who’d just gotten involved with Michael.

Vanessa loved adorable, sensitive guys – Michael was all that and more. Aleesha roped him in then she and her sister switched places.

Pretty cunning. Like I said, Vanessa’s not nasty enough. But she would have gone along with just about anything Aleesha suggested. And Aleesha was smart enough to make Jack believe she was Vanessa, at least for a while.

By the time I’d recovered, a week had gone by. I was ready to go outside again. But before I did, I called our little group together at a small pub in the next town. I didn’t want anyone I knew to see us.

That was when I discovered who I thought was Aleesha hanging all over Michael, and him just sitting there smiling.

*

I made a scene.

It was a big scene.

Like, a $1000 scene. I smashed a few things, broke Michael’s nose – I don’t know which one of us was more surprised – ripped a good chunk of ‘Aleesha’s’ hair out and screamed so loud and struggled so hard the pub manager had to literally pick me up and throw me out.

To pay for what I broke, and also Michael’s hospital bill and ‘Aleesha’s’ therapy bill… yeah, they made me pay… I got a job at that pub. The manager was homo-friendly, so once he and my mum had had a good talk, he let me wash the dishes and stuff like that for a few months to pay off the debt.

The manager – James “call me Jim” Wyatt – gave me bonus pay when I managed to persuade drunken customers to finish up for the night, especially during the Christmas season. But basically, aside from the drunks, I loved working at that pub.

Once three months had passed, the whole scam came out about what Aleesha and Vanessa had done.

It was actually Jack who told me. I was back at school by then, in year eleven, so I didn’t have a lot of time to go out – when I did, the only place to go was pretty much the club Jack worked at. He was working that night, he saw me and we chatted.

Jack told me about Aleesha and Vanessa.

That Aleesha was now with Jack.

That Vanessa was the one with Michael.

That he was hurt they’d swapped without telling him.

That he’d hated it for a while, hated them, but had then realised that Aleesha was more perfect for him than Vanessa had been.

That, even though I might not be able to see it, Vanessa and Michael were perfect together.

As he was telling me this, I decided I hated him. I decided that if he wasn’t with me, he was against me. And I decided that he would have to pay as well. My hit list was complete. The four people I thought I was closest to in the whole world – excepting my mother – I now hated.

And they would pay the ultimate price. Dammit, drama queen, just tell the fucking story.

*

I went to work the next day. It was a Saturday, a lazy Saturday. Not many people dropped by. I finished the dishes quickly, pottered around the kitchen chatting to the cook for a bit, then headed out the front to check out the patrons – this was my usual routine.

I recognised him before anyone else did. He looked surprisingly normal.

That was the most… well, the most astounding thing of all. His normality.

You see, Henry Scott had been on the news for a week. Well, he might have been on longer, but I’d only been taking notice for a week.

He’d killed two people and was on the run from the cops.

I don’t know who was more surprised that I went up to him, him or me. Breaking Michael’s nose, talking to murderers, becoming a murderer – must have been the testosterone finally kicking in.

“Why did you do it?” I sat on the stool next to Henry Scott.

He looked at me for a second, his eyes wide and frightened.

“Why did you do it?” I asked again.

The eyes hardened. “They pissed me off.”

His voice sounded normal. He looked normal. He was normal. But he’d killed two people. By default, that made him abnormal.

I went out back and told Jim the manager that murderer Henry Scott was sitting at his bar sculling a VB. Jim called the police, they came, carted Henry away.

Henry went quietly, saying that life on the run sucked balls and he hoped he was found guilty, because he had friends inside that would protect him in gaol, and in gaol he would be given free meals and TV and a bed and not have to pay any bills or take care of himself.

The experience was eye-opening.

Normal people like Henry Scott, like me… normal people could kill.

*

I didn’t have friends ‘on the inside’. So, if I did kill anyone, I wouldn’t want to go to gaol. I was – am – only seventeen, but it was murder, so I’d most likely be tried as an adult and I most likely would go to gaol.

I didn’t have a way to kill them. No gun, no access to poisons or chemicals. No clever horrific traps like in the Saw trilogy. Nothing.

But I wanted them dead. I remember feeling like I wanted to stamp my foot.

I had no way to kill them, I had no one to protect me if I did kill them, I had all these stupid ideas running through my head, I could barely sleep. I kept seeing Henry Scott’s eyes, first frightened, then confident.

He knew he’d done what he thought was the right thing.

The people he’d killed had pissed him off.

It came out later that the people he’d killed were his best friend and his girlfriend. They’d gotten together behind his back. They pissed him off, therefore, they died. He’d drowned the girlfriend and shot the best friend.

He got hurt by the ones he loved, I got hurt by the ones I thought I loved liked.

He was normal, I was normal.

He did it, I could do it.

And I did do it.

*

Problem.

After the whole pub incident, only Jack was still talking to me.

Problem.

I had no way to kill them.

Problem.

I had no way out of going to gaol once I did kill them.

*

Funnily enough, I solved problem number three first and problem number one last. And actually, I never solved problem two, not properly. And actually, problem three solved itself.

Hmm. This confessing thing is harder than I thought, as you might have noticed.

What I meant to say is that I thought problem three solved itself.

I’m HIV positive.

I’ve got it because my father has it, because his job when he was younger took him all over the world, and it was stressful, and he did drugs to relax. He swapped needles with a pretty young girl who didn’t know that she was HIV positive.

HIV that he contracted. HIV that didn’t mutate into AIDS until about six months ago.

It was what he wanted to talk to me about that day that I ran off with Michael and the others to the cave. The fact that he was dying, and he’d probably passed the HIV on to my mother through sex, and she to me through breast feeding.

He wrote me a letter and it took months to get to me. Three months, in fact. I got it a week after I had my experience with Henry Scott. It got lost in the mail, went to Townsville and back or something.

Dad knew I wouldn’t talk to him face to face. That’s why he wrote the letter.

So I went to the doctor. Mum and I both went to the doctor. He ran the tests.

Tests that came back positive for both of us.

The only thing I inherited from that sonofabitch was something that would kill me.

Well, something I thought would kill me.

Turns out – I only know now, I didn’t know then – but it turns out that the HIV isn’t going to kill me. Since my dad didn’t present with symptoms for, like, twenty years, and I haven’t presented yet, the doctors can’t be sure when I’ll get sick if I do at all.

Well, them’s the breaks. I decided, just before I started writing this, that I’d have to kill myself instead. I mean, come on – I’ve killed four people and I’m facing either horrible sickness or a long term gaol stay. I don’t want to go to gaol. I want to die without pain.

For me to die without pain, I have to die before I start getting sick and no vaccine means I will get sick. So maybe people will say I killed the twins and Jack and Michael because I had a way out, because I wasn’t going to live a long, healthy life.

But that’s not true. Dying, for me, is not a way out.

It’s a way for me to be with Michael.

See, I believe that whatever you believe will happen when you die, will happen. If you believe you’re going to Heaven, you will. Or Hell. Reincarnation. Becoming one with nature. Fading away to nothing. Ghosts. Whatever.

In my opinion, you’re right. That’s what’s going to happen… to you. And what’s going to happen to me will be what I believe will happen. And what happens to, I don’t know, the Queen will be what she believes will happen.

And I believe that I’m going to be happy when I die.

For me, happy was those months with Michael. Five of them. My longest relationship. It doesn’t matter if it was lust, or love, or fucking complacency or what-the-hell-ever. I was happy. And I want to be happy again.

And to be happy again, I have to be with Michael.

To be with Michael, I have to be dead.

*

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1288241 <-- Part Two