As you lie here bleeding through your shirt in this rain-slicked alley as she gets in and starts the car, with the punctuated echo of her stilettos on the pavement pinging around in your ears like a goddamn game of Pong, you think back to the first time you kissed, the first time you held hands, the first time you fucked, the first time you fought, the first time you made up, the first time you made her cry, the first time you apologized, the first time you said you loved her, the first time she said she loved you and would love you forever, and then, yes, even then, even in those midnight moments, those hushed moments, those moments that settle cool mist on your heart, you should’ve known that someday, one day, this day, she would betray you and all those plans you made (a life together, a home, a family, all those heists, all that money, and this break-in job, this late-night job, the job that would secure you forever with its haul) would slice through your heart like the tip of her knife just did, and known that, for her, leaving you would be easier than her lying, and even easier than you lying down in this puddle and watching as all the neon in this shit world above fades into a pinkish black, while the soft mouth of some unseen thing places its lips around yours and breathes you in and holds you forever.
Mike McHone’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Rock and a Hard Place, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Mystery Weekly, Mystery Tribune, Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression edited by SA Cosby, and elsewhere. Visit him online at www.mikemchone.com
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