Crack the Spine - Issue 177

Her fingers reach up to touch it again, the sheet falling back down. “DON’T TOUCH IT!” I yell. She snatches her hand back and holds it in her other, rubbing it.

“Sorry,” I say again, heaving myself up onto my pillows so I’m sitting.

“But I never told you about Trefilda’s Pretties,” she says. “How’d you know?”

I shrug, “It gets worse.”

Her eyes grow big and buggy in her face. “What?” she asks, turning her head away from me, afraid of the answer.

“You were at a pumpkin patch,” I say. “You slept with a married man. You never told me.” The words hang between us. Neither of us reaches for them. I feel anger prickle along the knobs of my spine, but I exhale and let it dissipate with the accusation.

Allison leans back onto the pillow with one arm, looking at me out of the corner of her sheepish eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about that,” she says. “I thought you wouldn’t love me if you knew.” She stops for a moment and looks me in the eye again. “Wait, how do you know?” Her fingers reach up to the emerald necklace, rubbing it like a crystal ball. Her legs cross in front of her.

I feel my throat crack, fear spreading like a black-out blanket across my gut.

“This is how the dream tonight started,” I say. “The dream where I hurt you.”

Allison’s eyes grow wide and I feel a force pushing me towards her and I resist, pushing my body back into the pillows but I’m not strong enough and I’m flying towards Allison and my hands are gripping her neck squeezing the air out and her arms and legs are flailing, pushing against my throat but I barely feel her and my hands form fists and start hitting, punching, making a terrible bone-grinding sound against her jaw but I keep hitting until blood spatters the white pillows and she’s not screaming anymore, her head lolling back on the