Crack the Spine - Issue 177

pillows. I beg myself to stop, beg my fists to hit me instead but they won’t listen.

The force is pushing me on her. I make a harried grab at the necklace, and rip it off. It flies to the floor and the force retreats, a train whistle fading as it gets farther and farther away until everything is silent. I feel nothing except the pain in my fists. I hear nothing but my own heartbeat and Allison’s bloody breathing growing steadier. She’s coming to.

I roll off the side of the bed and feel around on the floor for the necklace.

When I find it I grip it in my hands and run to the bathroom. I find a hammer on the back of the toilet that’s been there for months, still waiting for me to hang the goddamn sailboat picture Allison just had to have, and swing at the necklace until it’s nothing but shattered glass and wisps of broken amber. I collect all the pieces I can and flush them down the toilet, watching to make sure they make it down and listen as the toilet refills itself, knowing the necklace is getting farther and farther away with every throbbing pulse in my temple.

I go back and find Allison trying to stand up. Blood and swelling flesh makes her almost unrecognizable. Except her eyes, green and shining right through me, like she’s already somewhere else and her body is just trying to catch up. I reach for her face, a gentle touch but she swats me down and punches me square in the jaw, making me stumble. She runs from the room and I hear her tumbling down the stairs, the slamming of the door, the low rumble of her engine turning over. I hear her tires squeal in reverse, gravel flying. I hear her switch gears and floor it. I hear the dust settle, and I collapse on the bed, laying in her blood spatter. The blood that I spilled and will never be able to un-spill.

I turn over, void of any sadness. It all went down with the swirling water in the toilet bowl, the emerald and amber flecks winking at me like they’d done me a favor. Disappearing, water refilling the empty bowl. Her fist on my jaw.