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I open the door. I see Jeff there.
He pushes the door open before I can react.
I back up.
“I’ll say what I have to say and then I’ll kill you!”
He closes the door behind him.
“Why did you attack me back in the cemetery? How can you be so sure I killed Michelle? You don’t even know me, Jeff.”
He paces back and forth; I can smell alcohol on him.
“Shut up! It was you! I know it; it had to be you. Who else?”
“I don’t know who else; listen, why don’t you go back home and—”
He pulls a gun from his jacket and aims it at me.
“I thought you said we talk first….”
“No … we don’t talk! I talk. And then I shoot you. She was my life! You came back to kill her because you couldn’t stand Michelle marrying me….,” he begins to sob.
“I killed no one. You are too drunk to reason….”
“You broke her heart; it was very hard for me to make her love me! But she did love me … and I saw them putting her in a cold, dirt hole on the same day I was supposed to be marrying her….”
He comes closer to me; I back up a little. I feel the wall behind me.
“I’m sorry about that, Jeff….”
“No, you are not! You probably thought if you couldn’t have her, then no one else would! She was carrying my child, you son of a bitch!”
I try to say something but before I can do it, he fires the gun.
The bullet hits me in the head; it feels like an explosion. I fall over, in slow motion, on the bedside table and knock down a lamp on my way to the floor.
I land on the floor, face down. My eyes are still open; my left temple is burning up. I hear a commotion of people rushing inside. I hear Jeff screaming; they are restraining him now.
A police officer in uniform turns me over. I stare blankly at the ceiling; I can’t move.
I can’t think.
Michelle walks behind the police officer; I can see he’s using his radio to call an ambulance. His hand goes to my neck, looking for pulse.
Still a rookie. Two children. Afraid to die. Adrenaline rush. Served in Gulf War. Very sociable. Purple Heart. Joker. Full of life. Smoker. House on the beach. Old soul.
His images are now gone from my mind; they went right through me. I look at Michelle; she wears her wedding gown.
She’s the most beautiful vision ever. I’m ready to go with her.
She smiles at me and leans over me. She softly caresses the side of my face; she talks to me like she used to do to calm me down. She now hums a lullaby for me and puts her hand on my eyes to close them.
She is still a touch without a feel.
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