Point of Extinction: Chapter Three

==> There is nowhere you can hide from the lessons of the lies.

Today is one month since the day you found the bright spot in your life.  Karl Vantas is that bright spot.  The secret stolen kisses and the meaningful glances towards eachother across the classroom.

Your affair.

In truth, it feels more like you're cheating on him with Lana, in regards.  You feel guilty with her, since Karl has been more than decent enough to stay, to the public, single through this duration.  And you have her.  He knows you're stuck with her, but still... you despise it.  Every kiss she gives you, every moment in that goddamn devil incarnate's presence, is yet another slap in the face to add metaphor to the literal ones.

She's got progressively worse over this past month, too.  Last week she broke your wrist.  When Karl saw that he had a small freakout, and once being told you didn't have to visit her that day, made you stay the night at his house.  Uncool and unironic as it is, he just held you and let you cry, something you've desperately needed to do since she began to hurt you in the first place, but never did.  Striders don't cry, you always told yourself.  You could be beaten and broken and torn to pieces, thrown to the ground like a decrepit ragdoll, but you would not cry.  Not till that night, with the soft hands and sweet whispers and fingers through your hair, small kisses to dry the tears you swore you'd never cry.

You think it was that sleepover that let her click the pieces together in her overly suspicious mind.  She'd asked you about Karl several times and it was always no Lana, he is just a friend.   Blatant lies, but you could make them sound sincere enough.  You've been telling lies your whole life, it's an easy enough transition, you think, to go from little white to a web of deception and the truth is that nobody's going to sing you a sin for the lies, because they're not about to find out.  The only one who would even need to see that the lies are in front of her face, well, if she found out she wouldn't have the chance to say you're a sinner, she'd be too busy beating the crap out of you.  Or at least snarling through her teeth as she is right now.

Maybe it was not the sleepover, though.  She does sound awfully sure of herself.  No questions, just the statement.

Maybe it was the day that you were cuddling at lunchtime, in that hallway there where you can keep your secret.   A boy in a younger grade whose older sister is friends with her.  He walked into the hallway looking for something.   You thought nothing of it at the time but, younger kids are known to run their mouth and if one of your psycho girlfriend's friends ever found out you were cheating on her they would let her know in seconds.

That may have been what happened, now that you think about it.  But there was a little bit in that visit, those few seconds leading up to now, you should have noticed the small signs and just run. 

You'd walked into her house, she hadn't run up to greet you like normal. "lana?" You'd called out, she came around the corner scowling at you, glaring.  You faltered.  "is something wrong?" You had asked.

And that brings it up to now.  Two seconds after she's said "you cheated on me." You're frozen in place as she speaks again in that cold tone. "what can karl vantas give you that I can't?" Well that's a list that goes on and on.  Actual affection.  A healthy relationship.  LOVE.

"its not exactly cheating, i wanted to break up with you for over a year before i started seeing him" Well, might as well let the truth out there in a tiny attempt to salvage yourself at the same time.  Considering she will probably exact some sort of revenge regardless, there's no reason not to try and save face by throwing said face under another bus.

"So you wanted to leave me to go be a freak.  Not helping your case here, babe." Her words drip with annoyance and a perspective of hatred, aimed towards karl maybe, or aimed towards you.  You wouldn't be surprised.  There's also that modicum of anger that's obvious and expected.

"...i know"

Your words here trip a switch in her mind.  She was tense, angry, 'if you make one move I will rip out your guts'.  You made that move.

She lunges forward, pressing you against the wall, slapping you across the face and screaming at you,  things you can't hear beyond the sound of your skull being hit against the drywall behind you over and over as she shakes you violently.   You hear a sharp crack and pain shoots up your spine.  Your nose is bleeding.

"I'm going to make you so ugly, even VANTAS won't want you! " She stops shaking you to shriek this, then turns you around and crushing your face against the wall, already bloodied from some gash in the back of your head that only now that it's not being shoved into plaster can you feel, blood sticking to your hair.

Your nose cracks to the side on the first bash forward.  You've been yelling for her to stop this whole time.  But now you're feeling dizzy.  A sharp pain in the front of your skull with the next shove foreward, your temple taking the brunt of it but a stronger pain inside.  A few seconds later, nothing.

Nothing at all.

You go quiet.

"...Dave?" She asks, turning you around to look at you.  She checks your pulse.  Swears under her breath.  Waits till late at night and drags your body out to bury it in a ditch, prepared to go hiking the next day, find you, freak out, say you fell.

You watch your body under the leaves, taking up rigor mortis.

You are dead.