Forever

         I stood on the doorstep, nervously fidgeting, scarcely able to glance up at her, at her perfection.

         “Can I come in?” I asked, almost stammering.  My cheeks flushed red.

         Confusion crossed her face, then she shrugged and stepped back, allowing me to come in.  I did, closing the door behind me and—when she wasn’t looking—locking it.

         She was beautiful.  I feasted my eyes on her, on the delicate curves and angles of her face, on the deep, rich blue of her eyes, on the thin, fragile body hidden behind bulky clothes.  Even the scar that wound its way down the side of her face did not detract from her beauty.

         “I’m—I’m sorry,” I began, my gaze now focused on my sneakers.  There was a tiny spot of dried blood on the right one that looked like a baleful eye.  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

         She stirred as if she meant to speak, her perfect rose lips parting, but I wouldn’t let her talk, rushing on like a babbling brook.

         “I should have told you,” I said, still staring at the blood on my sneaker.  “I know I should have, I know, but I couldn’t help it, I was so afraid…I was so afraid that you wouldn’t like me anymore, that you would turn me away.  I mean, that’s what my old girlfriend did, you know, Tonya?  I told her and she told me I was a freak of nature and I should be in a mental hospital.  Then she cut me up with a kitchen knife.” 

         I showed her the parallel scar on my own face, running down the length of my cheek, almost in my hairline.  It was still a raw, puckered pink—Tonya had meant for it to hurt.

         “But I should have known you wouldn’t be like that,” I continued, now daring to lift up my head to see her.  She looked puzzled; a tiny tinge of fear crept into her eyes.  “No—you don’t have to be afraid!” I reassured her.  “It’s nothing bad—nothing too bad.  Tonya just overreacted, that’s all.  I’m not a monster.  I promise.

         “Well, I guess I should just tell you, then, huh?”  I took a deep breath.  But before I could continue, she interjected, a look of complete bewilderment on her face.

         “Who are you?”

         I laughed.

         “You can’t fool me that easily, darling,” I said, my hands going into the pockets of my jacket, fingers fondling the special thing I’d brought with me.  “Don’t play coy with me.  You know who I am.  For Christ’s sake, how can you not know your boyfriend?  Your lover?”  My tongue rolled over the syllables, bringing an odd satisfaction.  “Come on, honey.  Stop playing.”

         She backed up, her lips trembling.

         “Seriously,” she said.  “Who are you?”

         “What?  Have you lost your memory or something?” I laughed again, but this sound was harsh and bitter.  “Nice try, baby doll.  It won’t work again.  You already tried that card.  Don’t you remember?”

         She shook her head, her honey blonde hair flying around her face in messy wisps.

         “Now, come on,” I said, stalking towards her.  My fingers clasped the handle of her present, but I didn’t show her it yet.  No need to ruin the surprise quite yet.  “This is getting old, Angela.  Real old.”

         “My-my name’s not A-Angela,” she said in a breathy little voice that she knew pissed me off.  I let some of my anger show in my eyes and she squeaked, taking several small rapid steps backward, like she was dancing.

         “I told you, knock off the amnesia thing,” I said, my fingers wrapping more securely around her present.  “I know better, Angela.  You tried that before.  All I wanted to do was say I’m sorry.  Explain why I left.  That’s all.  So all this moving around and amnesia stuff just won’t work.  Okay?”

         “My n-n-name’s M-Melissa,” she said, crying now.  Her breath came in short, feverish pants.

         “Won’t work, Angela,” I shook my head at her reprovingly.  “Stop faking.  You’re going to make me angry.  Believe me, you don’t want me angry.”

         “I’m s-serious,” she stammered, backing away farther.  Her butt bumped the wall and she stopped, looking surprised.  “I-I’m not Angela.  I d-don’t know who-who Angela is.”

         “Whatever, Angela,” I dismissed her lies with a slight shake of my head.  “I have a present for you.  I bought it as a make-up present—you know, if we made up.  What do you think?”

         I pulled out the hunting knife, nearly nicking myself, and showed it to her proudly.  Her eyes went round as saucers, and she opened her mouth to scream.  I lunged across the room and clapped my other hand across her mouth, smearing pink lipstick on my skin and her teeth.

         “Don’t even think about screaming, Angel darling,” I whispered in her ear.  “We don’t want to upset the neighbors, now do we?”

         She shook her head, eyes huge and wet as they stared at the knife in my right hand.

         “Good girl,” I said, taking my hand away.  She instantly shrieked like a fire siren, clearly beyond reason.  Panic had taken her over; I could see it in the blank incomprehension of her blue eyes, in the slack way her mouth gaped open.  It wasn’t her fault.  She wasn’t deliberately disobeying me.

         Still, she was making way too much noise.  At this rate, the neighbors would call the cops and I would never get to reveal my secret.

         I raised my fist and popped her on the temple, sighing with relief as her body crumpled to the floor.  I didn’t want to hurt her—really, I didn’t!—but I wanted to have her all to myself for a while longer yet.  The police would only complicate things.

         “I’m sorry, Angela,” I whispered, crouching beside her and stroking her lovely blonde hair.  “I really am sorry.”

         She woke up a few minutes later, her eyes dazed.  I had stretched her out on the floor, carefully laid her out like she was sleeping.  I didn’t want her to get a crick in her neck or something.

         Her eyes cleared, she saw me, and she gasped, clearly ready to freak out again.  I carefully placed a hand over her mouth, feeling déjà vu steal over me.

         “Do we have to go through this all over again?” I asked her.  She shook her head, a frightened look on her face.  “Good,” I said.  “I warn you, though, if you start screaming again, I will hurt you.  I’ll have no choice.”

         This time, when I tentatively removed my hand, she didn’t make a sound, just stared up at me with huge blue eyes.

         “Good, Angela,” I said, pleased.  “You learn well, darling—but then, you always did.”

         I stood up, lithely balancing on the balls of my feet.  After a second, she hesitantly stood, too, her hair swinging forward, brushing against her sweater.  A clumsy, bulky sweater, a cranberry-red color.  No matter.  When she was mine again, I would dress her better than this, more fitting of her association with me.

         “What-what do you want?” she whispered, her skin ashy pale.  She looked like a sheet of notebook paper, pure white.

         I laughed, delighted.

         “I want to be with you, Angela,” I said, almost tenderly.  “I want to be with you—forever.”

         Terror darkened her eyes, whitened her skin further, as I raised the hunting knife.  A bright red bow had been tied around the handle, and I had laboriously printed her name on it in black Sharpie marker.  I proffered it to her, handle first.

         “It’s for you,” I explained.  “I got you a pretty present.”

         She reached a hesitant hand out and I struck, quick as a snake, letting the tip of the knife bite into her skin.  A thin, involuntary shriek tore from her lips and she jerked back, her eyes huge with horror at the blood jetting from her arm.

         “Silly girl,” I mocked, holding up the knife like a trophy.  Slick red fluid, like liquid rubies, spilled down the blade.  “Did you really think I’d gotten you a present, Angela?  After the way you left me?  I hadn’t even told you my secret yet!”  I looked at her with hurt eyes.

         Tears spilled down her cheeks; she looked up at me with brimming, wounded eyes, like what did you do that for?  But she knew very well why I had done that; she was just faking again.  Playing possum.

         “Take your medicine, Angela,” I told her, stepping forward again.  Her blood had slid all the way down the knife and now slicked my arm.  It felt warm and oddly pleasant against my skin.  I could suddenly see why Elizabeth Bathory had bathed in blood—it felt so damn good.

         She stepped back, bumping against the wall again.  But this time, it seemed to take all the fight out of her.  She slumped against the wallpaper, blood sprinkling the innocuous pale blue with ominous poppies.

         “I guess I should finally tell you my secret, Angela,” I whispered, leaning forward, almost hypnotizing her with my eyes.  “Do you want to know what it is?”

         As in a dream, she nodded, her face white with blood loss and shock.

         “I have paranoid schizophrenia,” I told her, almost thrilling with the joy of realization, of finally just telling somebody, spilling it out to the world, like a gift.  “And you know what else?  I lost my medication.  The prescription ran out, and I just couldn’t go and get any more.  Isn’t that sad?”

         I laughed like a child, making her shrink away into the wall, her hand still clamped over the wound in her arm.  Blood spilled over her fingers, staining them scarlet, giving new meaning to the term caught red-handed.

         “Don’t you want to help me, Angela?” I asked, tilting my head to one side.  The knife dangled loosely from my hand, barely caught by my fingers.  “Don’t you want to make me better?”  My voice acquired a mocking, childish lilt, until I singsonged the words like a jumprope chant.

         Slowly, she nodded, slumping further against the wall.

         “Too bad, Angela,” I said almost mournfully, “because I don’t want to be better.  I don’t want to be fixed.  I want to stay just as I am…with you…forever and ever.”

         I raised the knife again, ready to plunge it into her chest and then into my own, when suddenly the door behind me exploded into the room, and people filled the house.

         “Drop the knife,” a rough voice ordered.  I sighed in resignation.  The police had come.  They had come to take me away from my beloved.

         I slowly took the knife away from her body, as if I was going to capitulate, then suddenly twisted it and slashed it across my arm, cutting it to the bone.  Blood flooded out across my skin and I felt abruptly weak and dizzy, collapsing to my knees, my vision going dim.

         “I’m sorry, Angela,” I whispered to the blonde angel in front of me.  “I tried.”

         Then I slumped forward over my knees.

         I woke up in the mental hospital.  Again.  The director was beside himself with fury, but most of it directed at the staff, not me.  How could you let him escape? he raged at the nurses and doctors.  How could he have gotten out?  Nobody had an answer.  Only I did.  And they weren’t asking me.

         I heard them talking about me outside my room in seclusion.  About how Angela was only in my head now.  How I’d killed her, then tried to kill myself.  But I know better.  Angela’s not dead.  Not yet.  I’m going to find her, no matter where she’s hiding, no matter what name she’s going under.

         And then she’s going to be mine.

         Forever.