I remember a kiss. Kissing Simon was the first time I had ever kissed a man who wasn’t R. It was sweet and tender, it was special, and in that moment, I would have been happy for everything just to stop, to go no further, like hitting pause on a movie. But it didn’t. He found us and then he tried to kill us. To the end, Simon fought to get me away and look at what it cost him. Too much. I am not worth it.

My palms are sweaty. I have never held a gun before, but something about this feels predestined, as if we were always heading for this moment or some semblance of it. Maybe in an alternate universe it’s him with the gun, but in this one it’s me. Even with the weapon I know I don’t have the power, it’s always him. He can always say the right thing to shrink me to nothing.

But then I remember my mother, buried under the greenhouse, and I find my strength again.

As much as I hate this man, he is still the face of the man I grew up worshipping; it’s hard to separate the two in my head sometimes. I have never really known what love is, I suppose. He made me believe my mother left and so her love never felt real to me. I thought that if she left me there was no way she could love me. I often wondered where she had gone, if she was happy, if she went on to have more children who she loved more than me, children who weren’t a disappointment. I feel my finger tighten on the trigger.

I listen to R spinning his lies; although he doesn’t try as hard as he used to with me anymore. He knows that he could tell me anything and I would stay. I am trapped. This, of course, gives me nothing to lose. Is that what he is banking on? He would never have the courage to take his own life, seeing it as a sign of weakness and letting me off the hook. If he gets me to kill him then I go to prison and he is out of the game, he will still have won. We are playing a different game, though. For me, his death is a win. I will feel no guilt. I am sure of that.