I shot him a smile. “Plenty of ways to get sentenced to death that don’t involve a lethal injection.”
“I’d be in solitary.”
“Guards kill prisoners all the time. Anyway, you really want that to be how you live and die?”
“I want them to know how I feel,” he repeated, like that’d make the shit he was spewing be more reasonable.
“You thinking about jail or shooting yourself afterward?”
He licked his lips. “I want to die.”
I hummed. “I can kill you now if you want?”
I wasn’t surprised when a puddle of piss made an appearance.
“I think we got our answer, don’t we?” I mocked, staring down at the proof he was all BS.
“Y-You… I can’t, won’t… I’ll scream!”
I smirked. “Scream away. Won’t change shit. I’ll still do it. Today can be the last day you’re on this planet if you want.”
“B-But—”
“But what?” I arched a brow at him. “Why do they bully you?”
He ducked his head. “I’m not popular.”
“Do you want to be?”
“No.” He snapped a scowl at me. “I don’t care about popularity.”
“Good thing seeing as shooting up your fucking school is how you lose it.”
His glare darkened, anger starting to replace fear. His hands balled into fists as he stormed forward. “You think I deserve to be bullied?”
“Nope. Bullies are pieces of shit who deserve to rot in hell.” I shot him a smile. “Wouldn’t that be nice? You being fucked up the ass by hot pokers by the devil himself right next to the bastard who bullied you. You can spend an eternity together. If you believe in that, of course.”
I knew his family did.
He swallowed again.
“Anyone ever talked to you about this? These feelings?”
He shook his head.
“Why not? You never talked to them about it?”
“No.”
“You got a therapist?”
“Why? Because I’m a chicken shit so I should have one?”
“You should have one because you want to kill people. I mean, if anyone was a poster child for therapy, you can’t deny that it’s you.”
His jaw clenched. “Why are you here?”
“To stop you, of course. By any means necessary.” I flicked the knife toward him. He froze, let out a whimper as it sailed past his throat, by barely a quarter inch. Enough that he’d have a slight graze from its passing as it lodged itself in the door jamb.
As he stared at me, eyes blank with shock, I pulled out another knife and started picking my nails with it.
“Like I said… any means necessary.”
“You’re going to kill me?” he whispered.
“You said you wanted to die,” I pointed out.
“I-I do. I did. I mean, I don’t…” His mouth wobbled. “I just want it to stop. I just really need it to stop. I can’t take it anymore. I said that if they left me alone on the first day back at school, that was it. I-I’d avoid them too. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. It depends on them. It’s their fault.”
“Ain’t their fault,” I disregarded. “They don’t deserve to die. No kid deserves to die, especially not in school.”
“So it’s okay for them to torment me? To beat me until I bleed. To steal from me and to humiliate me?”
“Not okay. Doesn’t mean you should shoot them. Means you should report them.”
“I have. No one listens,” he rasped. “No one fucking listens to me.” His hands fisted again and he punched the air, hitting down as he snapped, “I’m invisible. Everything I do or say, no one hears or cares. I tell my folks, and Dad says I’m a pussy and Mom tries to help, but when she reports them to the faculty, they don’t listen.” Tears had started coursing down his cheeks. He swiped at them with his knuckles. “Last time, they even told Brandon who’d reported them, and it made it worse.” He sniffled. “I just want to escape. I don’t want this anymore. There’s no other way. I’m trapped.”
“You will be trapped if you take this next step,” I said softly. “There’s no PS5 in jail, kid.” I peered around his room, spotting the myriad home comforts there. “The next decision you make won’t just affect your life, it’ll affect the kids you hurt too. Do you think that’s fair?”
“They laugh when he humiliates me. All of them. They laugh. Is that fair?”
“Being complicit doesn’t mean they deserve a death sentence.”
He closed his eyes. “I want out.”
“Knife’s in the door, Drew,” I informed him, speaking his name aloud for the first time. “There’s an exit strategy. It’s your choice, on your terms, won’t hurt no one else. You go as you came into this world. Alone.”
His mouth tightened. “I don’t want to be alone. I’m tired of being alone.”
“You’re not alone. Your dad might be a piece of shit but he’s there. Your mom cares. This bedroom has more tech than a lab. They love you; they’re with you. It might not be how you need, but trust me, when it’s gone, you’ll feel the vacuum they leave behind.
“Shit’s bad now, and I’m not saying it’s not going to get worse, but is this really the solution?”
This time, when his eyes drifted open, I saw the entreaty there.
It had engulfed the fear and the self-righteous anger.
“What do I do?”
“You don’t kill innocent people. You don’t terrorize them. You go to your mom and you tell her what you were planning. You tell her that you were going to kill yourself.”
“She’ll—”
“What? She’ll punish you? You think jail’s a walk in the park? You think having your PS5 taken away is worse than that?”
“N-No, but they’ll look at me different—”
“Better for that now than after you’ve murdered your class, right? You think she’ll look at you with love then? Think she’ll visit you in jail?”
His cheeks blanched.
“Once you take this step, that’s it, Drew. No going back. Ten years of therapy is better than ten years of jail.”
“What if they put me in a mental institution?”
“Well, you won’t have to deal with Brandon, will you?” I countered flatly.
“N-No,” he agreed.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, Drew. But the best way forward is not to kill people. Can we both agree on that?”
“You said you killed people,” he whispered.
“I have.”
“Why?”
“Vengeance. For my mother.” My eyes were cold as I explained, “In the end, they weren’t even the ones who’d killed my mom. I know what it’s like to take lives, and I know that it leaves a mark on you.”
“You’re a hypocrite!” he cried. “Preaching at me like you’re perfect when you don’t know what I’ve been through.” He shuddered, revulsion twisting his face into a maw that’d haunt me until the day I died. “You don’t know what they’ve done to me!”