“Why would you do that?”
Momma shook her head in disgust.
“Heathens, the both of you. You two only deserved each other. I knew you two had been fucking.” She faced me again. “Your bed sheets reeked of him. He wasn’t trying to hide it either. Coming out of your room in the middle of the night smelling like sex. You didn’t deserve my Ellis.”
King chuckled as if he was proud of himself.
She sneered at him “I bet it was your bastard she aborted, too.”
If looks could kill Momma would have dropped dead right next to Ellis. King took a step in her direction just as the doorbell rang. He pointed the gun at her and growled. Yes, growled like an animal, before turning and storming from the kitchen. Ten seconds later he returned with two men and although we all had aged a few years, I recognized them as the men from the hotel on the night Ashley died.
They didn’t acknowledge me or Momma. They stared at King as he gave instructions, then left through the garage door. I watched it all like you would watch a movie on TV, detached. When it came time to move Ellis, Momma freaked the fuck out. One guy pried her arms from around him while the other pulled him from her grip, then they got her sitting in a chair. One pulled zip-ties from out of bags I hadn’t noticed they were carrying; they zip tied Momma to a chair facing the table. She was nearly breaking her neck to see what they were doing. Ellis’s blood was all over her white short set and all over her face, it mixed in with her tears as she continued to cry.
She must have really loved Ellis. I tried to think back to the times we’d all been in the room together. Had there been any looks of love, any affection? Nothing. They never gave anything away. Maybe they saved it all for the little clandestine lunch dates they had.
I had a question, so I asked. “Why would you tell me to stay with him if you wanted him so badly?”
Momma glared at me like she really hated me for just speaking to her.
“If you could have gotten pregnant, we could have been together. He said as soon as you had the baby, we would be together. Your tainted womb ruined that.”
I scoffed, then chuckled to keep from crying. I could have kept the truth to myself, but I wanted Momma to hurt so I told her. “Ellis had a vasectomy.”
Momma sneered at me “Liar. You’re a got damn liar.”
I shook my head. Our eyes connected. “That’s what the fight that brought me here was about. He blacked out when I confronted him about it.”
Momma’s face fell.
Feeling petty I decided to add to her pain. That’s all she’d ever done to me was think of herself. I was going to be selfish for once.
“You know there were others, right? His secretary. Once a judge. A few of his momma’s friends, which I couldn’t understand at the time, but now I do. He liked them old.” I nodded. “Probably because y’all didn’t care that his dick couldn’t remain hard for longer than a few minutes. Y’all probably just liked fucking and sucking on some young dick.”
My voice kept rising an octave with every word I spoke. “Did it make you feel good, Momma, fucking my husband behind my back? You thought he was really going to leave me for you? Did you think he didn’t want me because he was fucking you? Every night he came home and told me he loved me, damn near begged me to love him in return.”
I didn’t give a fuck about Ellis. She could have had him. I was just so mad. I slammed my hand on the table. “Answer me.”
“Fuck you,” Momma spat.
Someone cleared their throat. In my rage I had become blind to what was going on around me. I hadn’t realized I’d been drawing closer and closer to Momma.
One of King’s guys stared at me, waiting for something. He nodded towards my feet. I dropped my head and found myself standing in a pool of blood. It was cold.
I whimpered. The blood from my veins rushed to my ears drowning out all sound around me. King rushed over to me; he sat his gun down. He lifted me into his arms, physically removing me from the blood, he sat me in a chair. He was talking but I couldn’t hear him. I just kept staring at the puddle and thinking, How could my own momma betray me?
In the next moment there was another pew sound that woke me out of my daze. Momma was slumped over the chair with a bullet hole where her nose had been.
King roared, drawing my attention to him. “What the fuck are y’all doing? Stop fucking pointing your guns at her.” Both men had stopped what they were doing and had their guns pointed directly at me.” King rushed both of them, shoving their hands down.
Though his actions showed me differently. In my mind them pointing their guns at me meant that King had told them to point them at me.
“You’re going to kill me too, King? You already killed my momma.”
King’s face scrunched up. “Give me the gun, Eden. You’re not thinking straight.”
I screamed, “What gun, King?”
“The one you have in your hand. Baby, please.”
I looked down. I was holding his gun at my side. I lifted it. I stared at it. I didn’t remember picking it up. It shook in my hand.
“Eden.” King called my name, his tone heavy with worry. I looked up at him. His face was all distorted. “Give me the gun, Eden,” he coaxed. I raised it in his direction. “What are you, doing, Eden?”
“All of this is your fault, King.”
My conscious was screaming that it was partially my own. I’d begged him to ruin me even after he’d warned me.
But the irrational part of me didn’t care. I aimed the gun at King’s heart, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. I heard the pew, which was immediately followed by two bangs. I felt the burn of the bullets entering my chest. I hit the floor hard, my head banging against the tile. I didn’t even fear dying. I was just so fucking tired.
Just as all the pain started to ebb away King called my name. My eyes flew open.
Eden: Where it all began.
“This is your chance to save yourself, Eden.”
I raised my hand to my chest. My heart was pounding, but there was no pain or holes. I looked up at King, he was fine. I looked around the room, no Momma, no henchmen. I let out a heavy breath. I had imagined it all. Maybe foresight is twenty, twenty, or some cosmic being was giving me a way out of a bad future.
“Tell me to leave.” King stared directly at me. His gaze heated my body.
Whatever daydream or premonition I’d had was quickly forgotten. Even if I was one hundred percent sure what I saw would come to happen, I would still choose to do it. My need for him was thick and sticky, clinging to me like honey. I could feel it in my very being, like a visceral force. I shook my head. There was no way I was telling him to leave “I want this, I want you,” I said.
He gave me a hard look. I could see the possessiveness in his penetrating glare. Something in me screamed for me to change my mind, but I couldn’t. I was too far gone.
“No more Ken doll. No other men. Just me and you, Eden. Forever.”
Epilogue
King: Tatted Up Bullet Holes.
2040
My daughter Lilith threw her head back and laughed. “You keep telling me this story and I’m going to start believing it, Father.” She pushed herself away from the sink to turn and face me. I pulled the top of my shirt down, revealing to her the bullet hole we’d been talking about. Well, not exactly a bullet hole, a wound from where a bullet grazed me. Covering it was her mother’s name written in cursive. Her mother who sat across from me knew the routine, she pulled down her shirt revealing an actual bullet hole, right next to her heart, she had a crown tatted over it.