1.
MUCH AS I WANTED TO KILL HIM, I didn’t have the stomach. I’d thought about the method a lot. Poison, perhaps. I’d heard arsenic was good. Ground glass in a smoothie. Maybe a fall? But I was weak. While unaware of the depth of my weakness, I knew I lacked the fortitude for violence. Perhaps if I hadn’t, things would be different today.
The trouble started late one evening at work. Overhead, the red pipe ticked, sending hot water through the veins of the building. A cascade of plans sat idle on the computer. The Anglepoise lamp hummed, halogen light spilling a feeble warmth, while outside, a truck jangled past. Someone whooped, uni kids probably, though the last lecture ended hours ago. Out the window, the green hump of Albert Park rose. The dark city surrounded me, but I remained still, my insides tacky and clotted, the way hard candy lumps together in humid weather. Mind tunnelling, tunnelling, pulled down by the event horizon of the black hole opened by the phone in my hand.
I’d ignored the message at first, thinking it would be from Clary, a continuation of our argument – the usual plaints: I work too much, she doesn’t work enough. Always questioning our commitment to each other, to this place. She’d gone for a drink with Lani, and I’d let her. No energy for another argument about the baby neither of us wanted, and she refused to tell her parents we wouldn’t have.
The message, though, was from Lani, not Clary. Tell me it’s not him, it said. The accompanying photo, framed with the…
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