190 - One Hundred Ninety

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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What if he’d killed me?

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I mean it, Harry. What if I hadn’t been fast enough, or what if he’d been able to truly catch me by surprise. What if he’d gotten the upper hand and he’d killed me? 

It isn’t…it isn’t hard. Or— well, it isn’t easy. But the gap between keeping the upper hand in a fight and the other person getting it is razor thin. The tables can turn in a millisecond. All it takes is one mistake, or moving the tiniest bit too slow, or slackening your grip by an inch. I know this. You know this. You watched it happen. 

I hadn’t even planned on—I didn’t have a grand escape plan. And I know you didn’t, you were so infuriatingly calm when they loaded us into that van and told us we were being transferred to god knows where. And of course now I know why you were calm, but at the time, I thought you were just trying to imagine you were somewhere else. But I wasn’t, I was stuck in the present, terrified of where we were headed, scared of how dark the world was around me, the further we got from civilization. I half thought we were being taken to the woods to be shot. 

But I still didn’t have a plan. It was just…when we got that flat tire and he had to open the back to get the spare, I saw a window and—

Part of me thought it would be good just to run. Leave you behind and run into the pitch black forest. But I couldn’t— I couldn’t do that, especially not when you were shouting at me to stop, but I thought you were shouting at him, because he’d gotten his arm around my neck and I didn’t think that dragging him to the ground like that would’ve—I didn’t realize how close we were to the bumper, how little it takes to crack someone’s neck at just the wrong angle. 

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It wasn’t lucky. That’s not—it was terrible. But then it was done, just like that, and it could’ve happened just as quick with Junior at the house. 

Would you mourn me? We’re not in the same place anymore, no longer each other’s sole conversational companion, so would me being dead and gone make a difference to you? Would you think about all the things you never said, never did, and have regrets? Or would you be relieved that you didn’t have to think about any of it anymore. That you would never have to make the choice of how to behave toward me, ever again. 

I can’t think about the other side of this conversation. I find myself furious at imagining what your reaction would be to my death—to coming home and finding my body in the front hall—because I can’t bear to turn that question on myself. 

If you’re gone—

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Junior…Billings, I don’t know what you would want me to call you. But, if you’re listening, I know what I want to ask. Not that you—you don’t owe me shit, obviously. I don’t know how long you’ve been listening to me, what you know about me, but I can’t imagine much—if any of it—has made you more sympathetic to me. 

But if I could ask for one thing, it would be to leave Harry out of this. If we meet again…I won’t hold it against you if you still want to kill me and succeed this time. 

But please. Please. She’s not the one you hate. She’s not to blame. I am. 

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