Abel
I’ve just apologized to Rose when someone approaches the table. I expect the waitress, but when I look up, there’s a man in front of us—homeless, from the looks of it. The waitress is nowhere in sight.
“You guys eatin’ real good over here,” he says, showing us the few teeth that haven’t rotted out of his skull when he smiles. His accent isn’t local and I wonder how he ended up here, with the worst luck to have chosen us to bother.
I nod and watch Rose. Please don’t.
“Got a dollar?” he asks, no longer bothering to look at Rose. Good instincts.
“Sorry, man.” I shovel some eggs in my mouth before I shake my head.
“Don’t be greedy, kid.”
Rose sits silently across from me, her eyes on her breakfast. Is she tuning him out? Part of me wants to pray for that to be the truth but I notice she’s chewing a lot slower than she was before.
“Come on, I know you got a dollar,” the man insists as I wipe my mouth with a napkin.
I shake my head.
“Your future is less and less certain the more time you spend here, badgering us for some money that we will never give you,” Rose says to him, efficient in her takedown. Vicious.
It isn’t what she says that has me choking on my coffee. It’s her emotionless monotone and the way the old man pauses for a moment like she’d been speaking Spanish.
“Fuck you,” the man says, his voice louder now.
And I reach for Rose but it’s too late. She’s already got the fork poised in the air and then bringing it straight down with forced until it’s sticking out of the man’s fucking hand.
He screams, and I set a hundred on the table before grabbing Rose. As we’re running, she stumbles and before I can think about it, I swoop her into my arms and jog us the fuck out of there.
And just like every other time, I’m saving her ass.
If that isn’t love, what the fuck is?
I could never leave Rose behind again. Not after everyone else left her in fucking Silverwing. I will not let her believe that she doesn’t deserve love just because she isn’t perfect.
I’d never let her die thinking no one loved her.
Because I love Rose through her evil. Maybe even in spite of her evil.
Nah. I shake my head.
I just love her. Even with the crazy fucking madness around us.
I’ve come to love every fucking crack in Rose as much as I love the perfect parts of her. She makes it impossible for me to not love every single thing about her.
I’ve learned to love the way she looks with blood on her hands and a gun in her waistband. I love how easily she brings the monster out of the man.
“You crazy woman,” I yell with a laugh as I run. “I’m in love with a crazy woman!”
I hadn’t noticed the rain until we stepped outside. Having to carry Rose is slowing me down but I get her to the car and make sure she’s in before I open my door. Just as I’m about to put the key in the ignition, her door opens, and the homeless guy is pulling her from the car.
She cries out as he tugs her hair and drags her over the gravel.
I don’t think.
I pull out the gun in my waistband.
I switch the safety off.
And I shoot.
No one touches Rose.
No motherfucker in this world will ever touch her and live to talk about it.
It’s like I blacked the fuck out, and all I can hear is mami .
Look at what this gringa’s done to my boy.
But she doesn’t understand.
My Rose leaves a trail of thorns and dead bodies behind her.
And she saves her petals for me.
One day I’ll end up with a shitty mess of a heart and a pocket full of thorns.
But until then, it’s us against the world.
The man is lying on the gravel, his body looking still in the dark. I hadn’t realized that as I was shooting, I was walking closer and closer until I was standing over him.
Rose peers at him from behind me, curiously.
It’s unnerving.
There’s something about the smell of gunpowder in the rain. It’s sharper and I can almost taste it, like I’d sucked on the end of the barrel after it went off.
There’s something about a dead body in the rain. Like maybe their god was washing away the sins of their life and I was somehow caught in something that didn’t belong to me.
There’s something about the way I am now.
I’m a fucking murderer.
I was always such shit at poetry but this comes to mind like I’d been thinking it for months. Maybe I had.
Roses are red.
Violence is cool.
is sweet.
’s a fool.