Andrew’s Chapter
She kissed him. She fucking kissed him. Warm tears begin to blur my vision as I try to forget what I just saw. Did I see that right? She kissed him. They're back together; they have to be. She never really wanted me, and I was so stupid to believe that she could be falling for me.
“FUUCK!” My scream bounces off the car’s fabricated interior.
“You're supposed to love me!” I want so badly to get out of my Honda and run down the sidewalk until I reach her house, but instead, I'm screaming in my car and pulling on my steering wheel until it shakes.
“Was everything you said a lie?” I look up at her room as she stands, holding her phone behind her closed curtains.
“You're everything to me, and you kiss him?! FUCK!” I cry out again, this time muffling my heartbroken wails in my hands.
“Damn it, Candi. You were all that I cared about in this fucked up world…” I continue to sob until red illuminates from his taillights and creates small lines of light through the openings of my fingers.
The realization hits me like one of Rayne's loud riffs when I'm too close to his amp at practice. Zane is leaving. The tread from his heavy tires makes deep indents in the freshly blanketed snow on the empty road. “I have to follow him, Candi. He needs to know that you're mine.”
His car moves quickly around the next corner, but I keep my lights low and stay in the shadows behind the street lamps. He’s still so clueless about the obsessed, heartbroken punk who's been trailing him all night.
We both stop in front of his giant house; I take a deep breath before I grab the electrical cord and a dark colored ski mask lying sloppily in my back seat.
“Sorry, Rayne. I'll buy you another cord. This one might get damaged…” With the number of times I've packed away my musical equipment, I'm able to swiftly wrap it tightly so it easily conceals in the inner pocket of my leather jacket.
He won't be able to see what's coming next, and with my balaclava, he'll have no idea who I am.
I pay close attention to his figure as he gets out of his car. He hurries up his walkway, and the soles of his Nike Air Force Ones almost slide on the icy cement, but I can't help but quietly laugh when he almost freezes as my door slams shut.
“Hey, asshole. I think you're at the wrong house.” His eyes follow me closely as I take another step towards his property. “Are you deaf or something?!”
“Oh no, I'm not deaf. I heard you loud and clear, and I don't think I'm at the wrong house…” He practically slips backwards on the sidewalk, falling on the stone step. “You're exactly who I’ve been looking for.”
“Wh-ho the hell are you?” His once arrogant eyes watch me like a hawk.
“Does it matter?” I sigh while reaching into the inner lining of my coat. “You've never noticed me at school, you'll have no idea who I am now.”
“What are you going to do with that?!” His scared gawking goes from me to the power cord.
“This is what I like to call an electric cable. Normally, I use it to plug my bass into my amp. Tonight, however, I'm going to use it to keep you from taking my girl…”
“Who the hell are you talking about?! I don't fucking know who your girl is!”
“You know damn well who I'm talking about! You don't get to have her! You can't have Candi!”
“Candi?! You want my Candi?!” His Candi?! He can't be fucking serious. She's mine! She told me we belonged together, and I'm not going to let this fuck tell me any different!
“You think she's yours?” His body flinches so close to mine as he watches me unravel the cable.
“Was she yours when she was inviting me into her room?” More of the thick cord goes lax in my hands as I move in closer to him.
He doesn't think I can tell when he makes his best attempt to scoot nearer to the front door.
“You're lying. She wouldn't do something like that…”
“Oh, I think she would… and she sounded so fucking sexy when she asked me to fuck her faster and faster...” You're so upset that your sweet little Candi would be with a guy like me that you don't even notice what's being wrapped around your neck.
“That’s not true! Candi wouldn't do that to me…”
“You don't think so? Maybe we should call her up and ask her?” I whisper low and deep in his ear.
“Y-yes! C-call her!”
“Ah, ah, first, I want you to ask nicely…” I tsk as I feel his body stiffen as I begin to pull up on the cord.
“P-please just call h-her—” he chokes and makes his best attempt to pull on the restricting electrical cord around his throat with his hands.
“I want Candi… do you know the song? Who am I kidding? Everyone knows that song… I want Candi… sing it for me…” I pull harder as I watch the golden hue of his skin turn purple under his yellow porch light.
“What?”
“The clock is ticking, Zane. Sing it for me, and then I'll put her on the phone… I… want… Candi…’’ the words move out of me in rigid breaths through my deadly instructions when I pull back and impatiently. I wait for him to rasp out the familiar chorus.
“I-I …” his voice strains against the tight constraints. “I w-want…” His wide mocha eyes begin to bulge in their sockets.
“Ah… Come on, Zane, is that all you've got?” With one hand, I continue pulling on the ends until I can hear his constant gasps for his final breaths.
“She would be so disappointed in you.…” I grab my phone from my side jeans pocket and scroll through the list of missed calls.
“Oh, there she is, let's give her a call. We can tell her what a terrible singer you are.” I can't help but smirk, with my lips moving under the knit mask.
His body involuntarily shakes as we both wait through several rings until we reach her adorable voicemail.
“This is Candi, leave a message after the beep!”
“C-candi…h-elp!” Fortunately for me, his cry for rescue is only in vain. Did he really think it'd be that easy?
“Oh, that’s too bad. She didn't answer. Don't beat yourself up too much. She's been so damn wishy-washy lately… The poor girl thinks she doesn't know what she wants. But I know… She'll come back around when she sees I got rid of the one person who hurt her.”
“Please, don't! You don't even know me!”
“I know you, Zane Torrence. I know all of the things you say to her.” I pause my thought, letting go of the cable. His hands cling to his throat as he takes in many labored breaths. It only worsens when he sees me pick up the heaviest object sticking out of the many inches of snow.
“No, wait… Please! Y-you don't want to do this. You can have her, okay? Take Candi! Just don't kill me!”
“Are you sacrificing the woman you say you love so you can live?” My tongue clicks on the roof of my mouth in pure disgust. “I wouldn't call that love…”
“She's just a girl… We-we’ve broken up many times.”
“Candi Hart is not just a girl. She's the best thing about this fucking place. You never realized how good you had it! God, I only wish I could've had her! I would’ve killed anyone for her if she asked me to…” You don't think I can't see you moving further away?
“... but you, you treated her like she was worthless!”
He gives me his best pleading look before he crawls backwards on his palms, hitting his ass on the snow in his yard. Do you think that I'm not fast enough to catch you when you try to run away?
Zane attempts to rise onto his feet, but he can't keep his balance once I bash the back of his head in with the heavy stone cross I found standing upright in his mother's flower bed. “I know that you use her.” Zane's blood starts to splash on the snow underneath us.
“Ahhh, what the FUCK man?!” His screams are his last words as he falls laxly in front of his mansion-style home, his face taking a mouthful of his own frozen crimson.
“... and how you cheat on her!” SMACK. The back of his skull caves in from the impact of the flat granite bottom. The noise of his bones crunching mixed with the squelching of his brain mashing together is one I'll never forget.
Zane’s once personable face is now unrecognizable.
His eyes have popped out of their sockets and are crushed like jellied fruit.
They roll around in his concave, bloodied cheeks when I rotate him onto his back.
The bone from the bridge of his once-perfect nose protrudes out of his bruised and marred skin.
“There's a good little jock…” I taunt, but he can't feel the gentle pat I make on his deflated cheek. He can no longer feel anything.
Snowflakes gently cover his dead body as I grab my power cord from the porch. I wrap it around my blood-covered arm just as I would when I'm packing up after band practice. I keep my view on him as he lies lifeless in the puddle of red sleet, and the loud quiet in the air filters in around us.
When I'm done erasing the tracks from my combat boots, I can't help the feeling that I'm not finished yet. She has to know what I did for her. What I did for us.
The cold air hits my skin when I take off my wool mask, and it falls gently in the yard next to the bloody cross. “Andy?” Candi picks up on the first ring. “What time is it?” Her groggy voice is filled with sleep.
“I'm sorry, Baby. Did I wake you?” A new beam paints my cold lips when I hear her say my name.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes, Candi. Everything is perfect.” I sigh, stuffing my now gore-covered glove in the side pocket of my jacket.
“Listen,” she begins, and I can hear the rustling of her covers as if she's sitting up in her bed. “I'm sorry about earlier. I-I just want us to be us. Like we once were. I love you, Andy.”
“Damn, baby, I'm so happy to hear you say that. I love you too, Candi. You know I would do anything for you… For us…”
“Who's out there?!” A man calls from behind the door, but all I can hear is Candi breathing on the other end of the line. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing on my property!” The older man yells out again.
“Andy, where are you?” Candi asks, her voice now more alert.
“I'm not too far from you, actually… I'm at Zane's place.”
“Why are you at his house?” She doesn't hear my answer, only the head-splitting shrieks from Zane's parents, who are now noticing his blood-soaked corpse.
“No, no, no! My baby! What happened to my boy!” His mother wails into his chest, covering her arms and face with what remains of Zane.
“Was that Mrs. Torrence? Is she crying? What's happening over there?!”
“Did you do this to him?! What did you do to my baby?!” She lunges towards me, only falling next to her son in a pile of tainted snowfall, and she braces her palms on the cross covered in Zane's bodily fluids.
I brace myself in my boots; the more she cries out when she realizes her hands are painted with his blood.
“Andy, what did you do?!” Candi’s voice starts to quiver, and I can hear her tears through the small speakers. “Tell me what happened!”
“I killed him for us, baby. I did it because I'm so in love with you; no one can take you away from me. Not anymore.”