Chapter 52
Mallory
Hi Stan,
I have the ending of Slay here for you. I wanted to make sure I got it right. The publisher has paid a lot for this, so I really hope it meets their expectations. I think it will.
See attached.
For clarity: the edit begins just after Liam has turned up in Mandy’s kitchen, having read all of her therapy notes about him.
He is angry and upset (after he’s tried to get clean) that she is privately predicting he’s unlikely to make it.
He has turned the kitchen knife on himself.
I know you thought this was a lovely cliffhanger to end on, but I needed to add more, so the reader knows the full truth.
Richard, Mandy’s husband, has entered the scene. He is not aware that Liam has been watching them in the house, as Liam was seeking refuge in the airing cupboard. I have, as you know, also added Mandy’s mother, Sarah, to the story. She is in the kitchen too.
I’d like to push back on any changes the publisher might have for this – this is the final ending.
This is the way the story finishes. I want to keep it as truthful to the characters as possible.
Thank you, Stan. I will be going away for a while now.
I need a bit of time. If you could give me a week for my final revisions of the text, that would be brilliant. I will be in touch soon.
Mal
Attached: Slay . Kitchen scene. Ending.
Mandy
‘Right,’ Liam said. ‘Since you know best. Goodbye then.’
She watched him look down at the blade in his hand, pointed towards his stomach.
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he meant it.
If this was some cruel joke. But then she saw his eyes.
The hopelessness in them. The vacant intent.
And a small flicker of the muscles in his wrist. ‘Stop,’ she said.
‘Please, Liam. Stop. Listen to me.’ He looked up at her.
‘You’re right,’ she said, putting her hand out tentatively towards him. ‘You’re right. We are the same.’
As he stared back at her, his lips parted, she saw in his expression the emergence of something she had long forgotten.
A glimmer of lightness. Hope, perhaps, or gratitude.
Yes, he was thankful. Thankful that she had stopped him.
And in that moment, she knew he did want to live.
That she had got it wrong. And so had he.
‘Give me the knife, Liam,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to do this. And I don’t want you to do this.’
‘What are you doing?’ Richard hissed from behind her. ‘He’s dangerous, Mandy. Stay back.’
‘Give me the knife, Liam,’ she continued.
‘He’s testing you,’ Richard said, harsher now, attempting to take her arm. But she resisted, pulling it from his grip. ‘He’s playing a game, Mandy. It’s all for show. He’s manipulating you.’
‘Coming from you?’ Liam said. ‘That’s funny. You’re fucking funny, Richard.’
‘Excuse me?’
Liam glared at him. ‘I’m not the one sending naked pictures of myself to other women from the second-floor bathroom.’
At this, Mandy turned to look at her husband. She saw her mother’s eyes move to him too.
‘What are you talking about?’ Richard said, his glare remaining fixed on Liam.
‘I was in the cupboard.’
Richard faltered. Momentarily. The mask slipped, a fraction. Just enough, enough to be seen. Behind is panic. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You took a lot of them. Sent a lot of them. Then stared at yourself in the mirror.’
‘You were watching me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘Just like your wife?’ The room fell silent. ‘That’s what you want us to be, isn’t it? Insane. Crazy. Unwell.’ ‘You are unwell.’
‘Nah, mate. It’s you,’ Liam said. ‘You’re the reason she’s so fucking nuts.
’ Mandy looked at Liam, and she felt something shift inside her.
A glimmer of something. The same thing she had seen in him.
Gratitude. ‘You’re a fucking phoney. I’ve seen the way you look at her.
You hate her. And I’ve seen the way she looks at you.
She’s terrified of you. And you’re just this pathetic, weak, insecure prick.
You have nothing, you have absolutely nothing, so you want to take it from her too.
You are actually just fucking boring. I’ve met so many men like you, and you’re all just really, really fucking dull.
’ Liam’s eyes were now wet. ‘I don’t even know you, and I fucking hate you.
I hate you. I fucking, fucking hate you.
’ He spat on the floor, at Richard’s feet.
Richard stepped towards him. ‘Get out of my house,’ he said, moving closer still. ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, just fucking do it.’
‘Richard—’ Mandy said, but before she could move to stop him, Richard had already begun.
What happened next was so strange, so unusual, that it took her a moment to register.
Her husband’s hands clasped around Liam’s, which were still holding the knife pointed towards his torso. He thrust. It was quick, and soundless.
The blade entered Liam’s stomach.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t cry out.
‘Richard!’ Mandy screamed, but in an instant, Liam was on his back, on the kitchen tiles, and Richard was on top of him, pummelling his fists into his body. His face. His arms. His head. Over, and over, and over.
Mandy lunged forward and tried to pull Richard away, but he turned and threw his arm at her, sending her sprawling backwards. As she tried to stand, she saw her mother by the kitchen island, her hand over her mouth, staring, paralysed with shock.
‘Mum! Help!’ she screamed. Richard continued to throw his fists into Liam, his torso gleaming. Mandy slipped as she tried to stand. She looked down. Blood. Blood all over the kitchen floor.
The sound of something shattering made her look up. Her mother had taken the fruit bowl and brought it down onto the back of Richard’s head. It was obliterated. Exploding into a spray of tiny pieces. The force of it made Richard’s arms suddenly stop moving. His body swayed, then slumped sideways.
Her mother’s face appeared before hers. ‘Quick, Mandy,’ she said. ‘Try and stop the bleeding while I call an ambulance. Here – use this.’ She thrust a tea towel into her daughter’s hand. ‘Now, Mandy. I need to get my phone.’
She saw her mother step over her husband’s limp body and move out of the kitchen. Soon there was the sound of her footsteps on the floor above.
Move, Mandy, she thought.
And she was on her knees, next to Liam.
‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’ She could see her tears falling onto him as she pushed the tea towel around the knife.
‘Mandy...’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t want to do it.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know you didn’t.’
In that moment, staring at him, while her mother’s voice spoke frantically to the ambulance operator out in the hall behind her, she saw something. She saw herself, lying in front of her, dying. The life seeping out of her body.
All he was ever trying to do was survive, she thought. To feel safe.
And she felt something so strong, so profound. Love was not what she had thought it to be. It was not what the books, the films, the poems or what our instincts tell us.
It was here, between them.
It always had been.
It just is. It exists.
We are all the same, she thought. Underneath, we are all connected. And that is love. That is the place where peace is found. It is in knowing that we are all the same.