Help Me

”Just say it,” you silently remind yourself. You knew you’d regret it if you didn’t.

“He’s dead,”

Your voice is trembling. The heavy rain is pounding against you; soaking into your skin and chilling your bones. The wind is whipping at your clothes, of which you have very little. A small, worn vest and shorts. Your feet are bare, and as you stand on the veranda steps, you can feel the splintering wood denting your soles. Your crying, but the warm tears no sooner leave your eyes than they are wiped away by the storm.

“What?” He turns now. He doesn’t move closer to you, but simply turns. He is on the pavement leading out to his car. He is wearing a jacket and jeans, his shoes are in his hand and his socks are gripping to his feet. His face is contorted in a harrowing concoction of both confusion and pain.

”I killed him,” You say, with such defiance in your voice it makes him flinch.

Your hands are curled into fists, and every muscle in your body is tense. Your knuckles are white and you can no longer decipher the beating of your heart from the pounding of the rain.

“You‘re lying,” He says quietly, as if his breath was not his to harness.

”I’m not,” You swallow hard, and try to find the words to explain, but how can you talk yourself out of murder?

He takes a step closer to you, and then another. His shoes at this point are soaked, and he abandons then on the pavement. His feet slap heavily against the ground, as his steps become strides and all too soon he is at the bottom of the stairs.

”You’re lying,” He repeats, “I know he did it, don’t cover for him. You’re not capable of doing something like this,”

“I did it,” The tears are rolling, relentlessly streaming across your face. You try and gasp for air between sobs, ”And Id do it again,”

As you speak he makes his way up the steps, all the while never taking his eye of you. The dark clouds looming above grow darker still, and the rain is falling faster, heavier, violent. He is standing in front of you. His strong hands reach out to hold your shoulders, and you can feel his deep brown eyes staring at you.

”Look at me,” He growls, ”Look at me!”

He thrusts a hand underneath your chin and jerks your head up. Your eyes meet his and as they do you notice his thin, pale lips curling into a grin. He drops his hand from your face to your hips and pulls you closer to him.

“Good job,” he whispers, “now all you have to do is produce that little play for the cops,”

Your breath catches in your throat. You had saved him. Saved him from a life of prison walls. Saved him from a life of solitude. Saved him for yourself. You’re in love with him. His perfect smile, his curly brown hair, which flops carelessly over his forehead, and now clings to his skull in this rain. If you had said nothing, if he had walked away, it would be over. You’d never see him again. He had asked you to take the blame. “If you say you did it, you’d get less time! You could claim it was self defence! I love you baby, please? i don’t want to have to leave you!”. You had said no. You had calculated the risks You had made your decision. But he was persistent. He was angry. The thought of being tried for murder made your stomach churn, but the thought of losing him made your heart break. He was all you had left. In his presence your logic had always failed you, you could never hear your thoughts over the deafening thump of your heart in your chest. You didn’t want him to be angry. You knew he loved you too, you had the bruised to prove it. If he had gone, youd have nothing. No house. No food. No means of living. Youre isolated. He wouldn’t let you get a job; he insisted it was the man of the house who would have to provide. You have no friends; he never liked any of them, they’re bad influences. Your family live far away, and you hadn’t seen them for years. If he had to take responsibility for the dead body you had watched him bury not four hours earlier, you would be completely alone. What else could you do?

20 minutes later you‘re standing in front of the police station. You hear the Engine of his car rumbling as he quickly pulls away, leaving you completely alone. You step inside and make your way over to the front desk. Your feet are still bare and your clothes are now sodden, as they drip over the linoleum flooring. The lady at the front desk watches you as you walk towards her. Shes smiling, and her kind face seems so bright beneath the cheap flickering lights.

“Can I help you?” She says, her voice is low and sweet, “what your name?”

You try to speak but before you can the tears begin to fall again, and the lump in your throat renders you mute. Instantly, the woman jumps up, pulling a blanket out from under the desk and wrapping it round you. She leaves her hand on your shoulder and begins to rub your arm, holding you in such a gentle embrace the tears turn into sobs.

“Oh honey,” she sighs, as she begins to guide you through the station. She leads you into a small room. The walls are grey painted bricks. There is a small black, square table in the middle and three chairs. The floor is cold beneath your feet, and on the left wall you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the large mirror.

Your hair is matted and tangled From the wind, and it is soaked through to its deepest shade. Your eyes are dark, and the large bags beneath them give you a haggard appearance. You are pale and the deep purple bruises on your arms and legs appear more apparent beneath the harsh lighting. You begin to cry again as the ghostly reflection before you is nothing more than a shell of a person you used to be.

The kind woman sits you down carefully on a chair at the other end of the table. She looks at you with pity in her eyes. She offers you tea and you accept it gratefully. When she returns she is not alone. A tall man, with tousled blonde hair and a sparse, dark beard is standing behind her, holding a bottle of water and an assortment of snacks. The woman places the tea in front of you, and the man follows suit, putting the food beside it. The woman then introduces Sergeant Mathews, and explains that you and him are going to have a little chat. Panic begins to instantly rise up inside you. You don’t want to be left alone with him.

“Can’t you stay?” You ask, looking from one to the other desperately.

”I am only a receptionist dear, I’m not allowed,” she explains, ”I promise you, Seargant Mathews is lovely, and if you need me for anything, Ill be just outside, okay?“

You nod, trying to gulp back the tears. She leaves the room and closes the door behind her. Instantly, the Sgt. leaps into action.

”Can you tell me your name?” He says gently.

You take a sip of your tea. You feel it as it falls down you’re throat, and begins too spread it’s warmth through out your body. Cupping it in your hands, you manage to compose yourself enough to tell him. He nods and writes it down in his note pad.

“And why did you come in today?”

”I wanted to report a crime,” You say, clenching your jar. If you cry you’ll give yourself away.

“Go on,”

“Murder,” You say quickly, “I murdered someone,”

He looks up from his note book. For a moment you stare at each other.

“You murdered someone? Who?”

”Matt Hive,” You say, your voice is beginning to tremble again, “He’s buried in my garden. He was a friend of my boyfriends. He attacked me, whilst my boyfriend was out. So I fought back. He was too strong. I had to-“

Your voice trails away. You knew if they found the body, the autopsy would reveal he had been shot. But how could you have gotten a gun? And from where? Was it your boyfriends? If you said it was would he also be charged?

“I had a gun. I bought it for protection. I only meant to scare him off. But he wouldn’t stop. So I had to. I had to shoot him,”

The Sgt. has stopped writing. Instead he has put his pen down, and lay his hands across him. His eyes are seemingly scanning your face. You have stopped crying. Your voice is no longer trembling. Once again you have found the defiance you had had on the steps.

“Show me your hands,” He said, holding his own out for yours.

Carefully, you extend your hand out. He is warm, and upon examining them he moves closer to you. You flinch. He apologises, and moves his attention from your hands and looks again at you, and then his face changes, and you realise he’s seen the bruise on your outstretched arm. Quickly, you pull away.

“So you’re saying you killed him?”

I nod. He looks at me, and then over at his paper. He moves back to his original position and begins writing again for several minutes. The sound of the pen on paper is deafening and you realise you’re whole body has begun to tense up again, and you are shivering.

“So your boyfriend,”

The sgt. asks you for further details. You do your best to steer the conversation away from Chris, and if he does crop up you attempt to paint him as the perfect boyfriend. You play the bruises off as proof of the attack. After an hour or so, he thanks you for you’re time and then asks you to stay here while they file some paperwork. He leaves, and a few moment later the kind woman appears in the door way. She closes the door behind her, and moves the chair closer to you, reaching her hands out and holding yours. Slowly, in her sweet voice, she asks if your okay. You feel the lump in your throat again, the tears pricking your eyes. You can’t lie to her, you don’t want to. You want her to hug you like she did, to make you feel safe.

“I didn’t do it,” you say, but the guilt is filling up inside of you, you feel sick, “It was Chris he did it, he told me to take the blame, he said if I did it, I could claim self defence. I didn’t do it. I was asleep. The gun shot woke me up. I saw him bury him, I wanted to call the police, I was scared, he caught me, he... he....,”

You dissolve into a puddle of tears. Trying to breath between loud harrowing sobs. The kind woman pulls you close, just as you hoped she would. She attempts to calm you, and a few moments later the sergeant walks back in.

“Can you please give us the address?“ He says calmly, “We can go and arrest Chris, you can be safe, we’ll keep you safe, if you want us to, we just need his Address. We can help you.”

You look up at him, tears in your eyes. You’re scared. Your stomach is churning.

“Help me,” you whisper, ”Please, help me,”