Cold-Hearted

There’s this one road in my hometown that’s like no other. It’s completely surrounded by eerie forest and rarely occupied by other drivers. It gives occupants a sense of relaxation and comfort, as it stretches in one direction for miles. Most nights, I would go out on that road and speed down it. I would blast music and open the window, letting the wind flood into my car and whip my hair around my face. The streetlights would glare down on the road in patches, and the road would glow a yellow-orange with the light. You could only see about five feet into the forest before it got so dark that it was impossible to see further. It was a beautiful mix of scary and refreshing. Racing down that road was my favorite thing to do. And that’s what I was doing when I crashed into a tree.

Before I continue, there’s something I need to explain. I used to have a boyfriend. A month before this crash, he was murdered. I didn’t think much of it. Yeah, I know, not very conventional. For a second after I heard the news, I forgot I was the one who had killed him. It’s easy to forget when one simply does not give a shit about others. The truth? I never really liked him. I didn’t actually like anyone. I was really good at pretending I did, but deep down, I didn’t care about anyone besides myself. I hated everyone and everything. The meaning of life? Get as close to the top as you can and engrave your name into the minds of others in any way possible. Screw everyone over if you get the opportunity. If they allow themselves to be screwed over, they were never worthy of much, anyway. What happens, happens. And what happened was that I had killed my boyfriend. And to me, it just felt like another minor event. A slight inconvenience. Now the police would be questioning me and I had a life I wanted to live. Yeah, perhaps I should’ve thought about that part before I did the deed. But when I set my mind to something, I forget everything else. Especially the most important parts.

Some people would call me cold-hearted. I like to think I’m simply a realist. I believe what I see, and in most cases, I can see more than most people. I see the true nature of other humans, and everyone’s intentions. It’s not something I would consider difficult. People are easy to read. They don’t cover up. Some of them try to, but those ones are still easy to break. Begin a “deep” conversation and gain their trust with some small vulnerable tidbit about yourself (true or not, it doesn’t really matter), and suddenly you know exactly what they’re thinking, how they view the world, and everything they consider themselves to be. People are all the same. They think they’re different when really, they’re not. I find it both humorous and frustrating. When everyone’s the same, life becomes boring. So I took it upon myself to make life a little more interesting. And the most interesting thing to humans? Tragedy.

So that’s where I came in. When it comes to tragedy, the most drastic thing another human can do is usually commit murder. And that’s where my boyfriend came in. An easy target, not much of a fighter, etc. I knew how he moved and thought. How fast his reflexes were, what things he paid the most attention to and vice versa. A quick puncture of the carotid artery in the middle of the woods during a “camping trip,” and I had done my duty.

Now, this crash wasn’t all that horrible, it was just the result of a swerve in an attempt to avoid hitting a person I thought I had seen in the middle of the road. Oddly, when I left my car to look for the person, there was no one in sight. And so I walked back to my car, scratching my head in confusion. I was so sure I had seen someone. So sure that I had swerved and crashed.

I threw myself back into the car seat and started the engine, slamming my door shut. I reversed away from the tree and up onto the asphalt. I looked down to switch the car’s gears from park to drive and when I looked up, he was there.

I didn’t recognize him at first. Part of not giving a shit about others was that I didn’t pay attention to physical details. So at first, I was just startled. But upon realizing this strange person’s identity, I was startled. I pulled my car back to the side of the road and slowly got out, carefully watching my dead boyfriend. He was dangerous because he was the only one who knew what I had done. My only options were to convince him to keep his mouth shut, or attempt to end his life again. I decided the latter was an easier option.

I calmly approached him, my hands tucked carefully in my pockets, one of them lightly gripped around the knife I kept in my sweater at all times. For some reason, the thought never surfaced that the police had known my boyfriend was dead because they had found his body. The only thing on my mind was getting rid of any evidence of my crimes. And at that moment, the only evidence was him. My mind was set on killing him again, and the obvious never crossed my mind.

I stood two feet from him, just close enough to stab him but not close enough for him to touch me. Of course, he couldn’t if he tried. I could easily predict his movements and avoid them. I planned to use that to my advantage in the inevitable fight I believed would take place on the road that night. I was ready for what I thought would happen.

He never moved the whole time he was standing there. He kept eye contact with me, expressionless, and never moved a muscle. It was as though he were a simple reflection.

We stared at each other for a few minutes as I calculated my future actions. And when I was ready, I attacked. In one swift movement, I pivoted to his side and thrusted the knife in the direction of his neck. The knife passed right through his body, and he evaporated in front of my eyes. Then the road faded and disappeared, and I was back in the dark cell, the hand that held my knife wrapped around air. I dropped back onto my hard bed wearily, staring down at the metal bars that kept me separated from the rest of the world. If only the prison guard stationed near my cell knew that his keys were grasped in one of my sweaty hands.