"Can't Do It... Shouldn't Do It"

She seemed to be doing alright last time I saw her... To my surprise she didn't complain under the circumstances. I was in college studying to become an engineer and knew squat about what I wanted to do with my life afterwards. I was envisioning an enviable career under the, hopefully, short-lived and limited tutelage of a temporary supervisor.

Little did I know that, at the time, I'd have my dream preceded by an enviable involvement with a girl many other boys in my class and, more specifically, the entire college could only wish to have. Her name was Leanne. She studied languages in the building right across from mine. Not only was she beautiful, with her blonde-reddish head of curled hair, because she didn't like it straight, as it was growing, and always parted it on the left side, but she was also brilliantly intelligent. Her green eyes gave away her blunt and reserved nature. There was just something in them, a sense of brutality and honesty. She attracted me remarkably quickly. From the first moment, I couldn't look back. I knew I wanted her all for me. And I did just that. Or I like to think I managed to keep her solely to myself.

We were together five years in total.

Everything was just how many couples in love wish their life together to be. We did fight, although we made it up to each other all the time after that. Until that one time... when she wronged me and I showed her for that. I got mad that she talked a longer time to another guy and I must have accused her of being disloyal. She kept saying she wouldn't have done that to me. Had I not started behaving erratically and obsessively around her and towards her interactions with other men. She planned her escape from me. So she wanted to leave. I begged her to stay, only that, to my desperation, she wouldn't have it. I couldn't just let her out of my sight, and she knew that. As I was cutting the meat and vegetables while she was boiling the pasta for dinner, we started arguing and I pled with her:

"Please, Leanne, you know I can't go through life without you!".

"Bull! That's just bull! The moment I'll set foot out of here you'll act like we've never even met! And I'd rather see it happen that way!".

"Stay!".

"Absolutely not! I am sick and tired of being tied to you and only to you! Whenever a boy approaches me for as little as just directions, you explode! A boy seems to look my way, you have a jealousy attack! Does he pick up something that slipped from my hand and I dropped on the floor? You turn black! No way you'll change if you haven't already!".

"No, I-I promise, baby... please! I'll change! Look, right now, I'll change. I promise. Right now".

"No. We're done this moment. You hear me? Done!".

I watched her in shock and disbelief as she was walking away from me, meaning every word she just said. My hand started trembling and I noticed with sick curiosity that I couldn't keep it from shaking. I took one glance at the knife I was holding. "This can't be happening... I just love her!", my thoughts swirled in my head, and I tried holding my fingers still. There was a voice in my head telling me to go on with it. I felt it urging me.

"Can't do it... Shouldn't do it". But at the same time I knew she wronged me. So I took the knife, went after Leanne and lounged at her. The fight she put up trying to stop my attack amazed me. Everybody said she couldn't have been taller than 5"3, though all her family and friends said she was fierce. All those family and friends who are never going to see her again. I pinned her to the floor and my knife went down and inside about four times when she finally somehow overpowered me and crawled away. I strengthened my grip and went after her. Forceful sounds of the metal slicing through drove me even more packed with frenzy. I pushed down the knife one last time and I thought I had now finished the job. She lay there barely drawing a few agonal breaths. After a while, she stopped. I realized it was over when I couldn't see her ribcage move anymore. Then I got up dizzy, took two or three steps and I must have fainted and blacked out. I wasn't sure when I had woken up, but the lights inside a white room almost blinded me for a moment. I looked around and saw an IV drip going through my arm and heard the beeping of a monitor beside me. I realized I was laying in a hospital bed. More than that, I had two cops standing there with me. Awkwardly, I began:

"Where am I? Is this-"

Before I could talk any longer, one of them held out a hand to stop me and said:

"Don't say anything else. Save up that energy for later when you'll have to actually talk".

"But..."

I couldn't continue my sentence because a doctor came in.

"Seems like you took a hit to the head, son, though nothing to bad not to be able to remember anything".

"Anything?", I muttered, confused.

"Anything you've done", the same cop said to me.

Noticing that I had no idea what was being discussed, he read me my rights and told me they'll move me to a cell in the next few days.

Long story short, when I got to the cell, another cop let me know that it would be temporary too. I just held my knees glued to my chest and replied with nothing. Apparently, the authorities made the decision that I would be moved to a maximum security jail for an undisclosed period of time. Nobody told me how long I was to stay there, for what reason and why. All I heard from the guard was that I might never get out. Upon hearing that, I panicked.

"Hey, man, listen, you can't do this! I mean-"

"Calm yourself, son, you'll have to, in court. Otherwise the judge will have an additional punishment for you".

"You don't understand! Everybody says I got here because I killed my girlfriend, man, but I know I didn't do it!".

"Well, if everybody says you did, then you did".

"No, man, that's impossible, you gotta hear me out!".

"Guess I've heard enough mumbo-jumbo from you alone today. You did exactly what they say you did because before you were kept for observation in the hospital, you were found covered in your girlfriend's blood and passed out next to her. Nobody dragged you beside her, I gather, did they, now?".

"I didn't mean to, I swear, I didn't-"

"Why did you do it?".

"I don't know... I kept telling myself I couldn't do it... Shouldn't do it".

"You'll remember, son, you'll remember", and as he walked away from the door, he shouted "Lock this one up!". The heavy squeaking of the rusty metal bar door woke me up from my crazy and confused state. Just like in the song "Green Green Grass of Home", I hoped to wake up hoping that the prison walls were just a dream. Turns out it was only a part from my unstable reality. From now on I was going to wear the shadow of shame above my head and have the title of cold-blooded murdered written on me everytime people would talk about me. Not how I planned my life out, but sometimes it goes just the way you don't want it to be. Everybody knows I killed Leanne in cold blood, without a trace of remorse. I don't. I thought I hadn't killed her. But I have.