Please, God, if there is one, let me go home. Renee is an amazing woman— she’s good looking, witty, charming… she’s too good for me.

Renee invited me over so we could work on a craft idea that we’ve been discussing, but as she sits close to me (too close)… hot glue strings on her hands, blonde hair haphazardly pulled back, paint on her clothes…

She looks divine.

“How are you doing over there?” She asks, without looking up from her painting.

My hands fly around my work area, trying to look busy. “We’re doing.”

She laughs softly to herself. “Thank you again for agreeing to help out,” her hazel eyes pierce my soul as she looks up. “Though I must admit, I didn’t invite you just for some arts and crafts.”

“Then— then why?” I manage to sputter. Smooth, Jade. Real smooth.

“Don’t get me wrong—“ she starts, “I do enjoy doing these types of projects with you.” Renee clears her throat, and looks away. Are her ears always that red?

“I enjoy doing a lot of th- things with you,” she finally continues. “I like walk- walking along the beach with you—“ her hands move all around, gesturing this way and that, “—gossiping about our coworkers.”

Oh no.

Please stop talking.

She continues to speak and gesture through a fit of nervous giggles, “I like going to the rich people mall with you just to- just to make fun of their stupidly expensive clothes.”

She inches closer to my workspace on the floor.

With a trembling out stretched hand, she reaches for my own. It’s easy to look down and see our matching nail sets. It would be easy to imagine that we are as good of a match as our nails.

“And… if I’m reading the situation right,” she breathes out, like she’s pushing the words out of her lungs, “so do you.”

Renee is right. I do enjoy all of that. I can sense what she’s about to say before she even takes in the air to say it:

“Would- would you want to be my girlfriend?”

I shut my eyes. Her face looks as if it was carved from a Greek sculpture. I can’t bear to see it anymore.

There’s nothing I want more than to be with her.

But saying ‘yes’… that’s something I will never be able to say to that question.

I pull my hand back as I stand up and turn around. My hands seem aimless, grabbing at my hair, my neck, my clothes. Anything to fill the other half that I’ve just ripped away. “Renee—“

“It’s ok,” she interrupts. “I understand.”

I hear her stand as I whirl around to face her. “No, trust me, you don’t.”

Her eyebrows furrow like they always do when something confuses her. “You can tell me straight up, my feelings won’t be hurt,” she comforts.

I can’t tell her ‘straight up’. I can’t tell anyone. No one can ever understand. “I need to go.”

Shoving my things into my bag, I rush out of the door as fast as I can. Leaving her behind. Like I have to leave everyone behind.

If she knew who I really am, she’d be disgusted. She would scorn me.

There’s only one option left.

I run to my car, fumbling for the ignition, and take off like a bullet train to get back to my apartment. I race up the stairs to grab my suitcase.

Packing everything of value I can as tightly as I can into the suitcase, my gears start turning. I need a way to disappear.

It’s not the first time I’ve done it.

Once everything has been packed, I take out a knife, specifically I took from my bitch of a neighbor, carefully. With gloves. I handle it with such care, I can’t mess with the DNA.

I grab the bags of my own blood from my fridge and dip the blade of the knife in in before throwing it on the floor.

Remembering my forensics class, my splatter the bag of blood in such a way so it looks like it came straight from my body.

I grab the journal that accounts for all my crimes, the one where I’ve written in a style and font that is a carbon copy of my neighbor’s. I sneak in through the window while he sleeps, and slip the journal in one of his drawers.

Once I’m out of his house, I grab a black hoodie and do funky makeup as fast as I can to make me look as different as I can.

I’m running out of time. It’s 2am, and I need to be clear out of town.

I leave my apartment door cracked as I leave and book it as fast as I can till I find a car several streets down that I can Hotwire.

One could say that me trying to make amends went well— too well.

I made the sister of a girl I killed years ago fall in love with me.