• tab “Kiss me like you mean goodbye,” he held to me tightly, and I could only begin to imagine as to what it was that he was thinking when he looked at me that way. I’d seen the look a thousand times before, it seemed, even though we had only known each other for the shortest span of time. It was strange – everyone had told me so many things about him… how he wasn’t what I thought he was, how I needed to stay away from him. I don’t know why I couldn’t listen to them, I’d even asked him before, and then directly after I’d given the softest of laughs and shook my head. ‘I’m wrong, aren’t I? They’re wrong, I mean. I’ve never really believed them. I couldn’t – you love me, you wouldn’t do that.’ I tilted my head back with these thoughts, lifting my lips to his to oblige the request that he had just given. It was a scorching kiss – after all he had told me to kiss him as though it were goodbye, as though I would never get to hold him to me again. How else would I kiss him, then? No, it had to be full of passion, full of the emotions and feelings that I had and would always have for him – like I meant goodbye, like this was the last thing that I would ever manage to convey to him. If that was the truth, then I wanted it to be the most memorable kiss that he ever experienced.

    He didn’t respond for a moment, but then his strong arms came up and around me, holding my slender, small body tightly against his own. I’d always found the difference in our sizes to be so tantalizing – he truly towered over me… I was small and childlike in comparison to him. Being held in his arms was like being engulfed in some great, vast ocean… thick blankets of comfort that were pulling me down, stretching around me and protecting me from the rest of the world. My eyes slowly opened after the kiss, though I could still feel the press of his lips against my own; I pulled back, letting the slightest smile light my face. “I love you,” It was simple – it was the truth. It was the first time that I had ever uttered such words to him, and I suddenly found myself nervous as to whether or not he was going to say it back. Did he feel the same? I didn’t know what I would do if he didn’t…. the world as I knew it would fall and crash around me – it would be like he had torn out my very heart to take as a prize for himself… surely he wouldn’t do that to me? We’d been seeing each other for over a month… in secret, of course. No one had approved after our first meeting, so we had both decided that it would be better to meet in the shadows, on the weekends when my parents were away and wouldn’t know any better than to check on their only daughter.

    His eyes widened in pure delight, as though he had been waiting for me to say that all along. Something began to wash through my body – a feeling that I had never experienced with him, though I had been warned of it more than once. There was something wrong with the way that his eyes looked now… they were usually the warmest of browns, but just now they were darker… black and shining as though he were some predator staring at me. His arms around me tightened, constricting me until I could hardly breathe. He leaned forward slowly, the strands of his black hair falling across his cheeks as he did so… for a moment, he just inhaled, as though he were gathering in my scent. Then, in the softest of voices, he whispered against my ear, “All those times you thought that you were wrong?” And he hesitated – my mind instantly knew as to what he was talking about… all of the things that I had been told by my friends, all of the times that I had second-guessed for only a moment about what his motives might be. After all, I was so much younger than him, completely plain and ordinary in comparison to his astounding looks… what would he want to do with me… but I’d always said that I was wrong, that he cared for me. I looked up at him now, my eyes widening, pleading with him… “Stop it… please, you’re scaring me!”

    He didn’t stop – in fact, my pleading just made his dark eyes widen further. His grin turned predatory and I watched him lean back. One arm slipped from around me, but my struggles were useless… even with only one arm to restrain me, he managed to hold me against his chest as he drew a knife from his pocket. I’d seen him holding it more than once, even asked to touch it myself. It was inlaid, a black hilt with ruby jewels in it… in the shape of crisscrossing spider webs. He lifted it now, and I caught the glint of the blade before it suddenly darted forward. I felt it slip across my throat, felt the searing pain as that sharpened, honed blade split the skin. The softest of gurgles spilled from me as I tried to draw a breath through my damaged throat. Warmth spilled down my front, staining my gray tank top as my own blood painted my chest… I lifted my fingers, touching my throat and feeling the wound… and when I shifted my hands away, I saw the red painted there. I looked back up at him in horror, as though I couldn’t believe what was happening. This was all some cruel joke! It had to be… he wouldn’t… he couldn’t…

    He arched one brow and chuckled, stepping back. The spray of my blood had left a spattered pattern across his chest. Even though I knew that he had been the one to do this to me… that he had planned all along to do this to me… my small hands still reach for him, clinging with the strength that was slipping away… slipping so far away. The world was slowly fading and blackness ate at the corner of my vision. I couldn’t see anymore, couldn’t feel it as I hit the ground with a harsh thud. The only thing that I heard… the last thing that I heard… was his voice floating to me in the darkness.

    “You were right.”


    ~~~


    Said the Spider to the Fly lyrics belong to The Paper Chase:

    Said the Spider to the Fly

    Spider:
    I want your head.
    I want your wicked parts.
    I want to wring out your evil thoughts.
    I want to eat out your bitter heart.
    I want your soul to sing six words harmony
    Of all the pigs that might tempt me.
    I know you're sick alone and I’m telling everyone everything.
    So scratch it on the wall of your coffin on your sick day home:
    "And when your lover loves to cheat there's another you can meet
    It’s a short pier, it's a long walk home"
    You gotta show me where it hurts,
    There’s a beast and a burden
    Kicking, spitting on your bathroom floor.
    This is your life this is your life and
    When I’m done it's over a little bit more.

    Good things die all the time,
    God bless your heart, vengeance is mine.
    "Kiss me like you mean goodbye," said the spider to the fly.
    When all those times you thought that you were wrong, you were right.

    Fly:
    So if I fight the good fight will hairlines recede?
    Will lines deepen in face to craft a look of defeat?
    I feel the end is near my little Monday night whore,
    My little Saturday night became a Sunday remorse.
    When it's all over America,
    The Godless game show heathens.
    This is your life, this is your life,
    At last my good friend we are even.
    I know I’ll never lose an arm, never stay up staring at the phone.
    I'll never rot up with disease don't you bury me and leave,
    Don’t you leave me in the ground alone.
    You gotta show me where it hurts, never creamate me to burn,
    Never chop me up and throw me to sea.
    You’ll never have to find the words they come spilling unrehearsed,
    But you and I will never find that peace.

    Good things die all the time,
    God bless your heart, vengeance is mine.
    "Kiss me like you mean goodbye," said the spider to the fly.
    When all those times you thought that you were wrong, you were right.

    Good things die all the time,
    God bless your heart, vengeance is mine.
    "Kiss me like you mean goodbye," said the spider to the fly.
    When all those times you thought that you were wrong, you were right.