Love at Your Own Risk
by Chris Smith

Sitting in the woods behind her house, my ears hang onto every word she says, as if she’s God, delivering unto me the laws of the universe. This list of promises she’s made to herself. They are holy.

“Number 1:” she intones, “There is no God. You alone are most powerful in your life, so you can fly as high, or sink as low, as you please.” Complete, undeniable, and everlasting freedom is what it’s about.

We met at the movies one day, when a blind date stood her up. Fidgeting, she stood waiting for him, but I didn’t know that at the time. Wavy brown hair, slightly puffy lips, and titanium eyes, it was difficult not to stare. She was vaguely familiar, because everyone goes to the same school in this town, but we’d never officially met.

“Number 2:” she says. Her eyes are drilling into the paper, as if she’s trying to set it on fire. “If something is stolen, get it back. Then, punish them as you see fit.” Her eyes flick up to me for a moment, and linger. She once told me, in passing, that everything she has is a part of her, and if she loses something she feels incomplete. 

“What we’ve got,” I say, pointing back and forth between us, “is not going anywhere. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure of that.” She blinks, nods, and looks back down at the paper.
Note to self, don’t steal anything from her. 

Just watching her, chanting this list of promises she’s made to herself to uphold forever. I should make a list like that. 

“Number 3: Honor only those who deserve it. Social standing, age, or any other arbitrary title that a person holds is not adequate for the earning of respect.” 

The people that she respects can be counted on one finger. It’s the same number of people that like her in this undersized city. 

Most of the good, God-fearing folks also cheat, do drugs, and get blasted. She tags the church and the houses of repeat offenders. Sometimes I help her. It’s a bonding exercise for us.

Most people see her as mentally unstable. I love her, but I can sort of see where they are coming from. She spends a lot of time finding ways to destroy things and generally make life hell for everyone. If you go into her house, it’s a good chance you’ll find her mother passed out on the couch with a needle within reach. Don’t bother looking for her father. 

“Number 4:” she says, voice low in her seriousness, “always make time for yourself. Even if Jesus himself, the goddamn zombie, comes floating down on his cloud of magic, and the world drops into chaos, find time for some Yahtzee.” 

Did I mention she’s atheist? There are a few other kids in town that are in the same boat, but she’s the only one that is so outspoken. The others are too afraid to be associated with her, worried they’ll end up ostracized and disowned by their parents. 

And I’m a believer. But we don’t talk about that. Most people in town see my relationship with her as a desperate attempt to grab onto something secure in the wake of my parents’ death. 

“Number 5: Allow no one to slander your name.” It’s then that I figure out what this is. This list of things that she’s reciting is her personal Ten Commandments. Here, my darling rebel, who rails against all things God and religion, has just followed in the footsteps of Moses.

Her eyes meet mine. “There are more, but I’m going to save those for later.” She folds the paper and puts it in her pocket. Nodding, I watch her move to the small cooler with ice and soda, and grab two Pepsis. Passing me one of the bottles, she heads over to the bag and grabs a blanket, taking it out very carefully with her other hand in the bag. She tosses it to me, and I spread it out on the ground. She sits on the blanket and I follow her, sitting down and slinging my arm over her shoulders. 

“Those were nice, you know.” I squeeze her shoulder. “You never talk about how you feel about things. It’s hard to tell why you do things sometimes.” 

It’s strange, to be honest. The last time she talked like this, with any sort of introspection, was right before she got in a fight with her brother. It ended with him in the hospital. He left town, and hasn’t been heard from since. “What made you want to share that?” 

She just shrugs, her shoulder digging into my side slightly. An answer would be nice, but I let it go.
We sit there in the silence, the sounds of the world swimming into our ears, singing us a love song. Drinking our sodas, words don’t come, and the world drifts away. Eventually we lay down, and her head rests on my shoulder. 

The sun is going down now, and her hand comes up and taps my stomach. “Hm?”

Lifting her body off of me, she sits up and I catch a glimpse of her face before she turns away. There are tears running down her cheeks. My arm goes out and touches her shoulder as I roll into a sitting position. She shrugs it off, and gets up, heading for her bag. 

“Baby, what’s wrong?” She’s rifling through her bag, and I get to my feet. She spins around, and there it is. The end of my life, sitting chambered in a revolver. 

“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” My hands are up, like every other schmuck ever held at gun point. As if I’m going to Matrix this shit if she pulls the trigger. 

Her eyebrows are drawn tight, and she readjusts her hand, gripping the gun tighter. 

“Jesse,” I whisper, “whatever it is, we can work this out. Together.” 

Staring at the black hole at the end of the barrel, I could feel my life being sucked slowly into it, siphoned away into the next life. 

“It’s done now. You broke a rule, and it can’t be fixed. You’ve taken something from me, and there’s no way I can ever get it back.”

“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I shake my head. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I love you!”

My eyes wide and eyebrows draw together. My lungs aren’t working, and the air inside them is getting stale. It feels like a hand has grabbed my heart and is squeezing it. She can’t be serious.

“Don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand. This isn’t like a fucking chess set that you can just give back, damnit!” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. The one holding the gun. My feet move me forward, but the gun flies up again. Closer now, the abyss calls me, reaching out from the metal tube to grab at my soul.

Then she says it, choked up by the tears. “I love you more than anything else. You have no idea.” The tears are still pumping out and down her face, dripping from her chin.

“For the rest of my life, I’m going have a hole right here,” she points the gun between her breasts, “always reminding me that I’m incomplete. You took a piece of my heart.” 

“Don’t do this. Please let’s just talk about this.” 

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, her knuckles white on the trigger, squeezing tighter. The explosion of noise rocks my ear drums, and she crumples to the ground, gun never leaving her hand.

My feet are stuck. The ground won’t let them go, gravity holding tighter than usual, and I can only stare at her body, blood leaking from the hole in her chest. 

Somewhere deep inside me, somewhere in my chest, something moves, and rumbling out, too late to change anything, the words finally escape. 

“I love you.”