Short Story- "The Contract" (Part III)

“The Contract” (Part III)
By: Bucky Adams
PrisonerFan48@yahoo.com


I never expected for her to say that she loved me. Again, I was at a loss for words. Not for shock, but for emotion. I did not know how I was supposed to feel in this social situation. Like an actor without any cue cards. I waited for her to say something else, anything else.

She told me that’s what she had been realizing for a very long time. She couldn’t tell me that without her eyes getting watery. And when she told me that she had kept her promises for 13 years like I had done, I started to get a little teary-eyed also. It’s a good thing we were sitting in darkened corners.

When our server came to our table to check on us, she asked us what was wrong. I told her that nothing was wrong. We were just bonding with each other. The server then said she would leave us to bond, as she had other tables to check up on. It was just her and I in that corner by ourselves.

As I continued looking over the contract, she said softly, “What about the last one?”. The last thing on the contract that we promised each other was undeniably the most serious. Dying together on the same day. To us, there was nothing more serious than life and death. Most of the conversations we had were about that very topic, usually while we would hang out in graveyards. I was snapped back to reality when she repeated, “What about the last one?”.

I asked her what she thought of it. She confessed that it was part of the reason she left. She didn’t want us to be within physical proximity of each other when the year 2016 comes around. She did it to protect me, to protect us. But, the confusing part was why she returned. Why now? For something that is not going to happen for another six years.

I decided not to question her about it right now. If she wanted to tell me, she would. And she did. She asked me if she and I could alter the contract. I wondered if that would be a good idea, or even if it would be ethical. We didn’t alter any other part of the contract. So, my main thought was why would she want to alter it? What would she change it to?

It turns out that her last few years were not so different than mine. She also had trouble finding someone to connect with. She also wandered alone. And that was part of the reason she returned. But, I was wrong about why. She wanted to change the date of our last promise. She didn’t want to push the date ahead, she wanted to pull it back. And I was confused as to why.
Depression seemed to have hit her hard. She told me that I was the shining light in the shroud of darkness that was her life. She had no reason to keep living her life, she had nothing to live for. No friends, no job, nowhere to live, so she came back to me so that she had somewhere to die. And she told me that she had a dream that we went back to the graveyard and died together, side-by-side.

When we left the diner, we walked around aimlessly just talking about life and the afterlife all over again. She asked if I would still be willing to end her life. When I initially made the promise, I meant every word. But, I’m not so sure how much of it I meant when she came back. Things were different then. But, after all the years that have passed, she wasn’t.

It wasn’t planned, but we ended up standing in front of the graveyard. I think memories of the past hit us hard, because we both stood still and stared for a good few minutes. She then turned to me and said, “You wanna… for old time’s sake?”. So, we both bolted to our spot, and laid down, looking up at the sky, while her head rested upon my stomach. We spent a long time just talking softly with one another, mostly about how important and how much of an impact altering the contract would be. While I was not really close to anyone, there were people I my life.

If I had suffered as much as I did with very few people in my life, it made me wonder how much more she had suffered with absolutely no one. No family, no friends, no acquaintances. No one to notice her existence, except me. I guess at that point in time, I was the most important person in her life.

She stood up and said, “Should we meet back here tomorrow for our final act?”. Final act? What did she mean by that? I replied, “Sure, I’m loving our time together”. I was still lying on my back as she left. I was wondering where she would be moving to this time. I figured I would ask her when we met up again.

The next morning, I woke up after a restless night. I don’t know why, but I didn’t sleep well. When I got to the graveyard, I was still rubbing my eyes. It took me a while to really wake. I saw that she got there before me. She was on a headstone, clutching a shoebox. I wasn’t sure how long she had been waiting for me. As I embraced her, she began to cry.

“It’s time” was all she chose to say begin with. She opened up the shoebox and I saw two guns inside. She took one out and handed it to me. She took the other one out and said, “Welcome to the final act… our final act”. I could feel fear in her voice. She pulled out the contract and handed it to me. I opened it and saw that she had changed the date of our last promise to today’s date. She had signed her name next to the change and asked for my signature also. I signed it so the contract would be complete. So, it would be official.

We both stood about ten feet away from each other. She raised her gun and pointed it at me. I raised mine and pointed it at her. She then said, “Farewell, my Romeo”. As I was replying back with, “Farewell, my Juliet”, it started to rain. She noticed the rain and lowered her gun. I noticed something about her that I never noticed before. She loved the rain. She spun around gleefully as the rain showered over her. If she didn’t have the gun in her hand, it would have made the most beautiful image.

But, what worried me was the fact that still had the gun in her hand. I was still holding the one she gave me also. I don’t know why. I don’t think I could shoot her now. Although, it was her ideal way to die, in a graveyard, while it was raining. It seemed weird that she was smiling. She just seemed so happy at this point.

Then, out of nowhere, she moved the gun and positioned it in her mouth. There was a loud bang before I could even do anything. And her body fell to the ground . I stood in shock for a few minutes as this turn of events took me by surprise. Some of the things I did next I wasn’t too proud of. Like how I got rid of the guns. A couple of coffins have a little extra added. But, I left her body there, as it was.

I think she always knew that I would breach the contract. And she went to great lengths to prove so. Does it make me a bad person that I broke the contract? Does the fact that my gun was empty mean that she intended for me to live all along? Was this all just some weird test to her? She left me again for the last time. I wonder if, over time, she would forgive me for breaching the contract.