Free The Heart Does Not Grow Back: A Novel by Fred Venturini

between his own. Streaks of blood carved dark ribbons in a smooth, white calf.
    My first live, sexual moment was watching my archnemesis fuck the girl I was in love with, hours after my best friend had described her skill at sucking dick.
    Another squeal. Then, a half cough that stopped abruptly, locked into a gag, the sound of Regina choking.
    “Shut up, bitch,” Clint said, the words leaking through clenched teeth. “You got this coming.”
    Rape, and rage was not my first emotion. I endured a moment of absolute shame that would never relinquish its power, thankful that he was raping her, that this wasn’t her choice. I could handle being a conquering hero, I could handle his fall, and I could handle her destruction as long as she hadn’t chosen Clint over me yet again. I sprang into action, but Mack was already ahead of me.
    If only he’d used the element of surprise, things might have turned out differently, but that wasn’t dramatic enough for Mack Tucker. “Let her go, you fuck!” Mack said. He grabbed Clint’s shoulder. I was jogging toward them, wanting a piece of the heroism. The gasp unclogged and she screamed—it was Regina, all right. The warbled cry of “Help me” shook me, echoing. It echoes still. And the blood—blood sticking to her ankle, dripping from her heel, too much blood for a simple broken hymen.
    Clint turned, a revolver in his hand, the barrel sticky with blood. The muzzle flashed and Mack twisted away from the shot as if hit by a meteor, corkscrewing into the ground. Clint, naked from the waist down, standing over him, pointing down at Mack, intent on firing a round into his head.
    I screamed out, “No!”
    Clint turned to me, his eyes hard and wild in his beaten face, the dome light a halo behind him as he raised the gun. The thickness and length of the barrel belonged to a .44, or something similarly punishing. Mack went down in a blaze of gristle, with droplets of blood and tissue creating a little puff that hovered as he fell.
    The barrel gazed at me and no life flashed before my eyes, no prayers, no slow motion, just the realization that Clint had shoved that barrel into her, tearing her, goring her in ways I couldn’t imagine, and the thought made me ready to die. I closed my eyes. The sound of the blast popped in my ears, then lingered as a metallic vibration, giving way to the sound of a struggle. The fact that I heard anything meant I was alive: bullets traveled faster than sound.
    I opened my eyes. Regina hung on Clint’s back like a wild animal, her hair frayed, the whites of her eyes big in the muted light. He tried to shake her, but she wasn’t budging.
    I charged him, hoping to blast a shoulder right into his midsection. I knew such a move would create an utter mess and a scuffle on the ground, but perhaps it would dislodge the gun, and with Regina and I both fighting him, maybe one of us could get the gun away.
    I was two strides away when he aimed behind his head and fired the gun into Regina’s eye. A quarter of her skull exploded, splattering on the dome light itself, blotting out the light. Sulfur and copper were in my nose, the warmth of her wound mixing with the harsh flavor of the spent gunshot. I finished my last stride, crashing into them, her limp body slamming into the truck, cushioning his impact.
    He sidestepped enough to shed me. I lost my balance, falling, and when I tried to get up, I was looking into the gun’s barrel. I saw the white of Clint’s naked legs and the wideness of his eyes. Nothing could save me. My hands came up to my face and the words “Please, don’t” came to me, but I swallowed them down, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He fired.
    The bullet went through the center of my hand, scattering three of my fingers and most of my ear into the night. Blood spurted from both wounds and the whir of the bullet’s sound echoed deep in my eardrum. Flashing dots paraded in my field of vision. My hearing dulled and I tried not to