Free Wilson's Hard Lesson by K. Anderson Page A

but if that was the case then why wasn’t he
answering? He probably lost his phone. He loved her. He wouldn’t ignore her
calls. He loved her.
    She couldn’t think about the unthinkable, but also the most
obvious thing. He just used her for sex. All he wanted was to be with her that
one night, and he got it, and now he was toying with her. Her wailing sobs
shook the whole house. She pounded the walls and kicked the closet doors. She
nearly broke the window.
    She was going to have to find him and kill him. It was the
only way she would feel right again. Then she would leave Phyllis and go to
California by herself. She was still leaving no matter what, she just needed to
do it right this time.
    She was stupid to think that she could just enter his world.
He wasn’t right for her. He was a street kid, a punk and she was a nice girl.
She shouldn’t have trusted him. Nobody wanted to be with her, not with the way
her mother forced her to live. She was damaged.
    Marie plopped on the bed and closed herself off from the
world with her thin blanket covering her eyes. She blocked everything out in
the one place where she could feel comfortable. She sobbed into her pillow. She
never loved him. She couldn’t think about his sweet face or how he was with
her. She had to get that kiss out of her head.
    She fell asleep, but she knew that she wasn’t getting any
piece. Instead, she was leaving things behind for a while. Everything would
still be there when she got back, and that was the worst part about it. He’d
shown her how terrible her world was and then he pretended that he was going to
get her out of it. He was a cruel beast.
    She was dreaming because he was watching her sleep when her
eyes fluttered open. His sweet smile was right there. “Shh,” he said. “Let’s
go.”
    She sat up and looked around to clear her head, but he was
still there. She reached out to touch his face and she felt it, but it was a
lie. She laid back down on her pillow and said, “I wanna wake up.”
    “What do you mean? You are awake.” He laughed. “I’m right
here with you, Marie. It’s all over for both of us.”
    “You mean you’re leaving?”
    “No. How could you say that? I mean we’re leaving, and we’re
going to California. Do you have your things ready?”
    “Mama took my suitcase and put it somewhere. She tried to
slit my throat when she found the note I left for her.”
    “What? How bad is she? You think I can shoot the door down?”
    “Do it.” That was probably the most amazing thing she’d ever
been asked in her entire life. He bent down and pressed his lips to hers then
he got up slowly. She looked over at him and saw that there bandages on his
leg. “What happened?”
    “It’s OK. I got hurt.”
    “How?” She waited, thinking he would respond, but he didn’t.
Instead, he walked over to the door and pulled out a rifle. “Wait.” It was so
comfortable in his hands. He looked over at her then he sat down. “Now, I do
gotta know what I’m getting into and you gotta tell me before we leave.”
    “It’s hard.”
    “Talking is easy.” She didn’t beat around the bush. This was
too big. “Whatever it is, though, I just wanna know. I will always be with you
and I don’t take that lightly. You know that, don’t you?”
    “Yeah. I do.”
    “Well then what is it?”
    “I worked for some guys for a while, selling stuff, you
know?” She did know, and that wasn’t the end of the world, but more was a
little much.
    “They had me try and kill a guy to get out of the game, but
another guy shot me and I couldn’t make it. They let me out because I took the
bullet.” She sighed. She wasn’t completely ignorant. You’d have to be in order
to not understand what he was saying, and she loved him, but she had to be sure
that she was safe.
    “Do you have to talk to them still? Will they ask you to do
things for them?”
    “I have to call them every few months and let them know if
my number changes, but I want no