Free Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde

This is a bad place for that to leave me. I feel the end of his gun, right in that little hollow at the back of my neck. Either the gun is shaking or I am shaking. I didn’t know I was shaking but maybe I am.
    â€œWhat have you got to say for yourself?” he says. His voice sounds different. He is scared and upset. I can hear this and feel this all, right now, and I feel sorry for him. “You tell me the truth, right now. Then we’ll go over what you say in court.”
    â€œI’ll tell the truth in court,” I say.
    Maybe he will hurt me for saying that. Or even kill me. But he already wants to put me in jail for all my life and that’s worse. That puts me even farther from Leonard. Nobody keeps me from Leonard. And, also, nobody gets my dignity.
    â€œOh,” he says. “Oh, you’re a cold-blooded little skank, aren’t you?”
    Right now, yes, my blood feels very cold.
    â€œHere’s what I see,” he says. “You came on to him, you lured him up to your place, laid him, shot him like a dog for his credit cards and the money in his wallet. Took advantage of a weakness in him. That’s what I see. A wife and three little kids at home. Three little orphans.”
    I think, who are you telling all this to? There’s nobody here but us. I think, that’s wrong. You’re not an orphan until both parents are dead. Leonard was not an orphan when his father got shot. I hope he won’t be by the end of tonight. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.
    â€œWhat about the guy who went down for this?” he says. He is sounding scareder now, talking in more of a hurry. “That Julius Banks. Was he the guy in charge? Did he force you to do this? If he did, you better tell me fast.”
    â€œLittle Julius didn’t have nothing to do with it,” I say.
    I wonder if he will go back now and let Little Julius out of jail. But he won’t. Still, he knows and I know that this is more or less okay, because Little Julius did lots of stuff he should go to jail for but just did not get caught. Now he got caught for something he shouldn’t go to jail for. It kind of works out in the long run.
    â€œWell, whether you like it or not, you’ll leave out what happened between you and Len when you go to court. His family is never to know. You lured him up there to rob him. That’s all there was to that.”
    â€œI’ll tell the truth in court,” I say.
    I’m not trying to make him mad. Not when he has the gun and all. But I will never have my sweet little boy thinking his mother would kill somebody for some credit cards and money. It will never end like that.
    â€œYou can’t say that to me,” he says. He sounds like he is so mad he doesn’t even know what to do with himself. Like he can hardly talk. “I got the gun.” He pokes the gun harder into that little hollow of my neck. I guess to remind me who’s got it. It hurts but I don’t say ouch. “You’ll do what I say. You got no choice.” He sounds like he will turn inside out if he can’t make me see that. If I won’t agree. I think he forgot to make a plan for if I won’t agree.
    â€œI got a choice,” I say. I choose not to let Leonard think I killed some guy on purpose for credit cards. No matter how upset it makes anybody. No matter what.
    â€œYou got to the count of three,” he says. His voice sounds like he is crying. I didn’t know big men cried. “I’m going to count to three.”
    â€œBenny?” The blond man is getting really scared. “Benny? You’re still just trying to scare her, right?”
    â€œI’m not letting her run this show. I’m not letting her hurt his family any more than they been hurt already. He wasn’t your partner. You in or out? You tell me right now. Whose side are you on?”
    â€œI got a kid nearly her age, Benny. Don’t let that