Instinctively, Luke takes a step forward as if to shield me. The man is no more than ten feet from us.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say quietly to Luke. I’m terrified. I step back and tug on his hand.
Without warning, the man reaches around his back, up and under his jacket, his right hand emerging heavy.
He has a gun.
I shiver as I describe this part to my mom, and she moves to the very edge of the couch so that she can touch my knee for support.
My cell phone buzzes as a text comes through, and I know without looking that it’s Luke. I ignore it.
“Go on, it’s okay,” she encourages me.
I tell her that the man points the gun at us and holds it steady. Of course the murderer has a gun. How could we be so stupid?
“I can’t let you leave now, can I?” the man asks, eyes narrow and dark.
He takes another step, gun still pointed, and Luke must know what’s coming, because at that moment, he does something heroic. Or stupid.
Luke drops my hand, shoves me away toward the mouth of the alley, and shouts, “London, run!” at the top of his lungs.
And I try.
But the bullets stop me.
My mom’s hands are covering her mouth now as I tell her the rest: the world going silent after the shots stop; the rhythmic footfalls of the man fleeing the scene; the minutes when I believe I’m dying, lying faceup staring at a starless city sky. The guttural groans that pull me from my trance and drag me toward my dying boyfriend.
I pause to take a few deep breaths and then tell my mom about Luke’s final moments. No last words. No sentiments. Just Luke, gasping for air, raw terror in his eyes.
42
I blubber my way through the end of the story, nose running, eyes overflowing, shoulders heaving. It’s contagious, and my mom and I cry together for the past and the future.
When there are no more tears, my mom startles me by standing and slapping her thighs as she rises.
“Get up,” she commands me. I am now so buried in the cushions someone might mistake me for furniture.
“Get up, London,” she says again.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Yes, you can,” she says, leaning over to help me. When she finds one of my hands, she grabs tight and tugs. I can’t help but stand.
“You were right, we need to go to the police,” she says, drying my cheeks with her hands. “You were right. We need help. We’re going to fix this.”
“It’s so huge, I don’t know if we can,” I murmur.
“We can,” my mom says, in a voice so strong I almost believe her.
She leaves me standing alone in the center of the living room for a moment and then zips back into the room, keys in hand.
Before I have time to think about it anymore, my mom is pulling me toward the car.
“Let’s go.”
One good thing about living in a small town is that it’s possible that, way back in high school, your mother was friends with the man who is now police captain. It means that he might listen to you when others might not.