I wake up slowly, my eyelids lightly fluttering open as I process the near darkness around me.

“John?”

I stir a little at the sound of my name. I move to sit up, thinking it might be my mom waking me up for school but I realize I’m already sitting.

“John!”

The more insistent shout is what snaps me back to reality. I gasp as my head shoots up. My eyes bounce around the room, taking in my surroundings.

I’m tied to a chair at the head of what looks like a dining table in a dark room lit only by various candles placed around the table. At the other end of the table I see Chrissy, looking distraught.

“Chrissy?” What was going-

“Oh shit.”

It comes rushing back to me.

Chrissy and I had been driving after dark, hoping to take a late night swim in the nearby lake for her birthday. We had been listening to music, laughing together. I had gotten lost looking at her for a moment.

She was so beautiful when she laughed.

But I should have been focused on the road.

She lifted her head up and the expression on her face turned from one of happiness to one of dread as she yelled, “John, watch out!”

I snapped my head back to the road. There was a man standing just a few yards ahead of us. I pressed hard on the brakes, but it wasn’t going to slow us down fast enough, so I turned the car to avoid hitting him.

I must’ve drove the car straight into a tree because I have no memory of anything happening after that.

“Chrissy,” I manage to say. “What happened?”

“Ah, John.”

I quickly look to my right at the sound of a third voice. The figure in the shadows steps forward just enough for the light of the candles to catch his face.

“Welcome back.”

“Simon?”

He just grinned slightly as if I had said something funny.

“Surprised to see me?”

I open my mouth to say something in confirmation, but I pause as I realize… I’m really not. If anyone was going to kidnap me and tie me to a chair it would be him.

Not to say that I expected this in the slightest. I mean, I know Simon isn’t my biggest fan, but I never expected that dislike to go this far.

And why would he do this to Chrissy?

“Simon, please.” We both turn our heads to look at Chrissy as we hear her speak. “Please we’ll do whatever you want, just-“

“SHUT UP.”

The yell catches me off guard and I flinch. Simon’s face is now filled with a deep rage.

I focus my eyes back on Chrissy’s face. She looks terrified.

Despite being scared shitless (what was going on, why are we tied up, what is Simon doing here, is that a cake?) I swallow down my fear and take a deep breath.

“Simon,” I say slowly. “Just calm down. Whatever this is, we can talk this out.”

The words have barely left my mouth before I feel a sharp pain across my face, my head forced to the side from the impact.

I let out a gasp of pain, turning my head back so that I’m making eye contact with Chrissy.

Her eyes are wide with panic and she’s looking at Simon, not me. “No, no, please!” She’s begging, why is she begging? “Simon, please, whatever you want, just don’t do it!”

Don’t do what- oh.

Simon is holding a gun.

Fuck.

He grins, all of his teeth showing. “Whatever I want, huh?”

Chrissy nods. “Yes, whatever you want, I swear it!”

His laugh lacks any humor.

“I want you.”

I feel every muscle in my body freeze.

No.

No, no, no, anything but that.

I make eye contact with Chrissy, hoping to witness her tell him no, but instead she just looks at me, considering.

What is she doing?

“Chrissy,” I start talking before I can think better of it. “Chrissy, no, don’t worry about me, you cannot agree to that, he’s dangerous, look at-“

BANG.

I can’t tell if I temporarily lose my hearing, or if everything around me just goes silent after the gunshot. For a few moments it was pure quiet. Then I could hear my own breathing, shocked. Then Chrissy’s, terrified. Then Simon’s, angry.

I turn to my left and see a bullet shaped hole in the wall. Then I turn to my right and meet Simon’s eyes.

The rage in them is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

“Another word,” he says. “And the next one will go through your head.”

I stare at him in silence, not daring to break eye contact. He regards me for a moment before leaning back with a thoughtful look as though he’s just realized something.

“You don’t get it.”

I wait for him to elaborate. He chuckles a bit as if he finds my cluelessness humorous.

“She was mine for a long time.”

I inhale sharply, hold back everything I want to say for safety’s sake.

He continues talking.

“Our whole lives, we spent together. Neighbors from the get go, classmates in school. Every birthday since her fourth, we’ve spent together. It’s been the two of us through thick and thin. Through high school days, my parents divorce, the death of her dog, it’s always been us. But then…”

His eyes somehow get angrier and I suddenly acquire a whole new understanding of the term “if looks could kill”.

“…you came along. And suddenly, it wasn’t the two of us anymore. Because you just kept showing up. And then you two started dating and I got left behind. That was fine though right? Boyfriends are temporary but Chrissy and I? What we have? That’s permanent.”

He averts his gaze from mine as if it physically hurts to keep looking at me.

“So imagine my surprise when I ask Chrissy what the plans are for her birthday and she tells me she’s spending it with you.”

His words begin to mix with laughter, sounding slightly hysterical.

“And it was then that I knew that it was either me or you.”

He takes a deep breath and turns his gaze toward Chrissy.

“So Chrissy. Who’ll it be? Me…”

In a jerking motion he points the gun towards himself.

“… or him,” he says, slowly turning it to me.

I barely have time to register what he’s said before Chrissy is answering him.

“You!”

She sounds breathless, as if she just gave a speech instead of simply speaking one word. “You Simon.”

She looks at me apologetically as though she’s worried I would be angry. And maybe I would be in any other situation but there’s no room in my body for it. I’m too full of fear.

He grins, a toothy and crazed thing.

“Good choice.”

But the gun doesn’t move.

It’s still pointed at my head.

“In that case, it seems like we won’t be needing him anymore.”

It’s an odd thing, realizing you’re about to die. There’s so many things you realize you want to say, you want to do, but you just can’t.

I try to make eye contact with Chrissy but she’s too focused looking at Simon and pleading.

Simon just laughs. “Happy Birthday, Chrissy.”

I open my mouth. “Chrissy, I-“

BANG.