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The first time it happened, she was drunk.

Kissing in his bed, hands locked on his face, how difficult would it be? Phone on the bedside, the password his year of birth and high school jersey number and all she’d have to say was that he was going to spend a few days at her place. His roommates would be disappointed but not surprised. Break your heart, break your heart, that girl’ll break your heart. But none of them would count on this, no one would notice until he didn’t call his father or the unfamiliar smell of human death crept into every reach of the apartment. Keys in his pocket, cutting into her thigh, she could take them and head for the coast. Head for the border, even, and slip away. If she got caught, she’d claim she had no idea what was happening when it happened. If she got caught, she’d smoke cigarettes in prison and cut her hair short. If she got away, she’d never think of him again.

She bit until she tasted blood, and then rolled out from under him, feigning exhaustion, wondering what was wrong with her.

The second time it happened, she was cruel.

Pressed against her kitchen counter, thoughts on the laundry roiling in the dryer, bored with the way his lips pushed overeager into hers. Just leave, just leave, just leave me she wanted to say. She knew she’d speak the words to her empty apartment once she left: I haven’t loved you for a very long time, if I ever did, and you are not the one. Sitting on her kitchen counter, his height for once, back sometimes nudging against the block of kitchen knives behind her. Just one swift movement, back and forth like a dance step, and then she’d see shock written across his face with the serrated bread knife in his chest. Just one swift movement, grab the knife, push it in. His keys still in his pocket. She could cover his mouth with her hand or with her own when she did it, swallow his scream, leave his body on her floor for the sweet landlord to find and marvel at. She’d be sitting on a beach somewhere, speaking Spanish, blonde maybe, with her lips painted red. No one would ever find her. If they did, she’d go out in a blaze of glory. If they did, she’d never come quietly. If they didn’t, she’d marry a man with strong hands and raise his sons.

She pushed him away, and then got as far from the knives as she could, scared of the way her thoughts were moving.

The last time it happened, she was just tired.

Again his lips. Again his fingers, reaching, pulling, tugging. Again her thoughts turned black at the height of it. Were they voices in her head, or was it just her own voice? Shove his cartilage into his brain, smother him in his sleep, bash his head in with the heavy bookend on the shelf, so close to you, less than a foot away. Tongue on her tongue, but she freed hers and pushed away. I don’t love you, and maybe I never have. I don’t want this, I don’t want you. You are suffocating me and I think I might just die of it, I might just. Please, please, I can’t do this anymore. The shock written on his face. The broken flop of his neck as he ducked to keep her eyes from his. His blood all over her hands, and her talking to a corpse of a man whose heart she’d torn. Vicious, vicious, she should have used the knife. But no one would capture her now, no one would lock her away or riddle her with so many bullet holes, you could see the light shine through her ribs like a new constellation.

She made her fingers into a gun, pointed at his retreating back, and whispered, bang.