The Witness

The Next Morning

The Next Morning

Dakota found my note, after everything. It only made her start crying again. Neither of us slept a wink last night. I couldn't sleep because I was afraid she'd change her mind and kill me. She couldn't sleep because she almost killed me.

We just sat on my bed in silence.

"I don't get it," I finally said.

She looked at me.

"I saw you kill someone, you stabbed me. Now you don't want to kill me?"

"I'm not a monster." She said softly.

"You laughed at me when the cop almost stopped us."

"I was kind of in shock, going out of my mind because of what I just did. I wasn't laughing at you, I was just laughing in general, that I got away with it. I was just happy." She explains.

"So what? Now you've had time to reflect and realize you made a mistake?" I ask.

"Do you want to die!?" she looks at me incredulously.

"I'm just trying to understand what's going on. I don't want to get hope that you're going to let me go if you're just going to gather yourself and kill me later."

"I'm not letting you go."

"So what does that mean?"

"Going to jail for the rest of my life wasn't the plan." She got up and paced around the room.

"Maybe you shouldn't have killed someone then," I mumble.

"If I let you go, I know for a fact I'll get caught."

"So then we circle back to killing me."

"Antonia deserved everything she got. I don't feel bad for killing her, but I admit for a moment I did lose myself. I'm not a killer. You never did anything to me, you're a decent person, as far as I know, trying to find a reason to justify killing you is proving to be impossible."

"So you're just going to keep me locked up here forever?"

"I don't know! All I know is I couldn't do it, if I do that... what do I become? Am I just as bad as Ted Bundy or Richard Ramirez? When does it end? If I kill you and someone sees me disposing of your body, do I kill them too? When will enough be enough?"

All good points but none of them are my problems.

"I don't think you're a bad person," I say.

She stops pacing and looks at me.

"You can let me go, I swear I won't tell. I'll make up some bullshit story, I'll say I jumped out of the car and hit my head. That I have amnesia. Or we can go to the police together, tell them everything. They could give you a deal and you'd be out of prison in like 15 years. They'd understand."

She shook her head no.

I sighed.

"I'll think of something." She said.

"Say, hypothetically, you do end up losing yourself again, are you going to kill me?" I ask.

I look into her eyes for truth and we stay locked in each other's gaze for a long time before I say in a pleading whisper,

"I don't want to die."

Her eyes water and she says, "I know."

I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on them.

She got back on the bed and moved to sit next to me.

"I just want this nightmare to be over," I say into my legs.

"That makes two of us."

"When you kill me, I don't want to know it's coming. Poison my food or shoot me in the back of the head. I don't want to see it coming."

She places her hand on my shoulder and I just break down, finally unable to hold it back anymore. Death is easy, in death all of this mess would be behind me. I'd be on to better things. I'd be at peace. I'd rather be dead than keep living through this nightmare. Death may be scary, but it's also easy.

I just feel so frustrated. I'm still alive, and because I'm still alive that means it's not over. It means I still have to figure out a way out of here, a way to get through to Dakota, it means death is still lingering. That any moment could be my last. Living like this, it's awful. I've never been so stressed in my life.

Dakota broke down on me last night, now it was my turn.

She pulls me into her arms as I cry like I've never cried before. Just cries of pure frustration and anger and helplessness. Never in my life did I wish I was blind until then. If I was blind, I would have never witnessed a murder and I wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

Being so close to death really does something to someone's mind.