Pen Pal

I knew almost from the beginning that Kayla was it for me. Those eyes, you know? So pretty, but so sad.

It would take a while to find out what she was so sad about. By then, I’d told her about my father, about how abusive he was. About what I did to protect my mother from his violent rages.

About how I’d spent time in prison for it.

The judge was lenient because I was underage. My mother’s testimony helped, too, as did all the other witnesses the defense called to prove we were living in hell with that man.

But still. Facts are facts. I was a convicted felon. It isn’t pretty when you say it out loud.

The amazing thing? Kayla never judged me for it. She never looked at me differently. She didn’t let it come between us, when she had every reason to say, “Peace out,” and walk away.

She’d already been through so much. She didn’t need all my shit on top of it.

They say her husband was a genius. Brilliant, as if that makes up for anything. Like it’s an explanation and an excuse all in one. He was some big-shot mathematics professor at the university, brain like a supercomputer.

A supercomputer with a significant glitch.

Actually, two. Paranoid schizophrenia being the main one, and a king-size ego being the other.

You know what happens when you’re sick but too narcissistic to admit it?

You don’t take your fucking meds, that’s what.

Yeah. Then shit goes sideways.

Then you start doing things you might not normally do if you kept your shit under control. Say, for instance, taking a sledgehammer to every television in the house because you’re convinced the government is spying on you from behind the screens. Or maybe writing the same quadratic equation over and over in a notebook and telling your wife it’s the language of God that the refrigerator magnet that’s actually an angel in disguise has been dictating to you. Or possibly standing outside the local grocery store screaming at everyone going in that broccoli are aliens hiding among us and are plotting to take over the planet.

Michael and Kayla were married young. Before his illness got bad. Before the outbursts. Before the hospitalizations. Before all the money started going toward his care.

Before he kicked her so hard in the stomach, she miscarried their baby.

He thought she’d been impregnated by the alien broccoli. He thought he was saving her.

I cried when she told me that. I broke down and bawled because it was so fucking tragic.

Then she told me about how he’d been following her since the separation, and those tears dried up real fucking quick.

I wanted her to get a restraining order, but Kayla said that aside from the aforementioned kick—which, for obvious reasons, ended their marriage—Michael had only been violent with her once, many years ago. It was the day before their wedding. He lost his shit about some minor thing and grabbed her by the arm. He apologized, but it rattled her.

Looking back, she said, that was the first sign that something in his brain was changing. The initial clue that everything would eventually go so terribly wrong.

I wouldn’t have blamed him. Had he been on top of his meds, I really wouldn’t. Mental illness isn’t something you do to yourself. It’s not a choice. Your brain gets sabotaged by chemicals that are beyond your control.

What is in your control, however, is your response to the sabotage.

He was too proud to stay on his treatment plan. He thought he could handle his illness by himself. In his arrogance, he thought willpower alone was strong enough to conquer biology.

He was wrong.

Kayla paid the price for that arrogance. We both did.

But like I told her in my letter, it’s a price I’d gladly pay a million times over. Even if I had to do it every day until the end of eternity, I’d slice open my own veins with a razor blade and happily bleed myself dry.

There was no way I was going to live without her.

So dying for her was the only choice.

My mistake was that I thought my blood alone would satisfy the monster inside her husband’s head.

Unfortunately, he was more bloodthirsty than I imagined.