To All The Boys I've Killed Before

[Carlisle]

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from Smile at Truth in the Name of Lies]

Her breathing shallowed as she struggled against the emancipated reality.

It was a lot to take in.

A horrendous load to swallow.

She was a murderer.

Julia Guercio, seventeen years of age, born in New Jersey now living in Massachusetts. Loving middle sister. Professional try-hard and wannabe doctor.

A killer.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. The eulogy above she carried at the start of the week was complete as it was. She didn’t want any criminal add-ons, any of the sharp undertones of judgement that riddled her memory. She had suffered that gaze when she laid eyes on Matthew, Monica and Shaun. Even Victor had changed the way he looked at her, a shared perplexity of uncertainty, fear, hatred. Unwarranted jabs against her character.

Her whole identity had been stolen by her own treachery, the pain she had caused this week burned in her eyes like brutal strobe lights.

THUD.

The heaviness of each impact the rock had made into Przemek’s disfigured face.

BANG.

The tightness of her spineless fingers gripping down on the trigger of her soulless weapon.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

The effortlessness of the bullets as they ripped Victor’s flesh in to a million ricocheted pieces.

Silence.

The nothingness that followed as Victor collapsed weightlessly to the ground.

First down to his knees.

That final exasperated stare on his face as he felt the disillusionment of his last moments. Much like with Przemek, his helpless glance had left unbearable scars on Julia’s mind. The slight drop of his jaw as if ready to speak his final words, yet only the acidic taste of defeat tattooed to his tongue surfaced. The inward roll of his eyes, the focus in his pupils drained like the chasms of blood from his veins as the metal of each striking bullet dismembered his screaming organs, his groaning muscles, his chipped bones.

Then with an uncomfortable harshness, he had slid down to the floor. A slight bounce in recoil as he buckled under his weight.

The emptiness Victor must’ve felt in that moment reciprocated in Julia as the adrenaline numbed each of her senses. A hollow emptiness overcoming her as she quickly realised just what she had done. She had doubted her capability to follow through with her slaughterous plan, everybody doubted her strength to actually fight for her own life. For her survival. No questions could be asked this time. It was way too late for that. She had proven everybody else wrong, even herself.

You could argue relentlessly with Julia that she had become a killer two days sooner, when she had extinguished what little expression was left Przemek’s his face. But Julia couldn’t stomach that unfortunate reality, it was far more disgusting than the crushed plateau of his skull, enough to churn the strongest of stomachs to a heave. On that occasion she did what she had to. She had no choice of the matter; it was an act of grace in the face of the barbarity of the stalking imaginary gods. No. That one wasn’t murder. Przemek’s death didn’t make her a killer. Even if the sadistic freaks that followed this shit wanted to grace her with some imaginary best kill prize, that didn’t mean she actually killed him. It was a deep-rooted sense of denial, an irrecoverable plague of delusions.

However this time she had no excuse. Plain and simple, she was a killer. She so deeply wanted to battle against that sour taste of truth until she was blue in the face, but even Julia knew that this time no amount of convincing herself that she was still pure and innocent would remedy her disease. There was no grey area this time, no buts that she could fire at any nay-sayers. It was crystal clear what she had done. Even the terrorists wouldn’t be able to call her out as cowardly this time. Her heart dreaded what malicious comment they were drafting up as she woke up.

She had believed that killing Victor would bring positive waves of emotion. Perhaps a relief that he was no longer out there hurting people, a satisfaction that Ashlee and Karen had been avenged, even a kindled joy that justice had been served at her hands. She had thought so much about that moment over the past few days, what it would feel like in the moment. The baneful rush of hatred making an arrogant resurgence this morning when Karen was named as his second victim. Since then, you could even say she had obsessed over it, her awkward encounter with Karin guiding her towards this malice. Every thought distracted by that surging storm of anger, of rippling bloodlust that Victor had to pay for what he had done.

Yet why didn’t she feel good about it?

None of it. Not herself, not Victor, not the vengeful purpose that it had given her.

Instead there was just emptiness. Immediate regret at what she had done was coupled with the acidity of her unforgivable act, an instant longing to turn back the clock and take it back. A painful lump emerged in her throat as she realised her reputation was permanently tarnished, that she had proven bloody Karin Harin of all people right. That she was the bad guy. She had tried throughout her life to not be that person, instead to be the good girl. It didn’t matter that nice people finish last, she was happy to take last position if it meant that people didn’t throw sticks and stones. Unfortunately, those days were over and the setting sun in the dusk of night juxtaposed the dawning of her fears. Her glass house had well and truly been smashed. The unbridled facade of strength had slipped like a mask torn from her face.

Eventually the ringing in her ears subsided leaving a gentle muffle lingering on. But the bigger burden of the thunderous applause, a distorted reaction to her deed, had retreated.

Blood slid down her hand before tangling under the cracks in her finger nails, lucky droplets making a bid for freedom diving to the ground and splattering against the sides of her shoes. A startling fuzziness of pain emerging from the shadows behind her adrenaline. Julia instinctively dropped her weapon as the realisation of pain flooded her limb.

A hopelessness cursed her as she fell limply to the ground, overwhelmed more by the reality of what just happened rather than any dramatic reaction to her injury. She perched there, amongst the broken furniture, sat in the dried blood stains from an earlier conflict, on the cold ground just like Victor who remained motionless beside her, tangled up in the mess that remained of his corpse. Sleeping with the other body that littered the floor. She used her other arm to hold the bleeding cut on her hand. It didn’t look like a bullet hole, maybe an injury caused by the recoil of her assault rifle, perhaps the scrape of one of Victor’s bullets that he had sent scorching in her direction. Julia took a few moments to bandage up her hand, stinging herself with a pour of the saline disinfectant.

What was supposed to happen now? Vengeance had been served, revenge accomplished. Yet no relief came from this act of revenge. The strength she had prayed for symbolically representing her insurmountable weakness. What sort of doctor kills people? That’s literally the opposite of what a doctor is meant to do, the opposite of what Julia wanted to achieve even though her paranoia had cast aspersions and played manipulative tricks on her.

Julia, like many her age, had pictured her future countless times. The pride of wearing that long white medical coat, the future of wealth, love, happiness. The typical rose-tinted dreams of a normal teenage girl, farfetched illusions of a whirlwind relationship with some hotshot pop star, or better yet a Jonas Brother. Enough money to look after her parents and her family. One child, no probably two. Maybe three was the lucky number. A nice big house with enough bedrooms for everybody to stay. That she all been shattered. Burned into oblivion. Even the wishes for a normal, happy life that had been imprinted on her aspirations were dead and gone now. There was nothing normal about her life anymore, her destiny wasn’t meant to be this. It was meant to be a long and prosperous. She couldn’t help herself. Julia cried, almost hysterically, at this conclusive turning point in her life. She wallowed in the self-pity following Victor’s demise.

Julia wasn’t even sure she would recognise herself in the mirror.

What was she supposed to do next?

Where was she meant to go?

Who would ever trust, ever love, even respect her now?

All good questions with no immediate answers.

She left the hunting lodge bar disorientated, stumbling around looking for somebody to save her. Lost, only the searing agony of an Einstein quote that haunted her mind for company.

“Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.”

It seemed to be the cause of her own undoing, a wilting flower of regret in the snow.

Nowhere to go.

Nowhere to be.

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued in Live Deliciously]