I stared deep into his cold blue eyes as Todd strikes my arm with his bloody, dirt ridden hands. I breathe slowly, holding back the screaming. He promised not to hit me if I didn’t try to leave again, but I couldn’t help it. Finally he shoves me onto the floor. I know what happens next, the kicking. I try to get up but it always ends the same way, the kick to the face. The blood slipping down my face, my eyes flushed with tears. But this time is different, he’s drunk, I can get away. I grasp the bat as he goes to kick me, as his green tennis shoe comes close to my scarred face; slam the bat into his legs knocking him on the burgundy floor. I slowly stand knowing the pain is done, and I can get away, but strangely, I don’t run, I just stare down at his body knowing I’ve finally won. I swing the bat down with all my strength, it crashes into his skull. I can hear the bones shatter before me, but I just continue to beat down on his brain the blood gushing onto the floor permanently staining it in a deep red.

His lifeless corps lies in front of me, as still as a fallen tree. The red blood gushes toward my feet; I begin to realize what I have done. I killed him, I’m free of all the beating and abuse, but with a price.

I grab Todd’s blood soaked hand and drag him out of the garage and into the garden. I dig a hole just large enough to hide the body. I roll him into the grave and begin to pour the dirt over his body. Todd’s blue eyes still stare at me, the same way they always have lifeless. I pound the dirt over his body assuring that no one will ever find him. I plant the tomatoes right over the dirt and adds some petunias, they were Todd’s two favorite plants.

I drag the shovel behind me heading for the house. The wind is restless; I can here it whistling through the motionless trees. Its calming to remember all the long nights laying, in the cold stiff grass after the beatings my arms and legs black and blue, and now to never have to lie in the cold grass.
As I reach the house, Sparky our yellow lab barks out the dinning room window at me. I walk through the garage door and see the mess I have created, I fill a bucket full of cold tap water and shower it on the blood, it slowly spills out the door and into the grass. I grab the bat and slide it back into the umbrella stand.

Sparky jumps on me as I walk through the wooden door, his tongue so slimy, covers my face with a thin layer of saliva. I push him off me and walk into the kitchen. I start to prepare our dinner. The knife cuts smoothly through the tomatoes. They sizzle as I place them in the sliver boiling pot. The carrots don’t cut as smoothly the crunching becomes so jarring I drop the knife on the floor. Sparky immediately licks the tomatoes off of the knife. I push him away and grab the knife and place it in the sink.

Sparky begins to bark as Sarah knocks on the door. I rush over to answer, trying to put a smile on my emotionless face.
“Hey! What are you doing here? come in, come in,” I say rushing her into the house.

“I thought I would just stop by to say hi, and to see how you’re holding up.”
“I’m good, I just started dinner if you would like to stay and eat with me? Todd is out of town today so it’s only me and Sparky. Speaking of Sparky where he is?” I say looking all around the kitchen.
“Oh, I must have let him out; do you want me to go get him, its starting to rain?” Sarah said with that innocent look on her face that always made me sick. She’s always been a goody two shoes. She would have sided with Todd if I told her the truth. She was always in love with him; she never cared about me, only Todd.
“Sure he’s probably in the garden out back,” say with a smirk of sarcasm on my face.

Sarah trudged out to the garden calling out Sparky’s name. She found him digging up something. Sarah pulled at his collar when she sees it the cold, pale, blood stained skin of a hand. She pulled Sparky away from the body and rushed him up to the house; tears began to run down her face as if they were drops descending from the sky. She was terrified of what she had seen; the cold lifeless body of her best friend’s boyfriend just laying in the dirt, his hand still clenched in a fist, and still as the wind and water flow through his fingers.

She pushed open the door, the cold air hitting my face as she stumbled in. The tears were dried on her face and I could tell at that moment she had seen Todd. And I knew she couldn’t leave, knowing that I had killed Todd. She wouldn’t side with me and I could tell. To her I was just another killer.

“So what was he doing out there?” I said walking back into the cold kitchen holding the long, sliver knife in my left hand.
“Oh, he was just digging like he usually does.” She said trying to put a smile on her bleak face. Since when does she think she knows everything about my dog? Even if she’s my best friend she has no right to start making accusations like that.
I began to cut the carrots slowly, but harshly getting louder and louder with every cut. I could see I was inducing fear on her and I loved it, he fingers tapping on the table nervously, biting the skin slowly off her lower lip. It was obvious something was wrong and I just couldn’t help but feel overjoyed.
I walked towards her and asked “So Sarah would you mine going upstairs and getting me some napkins were all out?” I smirked, trying to reassure that everything is ok but truly its not. How could it be? She’s going to stab me in the back, just like Todd she doesn’t care about me.
“Um, well I really have to go I have homework due tomorrow,” she said trying to grab her bag to leave.

“Why all of the sudden to you have to go? What’s wrong?” I asked walking towards her knife still in my hand but presently resting at my side. I can feel my hand grasping the knife tighter and tighter feeling the blade slightly with my middle finger.
“Nothings wrong Olivia! I just need to go home and gets some rest, you know?” Sarah answered me with the fakest smile I have ever seen, she was trying to get away from me. The fear seemed too hard for her to bear.
“Which is it Sarah, homework or sleep? Or maybe it’s me? Are you afraid of me? I said walking toward her, slowly stepping on the wood floor with my black boots making a slight clicking sound as they touched the ground.
Sarah grasped her bag in her right hand, her pink nails wrapped tightly around the handle. I continued towards her lifting my knife ever so slowly, letting her know that there would be no escape.
Sarah petrified, sprung up from her chair and bolted for the door getting faster and faster with each step, she was shrieking for help; like she always did, she is such a baby, she can’t even take dieing like a man.
As she got to the door I slammed her against it; her face pressed against the cold glass, creating a fog as she exhaled her breath. I slammed the sharpened knife into her back and continued to drag it down, allowing the blood to drip down the knife and onto my hand; every drop of her blood brought me closer to Sarah in a way we could have never bonded before.
Her screams were silenced, as I covered her mouth with my blood soaked hand. Her eyes slowly rolled back in her head as all of her blood gushed out of the giant gapping hole in her back. I pulled the knife out and let her drop to the floor. This is what she would have wanted to be dead just like Todd.
This time it felt different. The only reason I had for killing her was that she knew I had killed Todd, maybe if I would have talked to her about what hand happened she would have understood. Or maybe she would have just judged me and called the cops on me.
I grabbed Sarah’s cold dead hand and once again started to drag the body to the garden. Her eyes still wide open and she slipped through the cold, rain covered grass; I began to dig a hole right next to Todd’s putting all my force again into the shovel and into the dirt. I pushed her in the hole and she slipped down the side of the dirt wall, I grabbed the shovel and started covering her face with dirt. Her lifeless corps lies there pale as a ghost, still as a rock, and cold like the winters first frost. The dirt lies on her as if she was taking a nap. I sprinkle more dirt over her.
Her and Todd deserved what they got, the abandoned me, the made me feel as though my life was in their palms, when really I had the bat and they were the ball.