He waited beside the abandoned property—the one he knew she’d pass on her walk home from soccer practice that afternoon. He leaned against the rusted chain-linked fence then pushed himself up. He dipped backwards on his heels again, letting the fence bow and cradle his body, wondering if it would hold him or give way completely under the strain. It didn’t. He pushed himself to a standing position once more, and then leaned back again until he found a suitable rocking rhythm.
Time passed slowly, and he watched the corner of the street for her arrival. He didn’t consider that she may have driven to school today. That would ruin everything. He had to talk to her before she told someone. This morning was a close call—too close—and he knew eventually she’d squawk. He wouldn’t entertain the idea that she already had.
She rounded the corner and froze when she saw him. He watched her back pedal a few steps before hesitating, looking side to side for something. Someone. He didn’t know, but he was instantly angry at her sudden fear of him.
“Why?” he called to her.
She shook her head.
“Why are you afraid of me?”
She said nothing.
“You weren’t afraid of me yesterday when you came to see me at work. Remember? You brought me cupcakes, for Christ’s sake.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“What have I done, Regan?”
He pushed himself off the fence a final time and walked in her direction. To his surprise, she walked toward him, too. They met at the corner of the abandoned lot, and he watched her swing her soccer bag in front of her chest, positioning it like armor. What the hell did she think he’d do to her? Punch her in the gut?
“I know you learned about my tattoo,” he said. He wanted to get straight to it.
“You’re damn right I did,” Regan replied.
“How long were you at it?”
She snorted. “Too long.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I learned a lot more than I wanted to.”
“You still think I’m a lunatic planning to shoot up the school, don’t you?”
“Partial verse, Jer. Okay? That’s a partial verse etched into your back.”
Damn. She really did do some studying.
“And don’t tell me the other half wouldn’t fit. I’m not an idiot,” Regan said.
Jeremy shook his head slowly.
“You’re not asking God to avenge you. You wanna avenge yourself!” Regan cried. “Yeah, I figured that shit out! You lied to me! You made me believe you were some lonely, pathetic victim when all this time you still plan on MURDERING PEOPLE!!”
He instinctively grabbed her hand and hauled her toward the empty house. She dug in her heels.
“Let go!” she screamed.
He did when they were safely out of the street view behind the dilapidated screened-in back porch.
“Did you tell anyone?” he demanded.
She fumed. “Maybe.”
He lunged for her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her hard.
“Don’t play games with me!” he roared.
“Let go! You’re hurting me!” she cried.
He released her and backed away, spitting on the ground beside her feet.
“Did you tell anyone?” he asked again.
Silence.
“Regan . . .”
“No! Okay? I didn’t tell anyone! But I was planning on it!”
“Why didn’t you?”
Familiar conversation. He already knew her answer: “I was scared.”
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
He inhaled sharply then breathed out slowly, trying to expel his aggression. He chose his next words carefully.
“I knew I made a big mistake,” he began.
“Wha—?”
“Not telling you about my tattoo yesterday. I shouldn’t have let you go home and look it up. I should have known you’d freak out and start believing a bunch of garbage about me shooting classmates.”
“You said it was your motto! Do you even know what a motto is? I mean, do you have any idea the enormity of that word? And that’s the word you chose! You chose to tell me it’s your motto!”
He glared at her.
“I know what a fucking motto is,” he said.
“There! Right there you’re admitting you want to kill those people—”
“I do wanna kill those people!” he yelled. “I told you that already! I also told you that I’m not a killer! Yeah, I have the desire. Guess what? We ALL do! But I would never act on it! How many different ways do I have to convince you that I’m not planning anything?”
“But your back is telling me something else!”
“I got this tattoo over a year ago! When I was lonely and desperate and in need of something to make me feel strong! It’s got nothing to do with a school shooting!”
He turned his back on her and walked toward a shed on the far end of the property. Regan followed.
“Then please explain it to me,” she said softly. “I . . . I’m freaking out over here, Jer.”
“Don’t say my name.” The words were cold and distant, the way he needed them to sound.
She fell silent in an atmosphere of raw tension. She was offended, and he didn’t give a fuck.
He turned to face her. “I discovered that verse a few years ago and wanted to understand it. So I looked it up—” He paused and looked her over. “—exactly like you did last night.”
Regan dropped her bag and folded her arms over her chest.
“I liked the message of a powerful god avenging someone who’d been wronged. It seemed right to me. It seemed just. So I adopted the verse—” He paused again, deciding how much detail he wanted to share. “—but not in its entirety.”
Regan opened her mouth, but he cut her off.
“You’re maybe a little too smart, Regan,” Jeremy said. “You read waaaaay too much into the fact that only half the verse is tattooed on my back. It doesn’t mean I left God out of it. It doesn’t mean I plan to take my own revenge. All it means is that I wanted the first part of the verse tattooed on my back. That’s it.”
She screwed up her face in concentration.
“So, you don’t want to get back at your enemies, but you want God to?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Not anymore.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t believe in God.”
“But your tattoo . . . what does it mean then?”
“It’s just a desire to see justice done. Doesn’t mean I plan to dole it out. I’m just gonna let the universe take care of it.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Regan asked.
“Yes.”
“So what? You’re into karma now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think what goes around comes around?”
“I hope so.”
“You don’t sound very convicted for a guy who has permanent ink on his back,” Regan pointed out.