Swipe of Fate

Chapter 20

You all have lasted 20 chapters, so congratulations and thanks for being part of the journey so far.

I made sure I looked beautiful for the last time I would have dinner with Max. It was the last time anyone would have dinner with Max. 

I suspected he wouldn't tell Zoe we were eating together because of her insecurity. Maybe he wouldn't tell anybody. All the boys, with their stinted emotional capabilities and desire to be around sexually appeasing women, made killing them so easy.

I wouldn't lie and say I didn't wonder if I was going too far by killing Max. 

You had to remember. I truly had loved this man, and there were residual feelings from that still present in my heart. 

But I knew it was the logical choice to kill him, as crazy as it sounded. I didn't want Zoe to become me, and I didn't want to have to continue watching Max over the years jumping from girl to girl, breaking each heart, and still acting in such a sweet way so that no one would truly annihilate him for who he was. 

He was too seemingly kind-hearted; he never meant to hurt anyone, and this would be something his friends and his mother would repeat to him to make him feel protected from the damage he had actually done.

I just wanted, for once, for him to be held accountable. Unfortunately, with a college boy of this nature, whom I had loved so much once upon a time, the accountability had to be fatal.

Max stood beside the line to swipe meal cards, and he still looked like the all American boy. 

I still loved his somewhat unruly dark hair and his kind sea-blue eyes. But I felt certain I would not mourn his death because I had been mourning the loss of our relationship for months, and very slowly I had emerged into the acceptance stage of grief.

"Ava!" "Max." We both smiled at each other. He enveloped me in a hug. He made it very difficult to hate him, but that didn't mean he wasn't a monster.

As we traveled up the escalator and found a cozy seat in the dining hall, I thought about how important this night was. 

I thought about how true crime documentaries would agonize over the exact timing of every minute in this night, that is if they ever figured out what happened. I desperately hoped they wouldn't.

Max and I had an easy conversation, one of the consistencies that defined our relationship. It was easy to laugh around him. It was easy to ignore every flaw he had.

Finally, I asked, "So, Max, what's going to happen with you and Zoe?"

He looked down for a moment. "I'm going to break her heart, that's what's going to happen. I know she loves me." 

He pretended he was in the midst of melancholy and agony over this, but if his melancholy was strong enough from last time, he wouldn't have made these mistakes at all. "Ava, what should I do to make it easier on her?"

I glanced around in space, knowing there were no answers to deliver Max. 

"Nothing you do will make this easy for her. You should be clear as can be, make her know that this is your own deficiency, that you were just a careless, immature guy and there's nothing she could have done to prevent this or save herself. She couldn't see it coming. There was nothing to fix about herself. All the things you tried to tell me, but this time, when you say goodbye, you need to disappear forever. Let her live...live without you." 

When I understood the severity of my advice was noted by Max, I added. "At least for a while."

"But we're friends, right?" Max, referring to us, asked like an innocent puppy dog would if given the ability of speech.