Arrest Me

F i n a l e - P a r t o n e

Lewis Brown

"X I wish you'd stop crying, there's nothing she can do to make me leave you and vice versa. You know I love you with all my heart." My hand wraps around her waist as she still straddles me in bed, letting her tears sink into my shirt. Shit X knows I love her, I know she's had her insecurities but I thought I had this woman figured out. I mean she's the one I love so I hope I have her all figured out.

"I'm not crying because of that Lew. She has some dirt on me that she fucking knows will get me far away from you. She does, and I'm scared shitless to know that she's still alive for one, and two she could seriously move me out the way and try to get back to you-"

"You aren't going anywhere, and I'm not letting her do anything. Please just calm down." I say wiping away more of her hot and streaming tears.

"You just don't know." She continues into my shirt.

"Okay I've had secrets, but I didn't know you did either, so can you please explain to me what she specifically has on you that can hurt you?"

"I don't want you to-"

"X I love you so much and you know our trust is growing steadily. I'm listening, I'm here so talk." I demand slapping her thigh as she tries to pull herself together.

"I-It was the last year of my junior year in high school. I always knew Leona was dating someone older than the both of us, I just didn't know who. We came home and got off the bus, she told me she was going to meet you somewhere and I told her okay. But she didn't only go meet you, she went to meet someone else and that's the day she also went missing. She went to meet your biological parents... They had been looking for you, though. She wanted to make it a big surprise for you since you were having some type of promotion in college I assumed. She texted me and asked me to drive over to this park and that she wanted me to drive them to you. I was a little sketchy on everything, but I still went. When I got there they for some reason wanted money, we turned up not having any and they threatened to kill us. It made me believe those weren't your biological parents and that Leona was just set up. Leona asked for proof and they had the same last name, but what was that supposed to mean. So when they were close to shooting us, Leona pretended to get cash out of the car, but pulled out a gun and made me, shoot them... I swear I didn't want to, but she was too scared to and I was trying to put protection over a trigger. She knows I've murdered two people! She can turn me in, there's so much evidence she probably has hidden. She afterwards was supposed to be with you, but Lord knows what happened cause that was the last time I saw her."

Xandra murdered my biological parents? This still hasn't been solved for years? The person who I believed was just as innocent as the next killed someone? I never knew deep down about someone else until I've met her. I've learned to know that she has different sides to her, sides I'm familiar with and sides I don't know. I do know people are conservative over who they can be sometimes. But the woman I fell in love with wasn't like this, she bagged on my bad habits of my reasoning to murder by coping with my depression. I know it's been eating her alive for the longest time now, it has to be. She didn't want to remember it, so she acted as if it never happened. That's what people do though. When they don't want to remember something they remove it entirely out of their life. Unfortunately for her, it came back around like karma to bite her in the ass.

"From that day forward, I was often questioned on the disappearance of my sister. They knew she was with me last, she was last seen with me. It was made so suspicious, it looked like we met at the park for no apparent reason, that's what was pulled from the text messages. Nobody ever knew she was going to meet your potential parents because she called them from a phone booth, those weren't scoped about either for evidence."

"Xandra, why didn't you tell me this?"

"Because, I didn't want to be a hypocrite and ruin what we have... I was afraid of the consequences. I thought I was in the clear once they dropped the case, but knowing they could reopen it meant something bigger than life." She says getting up to pace the cherry wood floors. I scanned her face as she tried keeping her cries to a minimum.

"Look, come here X. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. We can just start over, move out of here. Go back to New York, you can pursue your career. I can get a decent job in engineering and we can just leave all of our mother fuckin' problems here in California. We can be out of here-"

"Stop being so selfish! You think just because you know how to go undercover and kill people all of a sudden you can just be captain save a girl and fly out to New York, buy a new place and live as if nothing happened! Is that what you're insinuating Lewis? Huh!" She shouts through tears.

"Hey, don't yell at me. I'm just trying to help. I may have went through legal troubles switching my name up a few times, but with the right team of people and papers it can all be done in the matter of weeks or months-"

Here she went interrupting me again. "A few names! What the hell!?"

"I've went from Christopher, to Chris, from Chris to Maurice, from Maurice to Regan, from Regan to Gerald, from Gerald to Lewis. I wasn't really creative with names so I just typed random names in a search engine and went from there." I shrug as she stares lifelessly at me.

"So you want to just up and change our names? Is this a joke Lewis! My sister is out to get myself or you in a matter of minutes or days and you're so fuckin calm! I think I need some air." She grabs a jacket from out the closet and sweeps it onto her body, finding a pair of shoes.

"I'm trying to give you the resources to avoid this my love, don't leave me cause you mad. I just want your trust to be with my trust. We can do this with a little more effort." I encourage following her to the door.

"No Lewis. If the police show up at this door I want to be far away from here as possible." She hisses turning to me and I roll my neck around and crack a few fingers, she was making me angry. The anger built up in me, because she was leaving. Where was she going to go without me? She and I both knew living without each other was hell. Or did this one year of hell and love contradict too horribly for there to even be an us?

"Xandra, stop." I say moving myself in front of the door for her to only slap me across my cheek.

"No! You run away from every single fear you have dammit! You change your name because you want to have a new identity! When you take someone's life you up and run to a new location or you cry over taking antidepressants because you can't fucking grow up and accept that you're a horrible man and a damn monster to the whole west coast! You're a serial killer! I don't care if you stopped for me! I'm a damn fool for trying to love someone who doesn't love themselves clearly! You have not an ounce of love in you if you feel the need t go around ambushing someone! When you find some fucking love, come and find me." She spats trying to move past me again.

"Alright, since you wanna play victim! Do you even love yourself? I mean shit, you're so goddamn insecure about this that and the other. You don't need make up because you're fucking flawless. You're the real selfish bitch in the room, don't you ever talk to me like that again." I say now wrapping my fingers along her throat. She chokes for air and I let go when she's crying once more.

And I continue. "Leave then, don't come back. This whole relationship of a years worth and what I thought could have been more was all just a lie I guess."

And I turned my back, waiting for the door to slam. I only heard the door unlock at the same moment and nothing jolted. The picture frame of us on the wall didn't drop to the floor and shatter into a million pieces and Lewix didn't surprisingly wake up either. So what was she waiting for? Let the fucking earthquake of a door shut so shit can break. I'm waiting!

"Hell are you waiting for? Leave Xandra." I say once more before finally turning around. I looked first at the back of Xandra then past her, where Leona stood with a voice recorder in her hand. My stomach dropped and so did my only pride I built up over the years. It's like we were caught red handed. The thin walls of the condo didn't support any counter arguments that Xandra and I are both murderers. Doesn't negate that we can be taken to court and tried for murder. But what did Leona want? If she wanted me, why did she have to get rid of X and I? She didn't have to put me in the predicament, but she chose to.

We should just turn ourselves in now. Honestly.