Justifiable Homicide

I met Ilsa through a mutual friend, and we hit it off right away. I’ll spare you the mushy stuff, but there was plenty of it, those first couple days. And I, three weeks into my first year of college, made the fatal mistake of confusing lust with love. I still don’t know what I did that turned her off. I probably never will. What I do know — what I’ll never forget — is the night she left me. We ran into each other on Wednesday, and she happily agreed to meet me Friday at the school coffee-house at 7:00.

Come Friday, I was the happiest guy in the world. Pulled out my nicest shirt (even ironed it, for crissakes!), and sauntered out. Not even the looming storm clouds could dampen my mood, though in retrospect, I was being set up for a betrayal worthy of a film noir.

I got there at 6:40 — I was excited, so what? — and I waited. I read every bulletin and found a chair facing the door, so I’d see her the minute she walked in. When she hadn’t shown by 7:30, or even called, I started to worry. I called her, I texted; no dice. Fearing the worst, I called her roommate, and was told that my darling was… sleeping.

She slept through our date? A lie, I knew it. I walked outside into the pouring rain, wearing my nicest shirt, and I still couldn’t believe it. I walked back to my room, all the way across campus, with a comical look on my face and my guts kicked out onto the floor.

I decided I wasn’t going to let Ilsa get me down. So I changed my shirt, put on a coat, and went to a party I’d heard about.

I walked in the door, out of the rain… and there was Ilsa, sitting in a chair facing the door, like she was waiting for me. But from the way she was straddling the guy in the chair, I could tell that I was far from her mind.

So I got drunk, drunker than I had ever gotten before. At one point, I actually punched through a window with my fist — just like in the movies — before staggering home to bed. The last thing I remember thinking was: what’s the definition of justifiable homicide?

Which in a way, was fitting, since when I woke up the next morning — with the sensation that my head had been split open like a ripe melon — there was blood on my hands (I’m pretty sure it was my own). I’d made it to my bed, but not out of my clothes, which were caked with mud. And still, my one treacherous thought was of Ilsa, and when I could see her again. I was pretty sure we could work it out. — Adam Singer

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