Three Truths and A Lie

 This is a story I did for Chuck Wendig's weekly flash fiction contest. You can find his website here: http://terribleminds.com/. I highly recommend giving it a look.

                                                      Truths and A Lie

Three truths will I tell you and one lie.

1.       I did not mean to kill her.

2.       I did mean to kill him.

3.       The child’s death was an accident.

4.       She wanted to have sex with me.

So, if I’m writing this from a prison, which I’ll never leave, what’s the point of lieing?  I don’t know.  Just to mess with you. My story, like any other, starts with a beginning.

                I was 24 years old and a hitchhiker, for no other reason than I didn’t want to work, but I wanted to travel. Traveling was my dream and I was afraid that if I took a job I would be stuck in it forever and never be able to travel. So, I decided to travel first, doing odd jobs along the way to earn just enough money to get me to my next destination. Sounds fun right? Like a happy go lucky road trip about an aimless drifter who eventually finds love or something and at the end of the story settles down. Nope, nothing like that at all. I did find love, but it didn’t exactly end how you would hope.

                I met Adam and Amy halfway through my journey across the United States. I started in New York and was halfway through Kansas, which by the way horrible state, boring as piss, when they picked me up in their car. They were a nice couple, both extremely pretty people with a beautiful child of their own, James. I only asked for them to take me a couple of miles, but it turned out they lived a few hours away and offered to take there where they offered me a meal and a night’s sleep. Right? Way too nice and trusting, but I agreed, of course I agreed. So after three or four hours of driving and a riveting patty cake tournament with little James (who was four), where he thoroughly annihilated me , we arrived at their quaint little farm house.

                Turns out both of them had been born into rich families and when their parents died they both inherited large fortunes. What the hell are the odds of that? How many times in the history of ever has that happened? I realize maybe now it may happen more, but they met at school…in California, just happened to meet and go on a date and fell in love or whatever. They only learned after the fact that both their families were extremely wealthy. The hell fate? Anyway, they told me their story, which while it had an interesting opening with the whole rich families thing, it soon descended into boringness. With them detailing their travels, which was my dream dammit, and how they ended up living in Kansas (trust me not as interesting of a story as you might think).  They didn’t do it in a condescending way or anything, it just happened to be part of their story. Either way it pissed me off, I was born into an extremely poor family with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father (Jesus…I just realized my life sounds like the plot of a terrible gangster movie) and all I wanted to do was travel, but instead of flying or whatever I was forced to hitchhike my way across America.

                Anyway, I ended up staying for about a week, taking advantage of their hospitality and what not because…screw you they were rich and I was jealous. I found myself thinking more and more about Amy as I lay in the extravagant guest room at night. She was a perfect specimen of the human race, straight auburn hair, gorgeous sparkling blue eyes, and a body that would convince any priest to turn away from little boys (Ha topical humor). I thought maybe it was love, but I had never really been attracted to anyone before, so I wasn’t sure. Either way I found myself increasingly obsessed with her, thinking about her constantly, stealing glances at her and staring, and having very vivid fantasies and dreams. I wanted her so bad it started to cloud my mind; no other though was cohesive or precise.  Everything in the world seemed muddled and confusing and everyone else’s voice sounded so dim compared to her angelic one.

                One day I couldn’t take it anymore and I decided to proposition her.  I told her what I thought about her and essentially begged her for sex. To my complete shock, she said yes. So next time her husband and son decided to go shopping she elected to stay behind. It was amazing, the best sex of my entire life. It was passionate and loving and just so damned amazing. The hour her family was gone was the greatest hour of my entire life, but of course they returned. Of course they returned early.

                Adam as far as I could tell up to that point had been very level-headed. But walking in on me and his wife naked, I’m pretty sure something snapped. He lunged at me from the open doorway. I jumped out of the bed and ran down the stairs desperate to get away because I knew in a fair fight Adam could rip me into tiny bloody shreds.  In the kitchen I found a knife, he rushed at me and I stabbed him. He fell, and in my moment of power I took it too far, stabbing him over and over and over to satisfy my lust, I had never felt so powerful. Eventually, someone grabbed my arm; I whipped around and stabbed without looking. It was Amy. Of course it was. She fell. I stood there in horror. I saw the kid, James; he ran up the stairs, I of course gave chase, had to try and explain. He tripped going up the stairs, fell and broke his neck. The prosecution tried to tell a different story, that Amy was already dead when Adam got home. That Adam was running from me and that I threw the child down the stairs. This is how I remember it.  But seeing as I’m writing this in a maximum security prison, with two guards standing directly over me watching my every move I guess I could be wrong. But this is the event as I remember it. My attorney tried to plead insanity just because my mother suffered from schizophrenia and drank while she was pregnant with me. What does he know? He wasn’t there, I was. So which one is the lie you ask? Honestly, I can’t remember. Good luck.