I caught Becca off guard with a text five minutes before I showed up in her parking lot needing to “talk.” She said come up to her apartment and I ran through the script of how I was going to tell her everything as I ascended the stairs to her front door.

I gave it to Becca plain and simple as soon as we sat down on her couch and were surrounding by endless paperwork for whatever test she was preparing for. I think it was the first time I had ever personally watched a human being break.

Becca’s face seemed to melt right before me. She didn’t even have answer to what I told her. She just sat across the couch from me looking horrified until I heard her mutter the sentence I had been waiting to hear.

“I have to go in my room for a minute.”

I sat there and waited for the ear-splitting bang I had heard before at the gun range. I held my breath for what had to be two minutes before it came.

It was damn near impossible to get Becca into my car even though she was barely over five feet tall and not much heavier than 100 pounds, but Daniel’s giant hockey bag and a dolly helped me get the job done. An arsenal of heavy duty cleaning supplies I stole from a housekeeping job a couple of years ago did the trick for the nasty clean up in Becca’s room. Lastly, the urban disconnect of apathy must have worked in my favor in that none of Becca’s neighbors called the police as far as I could tell.