Part One~ She Needed a Little Excitement

The stairs crafted a profound echo from her heavily laid footsteps. Muriel didn’t want to continue the ascent, not even a little. Brushing a silent tear from one weary eye, she climbed onward, anyway, her shoulders slumped, her mind running in too many directions. Perhaps at the top she would find closure, or perhaps, more pain. It mattered not.

The thick drab green sweater she wore to keep out the winter chill outside did nothing to conquer the inner chill as she climbed upward on the warm staircase to the upper story of the library, to meet him for the last time. She kept her hand on the worn wooden banister, not for balance, but as a way of holding onto each step as long as she could. She could have done this the easy way, could have called him, but that would have been cruel, and to her Justice Tyler had been nothing but kind, loving, easy to be around.

He had been too easy, in fact. This was her problem and the reason she had to make this her last visit with him. Lacking passion and mystery- excitement once in a while- she had noticed her own eyes roving, and didn’t want to hurt him worse by finding someone else before it was over with him. She was bored with the dim quiet office of his above the library, the same little café where they always had coffee, the dull white-walled apartment with no decoration save pile after pile of books and a couple of diplomas on the wall. These were the only places he had taken her, after all. She wanted to dance, to play in the snow, to take long walks along the beach somewhere, to live… to really live. Being with Justice didn’t fit her needs. So she was climbing up to let him go; even though their conversation was deep and alive, their passion was not.

Muriel felt hollower than the resounding of her last footstep upward. She strode into his office, still hesitant, wishing there was still a worn banister to cling to for dear life. She’d never let someone go face to face before. Having rehearsed for an hour before she left, she had all in her mind that she needed to say, but as he looked up from his desk and smiled, glowing with the affection she knew he had for her, her mind went blank. She wanted to kiss him, still. Blushing, she considered again her last visit to the library with him late at night, the way he had gently taken her on his old Maplewood desk, that one there where he sat writing a letter, now, his face highlighted so beautifully by the desk lamp, a lock of his shoulder-length light brown hair falling in front of his smile as he looked up- beatifically. And then he saw the tears on her face, the look of trembling sadness about her lips, and his smile faded. He knew. Somehow, she knew he was reading her mind, as he turned away a bit.

“You are letting me go…” Justice whispered, sighed.

She stood there, mute, not ready to explain, staring at her feet in hard black boots. A few moments passed.

“ I can’t live a life of quiet, and solitude, and hushed passion, Justice, I just can’t,” she began, “ I need ex..”

There was a flash of light through the window, a hot whirring grazing her sweater, a loud bang, a thud as something struck the row of books behind her. Suddenly, she found herself thrown to the floor, Justice’s weight mashing her into the linoleum. “…citement,” the remainder of the word slowly escaped her lips. Realizing that the graze had been a bullet, she shuddered, looked down at her shoulder where she had felt the heat. Her sweater was dented and a bit scorched in one place, it had protected her just enough from the bullet’s graze. Wide-eyed, she looked back at Justice, his eyes meeting hers, not wide and panicked as she knew her own eyes were. Here was an excitement, yes, but the wrong kind. Her ears thudded along with her racing heart.

“And now you see there was a reason for my life of dull hushed passion and solitude, until I found you and couldn’t be completely solitary any longer. I have to go. You won’t see me again. They’ve found me, just when I thought I was finally out of their vision,” Justice stated, in a matter of fact tone that she found disquieting in this situation, “ I’ll help you get back to your apartment, and hopefully when I leave they will follow and leave you alone. I’m sure you will be fine, as they only want me.”

“Who?” was all she had the gumption to mutter at this point, and he looked at her in a way that said, ‘ now is not the time to discuss things’. They rose to a crouch and he led her to the side door, hoping that they could leave the building that way without notice. As he opened the door, however, hesitant, Muriel half-crouched behind his back, another bullet whizzed over his ear to splinter the paneling that lined the back hallway. Justice deftly removed a shiny revolver from his waist, a weapon that Muriel had seen, but never kept on his person before.

“Stay here, low, face to the lino, sweetie,” Justice shouted above his own gunfire as he pushed his way out, the door slamming behind him. Muriel heeded his warning, unarmed and seriously terrified, sure she would never have a more traumatic moment in her life. Outside several shots rang out, a moan, a thud, and then the door swung open, fast, and her heart nearly stopped, expecting her life to end right there, until she heard Justice’s voice again.

“Up. Out. C’mon, let’s go!!! Fast!”

Muriel felt his rough hand- still hot from the revolver-as it clasped her own, and followed him out into the cold night- still panicking, still somehow unhurt. Then she noticed that he wasn’t walking normally, as they neared his station wagon. Looking down at his left pant-leg, she saw a hole, that didn’t stop at the pant-leg, filled with blood. She cried out as he pushed her into the car, slamming the door behind them and pealing away from the library, fast and furious.

“You’re hurt,” Muriel gasped, “ I’m not going to my apartment, we’re taking you to the ER.”

“ They saw me get hit, they’ll look for me there, and you need to get away from me, now,” Justice cautioned, his voice still eerily calm, “I’ve been shot before, that scar on my arm? I lied about the childhood injury, it’s only a few years old. Sorry I lied, but I was trying to avoid pulling you into all this mess. We’ll get you home and you can pretend it never happened.”

Sliding precariously on a patch of thin ice, the old Chrysler rounded the corner nearing Muriel’s apartment, and she knew that she should get out there, never look back, but something told her not to.

”Keep driving, Justice, I’m not going anywhere but with you. We’re going to fix that leg, and you’re going to tell me what in the hell is going on. If I go home now, I’ll always regret it, and I prefer to live my life without regrets.”

To be continued….