Panic is a funny thing. A horribly funny thing. For some, they become frantic, both body and mind. For others, panic somehow slows them down. For me, it was a little of both. My body swayed in slow motion as Mare put handcuffs around my wrists. The click-click-click as she tightened them was fuzzy and far away. Meanwhile, my mind was racing. I thought about my parents who would get a call from Emma. I thought about Emma and her baby I would never meet. I thought about Samuel and Mason. I thought about Samuel coming over in the morning and being the one to possibly find me dead, if she was even going to do it here.

My stomach fell and knotted. I felt wetness on my cheeks and tried to wipe them away with my shoulders.

“Don’t cry, Delilah,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Your texts are so encouraging and nice.”

“I suppose that’s because if they were threatening, you’d have been more likely to report them or involve others. I couldn’t let that happen. And if I’m being honest, it was sort of fun to watch your confusion over the whole thing,” she said, laughing.

She sat next to me and I pulled back from her. She thumbed under my eyes and tried to hold my head to look at hers but I jerked away. “You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded.

“Oh, yes, I do. And I’m sorry for that. But, listen. You have people who love you, people who will miss you. And they will miss you when you’re gone. That has to be a nice feeling.” She smiled.

“You’re sick.”

Mare tilted her head at me. Her eyes were peaceful but a smirk played across her lips and I didn’t understand what she was feeling at all. I didn’t understand what kind of person was capable of something like this. Why would she think that killing me would solve anything? How could a person come to that kind of conclusion and find it perfectly logical?

“Don’t worry, it will all be over soon,” she said. She stood up from the couch and went over to a small bag on the floor she must have brought with her. She took five or six bottles from it. I couldn’t tell what they were but they clanked together as she sat them on the floor beside her and the noise made me anxious. I watched as she read the labels and began mixing some of them together. She dumped some pills into her hand and crushed them into the liquid.

“I could leave the country. I could disappear completely and no one would have to know where I’ve gone,” I said, pleading with her for an alternative.

“The first thing we have to do is get you drunk,” she said as she pulled out a bottle of vodka and ignored my pleas. She sat the bottle in front of me next to an empty glass.

“Please don’t make me drink that. I can’t,” I begged.

“You can and you will or your death will be faster and far more painful. I’m trying to be human about this, Delilah. You should appreciate that,” she threatened. She sat down beside me, stone-faced this time. My bottom lip quivered.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re a very sad and lonely woman and you got drunk and you took some medications because you just couldn’t go on living with all this sadness inside you. Your sad life has beaten you,” she said.

“You’re going to make me commit suicide?” I gasped.

“Basically.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Now take a sip of this.” She pressed the opening of the bottle to my lips, ready to tilt it up. She nodded her head at me for encouragement.

I opened my mouth slightly. I felt the warmth slide down my throat for a moment before I pulled away, coughing. I never understood why people said vodka was virtually odorless and tasteless. They were liars. I hated vodka almost as much as I hated whiskey. There was nothing pleasant or smooth about it. I kept my eyes closed for a moment as she wiped my chin.

“Careful now, you don’t want to get it all down the front of you. That’s sloppy.” She giggled. She was truly insane. I felt a sort of delighted energy radiating from her, like she was thoroughly enjoying doing this to me. I couldn’t understand it. How could Jeff have ended up with someone like this? Where on earth did he find her? Was I really so horrible?

She forced another sip down my throat as I racked my brain for a plan. I could barrel into her, tackle her down. I could do it even with my hands cuffed. I could knock her out and get help. Could I really do that to a pregnant woman though, even as crazy as she was? It wasn’t the baby’s fault. What if I harmed the baby? I shook the idea off. Perhaps she could be a monster but I couldn’t.

I could run. I could wait until she was farther away from me and run down the hallway into a room and lock myself in. I could run out the front door screaming. She couldn’t get to me faster than someone could hear me. This late at night, people around here were bound to come investigating. What if she had a knife or a gun though? Who knew what she had in that little bag of hers?

Mare tilted my head back without saying a word. She left me alone with my thoughts and gave me two more large gulps of vodka. Admittedly, I was always a lightweight, so I was already starting to feel foggy. And then the doorbell rang.

We both snapped our heads into the direction of the door. Who the hell was it? Oh, thank god, it didn’t even matter. Someone was here!

“Delilah?” The voice came muffled through the door but it was Samuel. I knew his voice well enough to know that. There was a second knock.

“Delilah, listen to me right now. I have a gun and if you care for him, you will get rid of him as quickly as you can or he will die, too. Do you understand?” Mare whispered.

I nodded. She un-cuffed me quickly and I stood and straightened myself up. I cracked open the front door and Mare stood behind it, right at my side, with a hand on me. I peered out with a sort of smile on my face, the best one I could manage.

“Hey there.” He smiled.

“Hi,” I said.

He seemed to be waiting for an invitation in and when it didn’t immediately come, he spoke again. “So, um, I was just coming by to check on you and stuff. I saw your texts.”

“Oh, yeah, everything is fine. I was just bored and seeing if you were awake, no big deal,” I said, faking a yawn. I tried to keep my face neutral, alert.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked, sniffing at the air and raising his eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah, you know, just a little night cap. I just wanted to relax a little.”

We stood here silently for a moment, Samuel still waiting to be invited in. Mare dug her nails into my skin. I flinched only slightly and stared at Samuel.

“Well, okay. I guess I’ll just get back home then. I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure.” I managed a smile. Not a see-you-later smile. A goodbye smile. A goodbye forever smile, the kind that sagged off your face, the kind that was no smile at all.

“Okay then, see you later,” he said. He backed away from the door scratching the top of his head. You could see the confusion written all over him. I didn’t blame him. I was acting completely out of character.

“Goodbye, Samuel,” I said as I closed the door. I heard the click of the door and sobbed. I turned back toward the couch, defeated.

“Good job. For a moment there, I was worried,” Mare said, standing with her back to the door as she started to put the cuffs back on me. I stood here swaying from side to side already. Whatever she had crushed up in that vodka was really starting to affect me.

Just then, the door burst wide open. Samuel barged in. The look of sheer concern on his face was enough to startle me. I stood here, wide eyed. Mare kept her back to him for a few moments. She swiveled around slowly, her mouth dropping open, panic setting into her eyes.

“Marilyn?” he said. His eyes were as big as I’d ever seen them. He was in complete shock staring at this woman in front of him, this woman he seemed to recognize, to know.

“Hello, Samuel,” she said, voice cracking as she returned a greeting of recognition.

I stood here, head spinning, trying to catch up. I looked back and forth from his face to hers, trying to piece this together. How the hell did they know each other?

“What are you doing here? How do you know Delilah? What the hell is going on?” he snapped. He looked down at the cuffs she was holding.

I was starting to feel dizzy. The alcohol, the pills, the adrenaline, and the confusion were starting to break me down. I leaned against the back of the couch. Mare, rather Marilyn, had her eyes fixed on the floor now. She took a deep breath and walked over to me. She finished putting the handcuffs back on me.

“You wouldn’t understand, Samuel. You never did. It’s best if you just leave,” she said, staring at him.

“Like hell. What are you doing with her?” he said.

“She has to die,” Marilyn said.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked.

“Samuel,” I managed, “this is Jeff’s new wife. She is pregnant with his baby,” I said.

All the blood drained from his face. He didn’t look surprised, just shocked. He stood there, the chaos in his eyes turning to pain. His jaw clenched, his face tightened.

“Delilah,” Marilyn started, “I’m Samuel’s ex-wife. I’m Mason’s mother,” she said, barely audible.

“You are nothing to Mason! He doesn’t even know you! You’re not his mother!” Samuel screamed.

I tried my best to process this new information. How the hell? I couldn’t make sense of anything by now.

Silence fell over the room. I looked at Marilyn. Her familiar eyes made sense now. Mason had Samuel’s dark brown hair, but not his eyes. Those belonged to her. I looked at Samuel. He was shaken and I couldn’t reach him. His eyes were angry, his mouth in pain. Everything was growing dark. The world around me turned black and foggy. It crept in from the edges and began to consume me. I tried to reach my hands out for the couch to steady myself but I was too far gone. The room was swaying with me and I was losing my feet to the rubber floor. In the last few moments, I head Samuel’s voice calling my name. I saw him running toward me to catch me. And then, everything was black. A dreamless sleep, only it didn’t feel like sleep. It felt like I was floating.

I fainted. Right in the middle of the chaos and confusion with my life at stake, I fucking fainted.