Tailspin (Better Than You) Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Car accident.”
    Silence, and then, “Karma.”
    My eyes snap up and meet his deadly gaze straight on. “What’d you say?”
    Gunboy laughs, the sound raising the hairs on the back of my neck. “I came here today,” he yells, “to kill that bastard, and then I find out that he’s already dead. From a car accident. KARMA!”
    There is nothing that I want more in this moment than to strangle this stupid son of a bitch, to watch the life bleed from his beady eyes, which is why I don’t understand what I’m doing still sitting here, much less understand the word that comes out of my mouth next. “Why?”
    “Why?” he replies. “Why what? Why did I want to kill him? Why is it karma? Be more specific.”
    “All of it,” I croak out. “Why.”
    “Okay, Nathan , it’s story time.” He pulls a chair in front of me and straddles it backwards, all the while keeping the gun firmly in his right hand. The shakes are gone. He’s got the upper hand and he knows it. “Once upon a time, there was this girl named Lilah. She was a beautiful girl, happy and carefree and everything I ever needed.” He pauses, takes a deep breath with eyes closed. When he opens them again, there’s a fire in them. “One night, we were walking home from a concert, and this car drives right off of the road and onto the sidewalk. She was walking on that side, you see, because she always liked to hold my left hand. Insisted on it, actually. And so the car hits her straight on. Literally scoops her up and plunges her into a light pole.”
    I don’t understand what this has to do with Dad, but I don’t dare interrupt him. He’s lost now, his eyes glazed over and watching something that I can’t see; don’t want to see. “There was blood…it was everywhere. She died in my arms. And while I’m holding her, the driver gets out, stumbles out of his car and pukes on the floor. Then you know what he does?” I stay silent, knowing it was a rhetorical question. “He tells me, ‘It’s not my fault. He kicked me out.’ And so I say, ‘Who?” and he slurs, ‘That mudderfucker over at that Friendsh Plashe.’ And then he couldn’t talk anymore, because I kicked the shit outta him until the cops showed up. The end.”
    The pieces slowly start to come together, but I don’t want to believe them. Can’t believe them. “It wasn’t his fault,” I say slowly.
    “Yes it fucking was!” He’s up again, the chair pushed to its side and the gun in my face. His outburst are giving me whiplash. “If he hadn’t of kicked out that drunk fucker than Lilah would still be alive!”
    “So what now?” I ask. “Do you feel better knowing that he’s dead?”
    Gunboy shakes his head and scrubs his face with his free hand. “No. I don’t.” And then he walks over to the bar, turning his back on me in the process. I reach into my pocket and dial 911, knowing it’s probably already been done. I set the volume as low as it will go and return it back to my pocket. Gunboy pours himself a glass of Glenlivet and shoots it back in one quick motion.
    “You know, you haven’t hurt anybody. No one besides me and those girls know you’re here, and we can just all pretend this never happened. It isn’t too late to walk away.”
    “It’s always too late to walk away.”
    “Would Lilah want this for you? You said she was happy and carefree. Would she want you to be stuck like this?”
    Moisture gathers in his eyes and he looks away from me. “It doesn’t matter anymore. She’s gone, man. She’s fucking gone.”
    “I know. And so is my dad and there’s nothing we can about it. This,” I gesture to the space between us, “won’t change anything.”
    He takes a deep breath and raises both hands to cradle his head. The scream he lets out is bone chilling, a sound I will never forget, but in that moment the front door opens in a flurry of wind and wood splintering and chaos ensues. I’m tackled to the ground, gunboy is tackled to the ground, orders