The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue Read Online Free PDF

motherfucker.
    “ So.”
    “ I was going anyway,
Scott. And then I saw you and I wondered. I could never have stayed
there.”
    She wondered.
    Well, so do I.
    I wonder what that means.
    “ Hmn.” His guts roiled
inside, his heart ached. “Well.”
    “ Scott, I am so sorry for
endangering you. But they will keep looking for me. Sooner or
later, your landlady will wonder why I never go out.”
    Sooner or later, they would get
caught.
    It all came to him in a rush. Looking
back, it was strange he hadn’t caught on sooner.
    They ate meals, and yet the food
supply seemed like the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. He
really hadn’t been spending any more on groceries.
    She went to the bathroom, and yet her
shit didn’t seem to stink. When she peed, there was a tinkling,
watery sound. But that would be easy enough to fake.
    At night, in bed together, her
breathing was a little too shallow and regular. She never snored,
or mumbled, or made little noises with her mouth. Her stomach never
rumbled, and the designers had seen no reason to give her even the
ability to fart. She didn’t drool in her sleep and make the pillow
wet.
    How stupid could a man be?
    She didn’t have a toothbrush—and
Scott, blinded by his delirium, hadn’t remarked upon it.
    Nobody’s perfect, he thought
wildly.
    “ Please don’t leave me,
Betty.” Tears sprang at last from his eyes, bringing a kind of
madness with them. “Oh, God, please don’t leave me.”
    She held his hand and comforted him as
he cried on her shoulder, body wracked by spasms of
grief.
    “ Betty. Betty.
Betty.”
    “ Scott.”
    “ Oh, God, why
me?”
    “ Scott.”
    She held him as he sobbed, stroking
his hair and whispering his name.
    Around them, outside of the open
windows, curtains billowing in another surprisingly warm breeze,
the sounds and the life of the city went on, cheerful, robust, and
vigorous for all of its faults.
    In here it was all pain, and poverty,
and deprivation, and now it would get even worse because now Scott
had a much better idea of what he was missing. Now he knew how much
better life could actually be, if only a man caught a break once in
a while.
    A real good break that didn’t kill you
with happiness one minute and then cast you into the depths of hell
the next.
    If only a man had a friend, a
companion—someone to love, for fuck’s sakes. Scott had no one to
talk to.
    If only.
    “ Scott.”
    Those vacant eyes stared hopelessly
where her face would be.
    “ Betty.”
    He tried to pull away, to sit up, and
to just try and think it through.
    It was obvious enough.
Three-point-eight million.
    “ Yeah, they’ll never stop
looking for you.”
    He sniffled, back in control for the
most part.
    “ Fuck.”
    She squeezed his hand, saying
nothing.
    “ I need you.”
    “ Yes. That was my original
assessment.”
    He half-laughed, and half-sobbed at
those words.
    “ Betty.”
    “ Scott.”
    There wasn’t much to say.
    “ I’m not letting you go.
We’ll think of something.”
    “ Scott, the longer I stay
here, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. I don’t
want to see you in trouble.”
    He sighed, unwilling or unable to
accept it.
    “ Betty. I love you so
much.” How to say it? “I haven’t loved anybody, not even myself, in
too many years. I don’t think I can stand it any more—not after
you.”
    “ Scott. I can’t endanger
you any further.”
    “ Sure you can.”
    “ Scott. What do you mean
by that?”
    “ What are you going to do,
just take off and leave me here?” Scott’s face twisted in an agony
of emotions, all of them feeding the big boil of pain and pus on
his psyche. “I can’t take it. What do you expect me to do? Just
forget? Just get over it?”
    “ Scott. This was
wonderful. Our time together is something I will always
treasure.”
    He gripped her hands
fiercely.
    “ We’ll go
together.”
    “ What? Oh, Scott. My poor
love. Scott. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
    “ They’re