They Never Learn

by Layne Fargo

I’ve spent the past sixteen years murdering men who deserve it, and I’m not about to get sloppy now.

Five boys raped Megan Foster, but only one of them did it while stone-cold sober.

Even in his final moments, I doubt he learned his lesson. But I didn’t kill him to teach him a lesson; I killed him to carve him out of this world like a tumor. And I’d do it again.

Reading was my most reliable escape in childhood, the one way I could get away from my father while still trapped in the same space with him.

“Men like him don’t want a relationship, they want a fan club. The more members the better.”

Unlikely. If men like that could learn the error of their ways, I wouldn’t have to teach so many of them a lesson.

So tonight I prepare: picking out the perfect outfit, shaving my legs, shaping my nails. All the things most women do to prepare for a date. But little do they know: killing a man is so much more satisfying than fucking a man could ever be.

His face darkens with a mixture of embarrassment and anger—perhaps the most dangerous combination of emotions in a man.

I slide into a seat in the corner and pull a notebook out of my backpack, my heart pounding as I turn to a fresh page. He wasn’t afraid of me, I write. That was his first mistake.

It’s exhausting, being in my head. I wish I could stop thinking. I wish I could be like everyone else.