Status Updates From Somebody Worth Killing

I lean back against the Camry, realization settling in.

My husband is not in DC. My husband is lying to me.

And my husband is the man I am supposed to kill.

This is getting goooooooooddd

I blink at her and wisely keep my thoughts to myself. I’ve learned the hard way that other women don’t feel the same way I do about their spouse being away. I do miss Brian when he’s gone, but I also love my job. When he’s out of town, I have more time in the evenings to focus on it.I don’t really get lonely. Megan works part-time, but many of the other PTA moms don’t, and I often wonder how they are possibly happy.

I actually do feel bad for lying to him. I don’t usually have much of a conscience about such things. I’m not a pathological liar or anything—I’ve just never had a problem not telling the truth when it’s convenient. But something about us creating this life together over the past decade makes me want to be honest with him. Or at least as honest as I can be.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, thinking. Once you accept a job, it’s yours. And I want to say yes so, so badly. I want to step into this deeper world, be challenged by a job instead of playing Candy Crush on my phone while I watch a local pharmacist. Killing her will be fun, but I can probably knock on the door of her apartment and walk right in, making my job as easy as can be.

It’s a unique camaraderie that we share, being the same sort of different in a world that doesn’t recognize or understand us. And if it did, would be all the more terrified.

I sense him before he speaks, that energy that only living beings carry, an essence that goes out like a flame extinguished when you end their life. He doesn’t make a sound, no twigs snapping beneath his shoes or heavy breathing. Just the realization I’m no longer alone.