I've had this title in my head for awhile now, but finally manged to commit it to hardrive just recently. I hope you enjoy; feedback is always appreciated.




It was an accident when he first wanted to kill Dawson Ramsey.



An accident, a fallacy, an erroneous miscalculation, the slip of a careless mind fastened on rusty hinges, a high-speed descent from the teetering precipice of madness. It was a bizarre chemical reaction that tripped a trigger in his brain he had never been aware existed to trip, the flip of a switch that sent him skyrocketing off the threshold of lunacy and into the psychotic abyss of consenting psychosis.



It was an accident when he went into that dilapidated pawnshop and bought that overpriced gun. It was a sort of cosmic force that sucked him into the vortex of the smoky pawnshop with its dim, ambient light and its broken jewelry, a celestial entity that drew him into the black hole that was the start of throwing his entire worthless life away.



That segment of the best and worst night of his life was such a blur that he couldn’t even recall where he was headed when the intangible, elusive energy drew him into the seedy stockroom. Perhaps he had been going out to dinner, perhaps he was heading home, perhaps he even had a date (what a joke that was). He wasn’t sure, but one thing he was sure of was that the facts were unimportant. The details were insignificant. All that mattered was that he had done it, even though it was an accident. He had pulled the trigger.



It was an accident when the very thought of it crept into the back of his mind, when the vision of Dawson Ramsey on top of his girl filtered into his consciousness once more and streamlined a white-hot haze of explosive fury that he couldn’t be held accountable for. He hadn’t meant to think about it; he had been trying his complete and utter best to keep that image out of his mind for fear of the cataclysmic things it would drive him to do.



It seemed that commitment and positive reinforcement weren’t enough to make up for a lifetime of infidelity.



It was an accident when that ferocity, that vehemence, that ire, clouded his rationality and drove him to think wicked thoughts that he later refused to describe in front of the jury. It was an accident when he thought of the steak knife in his kitchen drawer and connecting it with Dawson Ramsey’s chest, and it was an accident when he considered the painkillers from his knee surgery and crushing a lethal amount of them into Dawson Ramsey’s wine. It was an accident that he couldn’t be held accountable for and would later plead insanity on due to the advice of his attorney when he approached the glass-top counter and took an appraising look at the revolvers and tiny engagement rings held within.



It was an accident when he asked to see the biggest, blackest gun of them all, and it was a foolish mistake when he took the cold metal from the vendor’s sweaty hands rather than running like hell and never looking back. It was an accident when he lied and said that he was licensed to own a firearm, an accident when he shoved a wad of wrinkled bills into the greedy retailer’s hands and left the ill-lit, hazy shop.



He knew the way to Dawson Ramsey’s residence like the back of his hand; he had only crept in the shrubbery outside of the bedroom window for a fortnight to convince himself of her treachery before he mustered up the balls to come out of hiding. He knew the sidewalks like he knew the crevices of her body and the softness of her skin, knew his way through the decrepit alleys and the safest conduit through the ghetto that finally freed him of the broken, modernized city and its noxious, smoggy air.



He hoped to God that she would be there. He wanted her to see this. He wanted her to pay.



It was an accident when he hopped the fence to the gated, upper-class community that Dawson Ramsey lived in, a chemical blunder in his brain when the rational part of him didn’t come to light and attempt to condemn his impending course of action. It was an accident when he discarded the brown paper bag that the vendor had wrapped the revolver in, an accident when he scaled the ivy vines on the side of Dawson Ramsey’s upscale suburban palace and let himself into the corridor.



It was an accident when he clapped a hand across the night maid’s frightened, red-painted mouth contorted in a horrible grimace of terror, a mistake when he slit her throat with his pocketknife and a definite accident when he left her gagging, bleeding, dying on the parquet floor.



It was an accident when he navigated down the darkened corridor and pushed open the door he knew led to Dawson Ramsey’s bedroom. His conscience, if he had ever possessed one, shouldn’t have allowed him to cross the polished wooden floorboards, but by the grace of the God he didn’t believe in or by another lucky slip of his lackadaisical, vacationing mind, he found himself at the side of Dawson Ramsey’s bed staring down at his prone form.



He couldn’t forgive himself if he turned back now. He had come so far. Turning back would have been an accident.



There he was. He was sleeping, he was vulnerable, he was prostrate, he was susceptible, and she wasn’t there.



This would have to do.



He fitted the silencer onto the revolver as quietly as possible, wanting to do this quickly before the security cameras alerted someone of his presence. He stared into his target’s sleeping face and wondered what she saw in the chiseled cheekbones, the youthfully smooth skin, the long-lashed eyes, the aristocratic nose, the sensuous lips, the masculine jaw line. He wondered why she couldn’t appreciate him as much as she did Dawson Ramsey.



His mark stirred beneath his scrutiny, twitching noticeably beneath the sheets before attempting to push himself up onto his elbows but being stilled when he stared down the barrel of the loaded revolver. Panicked amber eyes, so much softer and more attractive than his own, turned toward him with a pathetic look that expected mercy. “Please,” he whispered.



He didn’t listen.



It was an accident when he left the shell behind on the wooden floor. It was an accident when he left footprints saturated in the maid’s scarlet blood. It was an accident when the receipt from the pawnshop fell out of his pocket and settled in the tacky blood. It was stupid, it was clumsy, it was foolish. It was an accident when he later confessed to homicide in court. It was an accident when he got a life sentence without parole.



However, as the iron bars to his cell closed before him, he couldn’t help but allow himself a private smile.



Even if everything else was an accident, pulling the trigger wasn’t.

Wow this is amazing and very moving. Great job.

Thank you !