To Mind You

"Beau is such a nice young man."

"A handsome boy with good manners."

"Beau is such an angel-- doing good things for the world."

"Such a bright mind, Beau."

Beau this, Beau that. They praised me for being the ideal man with the goal to change humanity for the better. If only they could see me now, standing over a bloody body with the weapon clenched in hand. You have to admit it, nobody would have seen this coming. And for a very good reason, too. You see...this world isn't what it seems...

You've ruined it! You've ruined everything. The tint voice in my head would say to me, nonstop. I rub my forehead with a deep sigh and travel over to my apartment and to my bathroom rather limply. Slumping my entire body into the empty bathtub, I lazily rurn the water on. Then I lean back, peacefully watching the water flow with an empty head as the blood trickles from my body down the drain. The weapon-- the pen --was tossed from my sight. Forgotten. Lost. Just like the murder.

"You're a good boy, Beau."

But I couldn't have that goodness inside of me. I couldn't be the good boy they labeled me as. I placed a hand on my right cheek, feeling the powder fade. Revealing the scar that ran from my temple to my jaw. It's always there to remind me of my past. Something that's catching up to me for a bite. A big bite. I close my eyes and let myself fall, washing away with the cold water only to suddenly arise, minutes later, to the ringing of police sirens echoing right outside.

"About time..." I huff and pull to myself from what I thought was the bathtub, but I'm not sitting in a bathtub anymore. I'm lying on a bed with clean clothes and a clean hand. I wanted to question my position but I had no time as there's a knock on my door. I inhale, prepared to face my fate.

A young officer, with anxiety and boldness clashing on his face, greets me. I see it, however, I find myself not caring. Only caring for the clash of those metal cuffs wrapping around my wrists. I frown at the sudden thought of it being rather kinky. Shoo. Go away. I forced the unnecessary thought away and focus. "You're just in time. Come in." I wave him in. The officer walks, timidly, inside. I give him a seat and a moment to get what I needed. "I have what you need. Just let me fetch it."

Evidence. I have to get the evidence.

I search everywhere for my blood-stained clothes and the pen I drove into her flesh. But they were nowhere in sight. Not behind the bathtub, inside of it, or anywhere near it. Hell, it wasn't anywhere inside the bathroom. It's as if it vanished into thin air. And I had an odd feeling that it might tie to how I suddenly was resting on my bed baby clean, instead of in the bathtub with hands stained in crimson blood.

"Mister Carpenter. We only came here with news--"

I quickly hold up a hand that I didn't realize was trembling and reeking of the faint smell of Chlorox and soap. I stare at it in shock. I don't remember ever recently washing my hands. Hell, I don't even think that washing your hands is something you remember as it has become a daily chore that your mind automatically does without command.

"I know that my next-door neighbor, Yamila de la Cruz, was murdered. And I have evidence that may or may not assist with your investigation." I announce to the seated officer as I peek under my bed. I see Chlorine and dish soap hanging out together. Both of which were recently used. "Officer, have you ever lost something you knew you had to find but didn't care about?"

The officer groaned with an unsure shrug. "Can't say that I have."

I frowned deeply. "Well, I'm having one of those moments..." The evidence, the bloody key to salvation, grew two legs, and ran away. Not able to be found as it has fallen into a deep hole where everything ceases to exist. "I'm also convinced that there's something going on here..."

"What are you looking for?"--

"Evidence! The murder weapon!!" I mumble angrily with a tight fist as I toss out of my sight, unwanted items from the kitchen counter and its drawers. "Nothing. It's gone..."

"Is this the same case? If so, sir, I have to inform you that we already have the murder weapon in custody as well as the murderer. So you have nothing to worry about."

'You have nothing to worry about.'

"That's a load of bogus..." I whisper, almost disappointedly. That sentence invoked anger--a fit of rage that refused to rest until I was back on track. "Who's the murderer?"

"Like I said. You have nothing to worry about. It's been taken care of, sir."

"It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like, instead, that you have the wrong guy." I brush past the officer and travel to the window where I had a clear view of the patrol car surrounded by armed officers and nosy bystanders. Just within the cracks of their ghostly figures, I clearly see the one who took my ticket. The ex-boyfriend of Yamila.

"Javier Vegas? No, that cant be right..." I back up from the window, aiming for the door. The police, now worried, attempts to block my way with warnings and all that jazz, but my anger slips and I toss him aside, as if he were a light doll. I reach outside and toward the officers before they could shut the car door on Javier. And I must've appeared to them like a bull because my stomping catches their attention. All of their faces written in worry.

"Poor Beau..." A voice comments from a distance. Two words I never dreamed of hearing. And it has become the new motto among the witnesses as I'm pushed away. An ever growing distance put between the rat and the cat. The hand and the clock.

"Sir, we're gonna have to ask you to back up from the vehicle." An officer announces, but I didn't care. I eye Javier, who eyed me with these cold and empty eyes that shone a bit before fading. Those eyes... But that didn't catch my attention. It was his fearful, guilty frown that did. One he placed inside of his pocket before I got to stop and question it.

"You..." I grumble, my words lost in the blaring sea of officers and blue and red lights that continued to wrap around my body, tugging me back. I'm able to, though, grab the handle of the car and pull myself to the window which I pound with blistering anger.

"Why?!"

He continues to stare at me, his emotions no longer there.

"But you didn't kill her!" I shout.

Javier shakes his head slowly, pressing his head against the window while mouthing the words, "Now we wait for chaos."

I freeze, allowing the cops to push me away from Javier until he's no more than a dark blur phasing in and out of the red and blue glares. I realize when I'm forced to be seated and answer questions, that "Javier" had planned this exact thing to happen. The moment I laid eyes on him when he screamed at Yamila, I saw the map of a complex scheme plastered in his eyes. A plan I smelled but could not find.

"So, is it really you?" I wanted to ask him for the longest time but the police department would not allow me to be in contact with him. Not until his trial. So I decided to write it down. As if I was writing to a pen pal who had just insulted me.

You did not kill her. I was the one who drove the pen into her palm, her beating chest, and her tight throat. And I watched with a deep, satisfied exhale, the secrets in her blood flow away. What I did was a misstep, an accidental mistake. Still, it turns out that you placed a bullet in the same exact places that I did. As if covering for me. But why? Why create this false world where I'm praised and pitied as someone else? What is it that you're waiting for? Why can't I remember anything before all of this? I killed her to escape but to the public, you "killed" her because you were "angry". The media now calls it, "A Jealous Kill". But we both know the truth, don't we?

In this story, I somehow became the innocent victim tied up in the web of a couple's unsteady relationship. But I know what I did. Everything I did for an escape. But is this becoming something bigger than a messed up relationship? An escape from reality? Or is it the beginning of chaos...