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He twisted the sheets loosely around his hands, his nails less blunt on his palms through white cloth. He knows that he needs to do this because Amanda had pointed out the half moons beneath his heart line just yesterday. She had read his palm months ago and had smiled at him while saying, 'Your lifeline has a break right here, you're going to have trouble.' He had given her a toothy smile for an answer.

The room stank. Of old sweat and dirt and clothes that laid in piles. When he had awoken for work yesterday he had looked for a shirt to wear and could not find a clean one. That had left him staring stupidly at his hands. He had only stirred when he heard the doorbell make that ugly clanging sound. Nobody had been standing there, waiting for him to answer. Nobody to wait for the sight of hair that lay greasy and flat against his skull and a face too regular to give a second glance.

School started again today. Another year in buildings low beneath the sky, filled with people that never seemed to look one another in the eyes. Teachers that talked until the words themselves became meaningless. Words had used to matter. He had notebooks full of them, written small and tight against one another.

He uncurled his hands from the sheets and climbed out of bed slowly. His shoulders were sloped and his head bent. The blood on his sheets had spread delicately from the indentation of his body.

---

In class he listened to the professor talk. She was small and animated. Her hands moved in broad gestures that made his head ache. Some people seemed to have energy that strummed through them as if they were live wires. His father had met a live wire once. It had crossed his father's path. That night his mother had shut the door against him and he could hear the sounds of her prayer. He had spent the night with his ear pressed against the door, his breath coming out white and insubstantial. She had forgotten to turn on the heater.

The professor up in front of the class walked back and forth, pacing the way people only seemed to do in movies. The other people in the class scribbled in thick notebooks. He could hear the girls next to him whispering together, their faces nearly touching. He could not remember the last time he had been that close to someone, kissing close. Time had gone away. He skipped days. Some days he was going to sleep Saturday and waking up Monday.

He could not remember what the subject of this class was. History, he thought. The professor was talking about a war that he could not remember and the set of her chin was determined. She was going to make them remember that war. The names she mentioned were dull pinpricks.

He could feel the ache of his arms. They throbbed and prickled underneath the damp cloth of his sweater. He wondered what would happen if he pulled his sleeves up. The flesh dimpled in, run through, scraped through. Did it even belong to him anymore?

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Amanda kissed his mouth, which remained slack underneath her teeth and lips. Her tongue probed deliberately and delicately but he could only close his eyes and hope that would be enough. He thought of his father and that live wire. Would there be a live wire that would make him jitter, which would make him press Amanda against the door and nip at the flesh of her throat, marking her. He could almost see himself with his leg pressed between her thighs and his hands cradling her breasts. He had used to love her breasts.

Amanda pressed up against him but he had nothing to give her. 'Fuck,' she said. Her voice was low and dull.

He opened his eyes and tried to say something. 'I'm sorry,' were the only words that seemed appropriate. Except they seemed too complicated and stuck in his throat like a bone. They could choke him if they turned the wrong way. Just one misstep. Except there were so many steps gone wrong that it wouldn't matter.

Her eyes were dark and wet. They reminded him of his mother. Of locked doors and nights spent in prayers. He could almost see his phantom breath from nights long past. His mother was dead and Amanda was dead. Except he could see the pulse in her throat and the furious red of her cheeks so maybe there was hope.

'I don't know what to do anymore. You don't want to do anything anymore. I've been trying to keep to keep this going. Trying to support you through whatever this is but I'm tired. I'm just so tired. Why won't you look me in the eye? Why?' He looked at her lips moving but the words were muted. They did not mean anything. Her cheeks were wet now and he should be holding her. He should be putting his arms around her.
His arms hung at his sides. She came up close to him and kissed him again. Pressure on his mouth, her questing tongue. Amanda stepped away from him and her shirt was up over her head. She took off her white bra. 'Look at me. Look at me. Please,' she said. She guided his hand he could feel the warmth of one breast, the flesh pink and delicate.

He turned his face away. Her hand was sweaty over his. They stayed that way and his tongue was clumsy and useless in his mouth. It was she who pulled away first, covering herself from him. 'Oh, fuck.'

----

He was dreaming of his mother. Of her rosary beads and visits to the church. She had confessed every day to the priest that lived there. In this dream he watched her through the window as the priest moved his head between her thighs and she moaned. He was hard in that dream. Watching her eyes closed and her mouth moving to form a name that wasn't his father's. That live wire had ripped that name from her. From him.

When he woke up it was still dark. He thought of the gun that he had bought a week, a month, a year ago. Of its dark eye.

He got up and walked towards the closet he kept it in. He took it out and regarded that dark eye. It looked mean and big. The size of the gun was a perfect fit for his mouth. He could see that. It was cold against his tongue with his teeth tight around it. He tongued that eye but it would not close.

He could go to sleep that way. With the safety slipped off and his eyes closed. Just one push. The spray of blood and brains behind him would paint the white wall.

His mother moaning. His father and that live wire. Amanda with her shirt off and her nipples stiff in the cold. 'Your lifeline has a break right here, you're going to have trouble.' Cold breath ghosting. The delicate press of blade against flesh. The blood tumbling out of his veins, painting the sheets brown. Live wire professor pacing. Pacing. Teeth. Moaning. Wet eyes. Teeth around that cold gun.

'Oh, fuck.' Live wire.

---

Newspaper article. March 3rd, 1998.

College student dies of electrocution, suicide suspected