Deep End Dance
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“You’re an asshole,” he said.
“Because I won’t let you finish your toxic tales?” 
“I must complete this,” he said. “It’s important for me to explain everything.”
“I disagree.”
“You’re a liar,” he shouted. “A fat guy who won’t let me speak truth.”
I held up my hands like he was pointing a gun at me.
“What are you doing now?” Justin asked. 
“You win, you win this insipid, idiotic game,” I said. “I can’t take it. You told me most of the tale. It’s all I can handle. So, I give up and walk away, I don’t want to hear any more.”
“I need to say everything to you, though.”
“Why?” 
“I just need to, okay?” 
“No,” I answered, my voice rising. 
Other patients listened - I felt more sweat on my forehead, my neck, while at the same time, I felt dizzy. Nauseous, even.
“You’re freaking me out with your protracted melodrama,” I said. “I need to chill, so please go far away forever.”
“No, that won’t happen,” he answered, his voice quickly consoling, a worrisome grin forming. “I’ll just lead you back to the bench.”
“No more death porn, Justin, just leave me the hell alone.”
“My story is inevitable, though,” he said. “Completion is necessary. It’s absolutely an essential fact.”
“Sounds like a Quentin Tarantino film,” I said, lowering myself to the bench. 
“Pulp Fiction is my top flic ever.”
“No more, please,” I said.
“Maybe it’ll help – ever ponder that one?”
“You want me to submit to your gory story, but I refuse.”
“Why not listen?”
“It’s only noise to me,” I said, thinking, This bastard is relentless. Plus, I’m here at the hospital to escape this kind of shit. Where is the award-winning staff I read about? 
“When the story ends,” he said, “everything will be copasetic and filled with relief for you and me.”
“You’re a whacked-out yahoo,” I said.
He smiled, shrugging. “What can I say? I wear my madness like a tiara.”
“Apparently.”
“During Sophia’s attack,” Justin said. “I spotted blood on my ribs. Plus, Sophia was bloated from the anti-psychotic she’d been taking for her paranoia and I knew I could outrun her. I was quicker. But for a brief moment, when she stabbed me, I met her eyes, and they jarred me.”
“Why’s that?”
“Her brown pools were vacuous, long gone,” he said. “Dead to the world.”
“Where to now?” I asked, resigned. 
“They phoned the cops on Sophia,” he said. “Some tween neighbor witnessed the brutal crime, so soon I heard screeching sirens and EMT’s all over the place.