Have you ever watched the sun long enough, hoping you would go blind? Let the bright yellow enter your eyes and burn your soul to smoke. Maybe that's why I loved the moon more than the sun and spent late nights reading on my balcony until the moon left me alone for the day.

"Hey, you ready to go, Scarlet?" my boyfriend's voice filled my ears.

I looked from my book, Soon I Will Be Invincible, over to him. Royce's red hair swept across his forehead, covering his reddish-brown eyes. The busy Seattle life echoed around me as I stood up from the old camping chair. I set my book on the glass table next to the dead plant. I wasn't sure why it was dying since Seattle rained like men were coming out of the sky as The Weather Girls danced with a group of hunks in trench coats and banana hammocks.

The lady from the apartment below me was on her balcony, talking on the phone. "No, Mom. You cannot date my high school boyfriend," she whispered, but I could still make out what she was saying.

"Because!" she yelled into her phone. "I don't care how sexy that man looks cleaning your pool. What is this? Some seventies porno you have been waiting for?"

I peeked between the wood panels to see the top of her. She paced back and forth with her hand pulling at her brown hair.

"No, I'm not moving back home so I could date my high school boyfriend, which-" she said, but Roy poked his head out the window, waving for me to enter my apartment.

"What do you mean, ready to go?" I asked, climbing through the window into the living room.

I glanced over at the long mirror I had behind the couch. I stood on average five-foot-two, and my thighs were too large to fit into skinny jeans. None other than the muffin man himself cooked the muffin top I had been sporting for the past years. My bland-blonde hair wasn't shiny like all the main characters from those romance werewolf books with too much explicit sex. What was the recovery time for those men? And to add to my unappealing list of why people would not fuck me, my face looked like one of those before pictures prior to taking a yoga class with some over-enthusiastic trainer with a boring name like Jennifer.

My attention went back to Roy as he walked up closer to me. "I have a surprise for you," he said, bopping my nose. "And we better leave now before the sun goes down."

Roy grabbed my arm, trying to yank me out the door, looking back in time to see my black cat watching us on the windowsill. His head tilted to the side as a quiet meow escaped his little fuzzy mouth. "Bye-bye, Duff," I said as Roy shut the door. Yes, I named my cat after the acronym designated ugly fat friend.

I am an inside person, so Roy pulling me out of my apartment for a surprise was not on my list of things to do today. Surprises aren't his thing. He was very generic when it came to dates and being together.

Roy drove us out of Seattle towards Mt Rainier. He was racing the sun, so he rushed over the speed limit. As we pulled up to a turnoff from the freeway, I finally turned down the radio, looking over at Roy.

"Where are we going?" I asked him.

He smiled toward the front window. "I told you, it's a surprise, Scar."

Out the window, the paved road turned into gravel. The bumps on the street shook the car, causing us to bounce up and down in our seats. Through the pine trees, the sun shined back at me, close to the horizon. A smile crept on my lips as I thought about Roy taking me to some romantic spot. A shiny little ring popped into my head. I have visualized this day for the past two years.

Royce Peterson was the man I was madly in love with and had been for a while. He was out of my league. Roy was top of his company, working night shifts at a small warehouse outside the city. We met at a Seattle Seahawks football game. My seat was right next to his, and he spilled his beer on me, starting a conversation that lasted for two years.

"I thought you had to work today?" I said, playing with my fingernails.

He looked over at me with wide eyes. "Yes, I-" He paused. "Requested it off."

"For this?" I raised an eyebrow, looking around at nothing but wilderness.

Roy pulled the car over to the side, smiling over at me. "Of course," he said, then turned off the car. "And it's because I have a big surprise for you." Roy opened the door, letting the cold air seep into the inside.

The end of August was upon us, and the brisk air reminded me of the cold weather arriving. Chilly air also meant that Halloween was coming soon too. It meant kids had excuses to come dressed in mediocre outfits and ask for candy, like we are Holda, handing out chocolate to kids so we can cook them in a pot and eat them. At first, it was cute, but when the hundredth Elsa knocked on the door, I got tired of letting it go.

I stepped out of the car, pulling my oversized jacket tighter. I let out a deep huff, seeing my breath float near my face.

The trunk hammered shut, making me look over at Roy with a backpack on his shoulders. He smiled with his perfect white teeth, then pointed up behind me.

"This way," he said, walking past me into the woods.

After ten minutes of stumbling behind him, not walking very well through the forest. "Ummm, Roy, is it much further?" I said, causing him to stop and turn to look at me.

Roy huffed out while swinging the backpack around to reach into it. He took a couple of steps closer to me, grabbing my shoulders. This moment was it. Roy could be proposing to me out in the middle of the woods. The sun shined pinks and purples across the sky, setting the perfect mood.

"Scar," Roy said with a hum. "You have been an amazing girlfriend to me." Roy let out while digging in the bag.

"Yeah?" I said excitedly with a little hop.

He paused his search to glance his brown eyes up at me. "This is why this is going to be hard on me."

Wait. What? My mouth dropped open in confusion. "Roy?" I questioned his sentence.

"This isn't working out for me," Roy's gross mouth said, making my heart drop.

"I'm confused." I stepped back away from him. "Why would you bring me out here to break up with me?" I looked around, then back at him. "How fucking dare you, Roy!" I yelled while pointing toward him. "You are one shade away from becoming a Weasley, but you are the one breaking up with me?"

Roy stepped closer, irritated that he couldn't find what he was looking for in his bag.

"No, Scar," he said with a smile to indicate he found what he needed, glancing back at me. "It's not that simple. We aren't breaking up. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time yesterday." His last words came out slowly as I watched every spit drop fly toward me, splattering across my shocked face. "Now, hold still. It won't hurt for too long."

Roy pulled a knife from the bag, and then calmly walked towards me. A small gasp came from my mouth as I stepped backward, away from him. "Nooo, no, no, no," I cried. "I don't know what you are talking about, Roy," I said, remembering the red garbage bag in the back of his car. Nobody wanted to believe the person they had been in a relationship with was a psychopath, but why did I let all the red flags fly by? Why was I such an idiot? There was a dead body before my eyes, and I ignored it, thinking my boyfriend would never.

"Ha!" Roy let out. "Scar, you-" He brought his hand up, grabbing my arm and bringing me closer to him. "You have been lucky for the past two years." He spun me, pinning my back to his chest. I could smell his cologne as his heart shuddered through the tight cotton shirt he had on. His breath danced along my neck as the knife slowly scrapped down my cheek.

It froze me as this Chuckie Man doll was about to kill me. I was like a bird flying in the sky as a kid with red hair threw a rock at me, killing me for no reason.

I let the anger build up within me. My hand swung around, down low, hitting Roy right where all men were weak.

"Get off me!" I yelled as he stumbled away.

He cupped his SMALL package in pain while looking up at me with a surprised look. With that, I ran. Well, really, I jogged because running for me was like watching a newborn horse trying to walk for the first time. I was the stupid girl from every horror movie. The one that doesn't see that coming out to the middle of the woods was a red flag. The one that screamed and ran like a stupid idiot as the killer could walk and still be faster than them. Death was knocking at my door, and it wasn't a matter of when but how long I could survive.

"Scar!" Roy was yelling for me as I zig-zagged alongside the trees. I could feel my lungs explode. Who said running was good for you? When running gave me pain.

"Scar!" His loud voice was closer, causing me to look over my shoulder at the flaming redhead. Roy was closer to me than I thought, making eye contact and quickening his pace.

I whipped my head around just in time for a branch to smack me right in the face. The impact from the tree sent me to my back, coughing out in pain as my eyes blurred. With only one eye open because the other was bleeding, red hot liquid dripped down my temples into my hair. The stinging in my nose caused my eyes to feel watery. The cold, burning sensation tingled into my spine like I was drowning.

My hands reached above the open sky as the night was upon us. The trees pointed up, guiding my iris to look at the clouds, but all I could focus on was a red apple hanging from the branch I ran into moments earlier.

In the middle of a pine tree forest was a single apple tree, growing the Washington state fruit for the animals to feed off. The deep red swirled with a pink color, telling me the sun shined bright on it as it grew each day.

The sounds of footsteps came up from behind me as a dark shadow covered my face. Roy laughed, mocking me for being clothes-lined by a tree. My open eye didn't look at him as I kept my blurry focus on the red apple. He glanced at what I was looking at, then smirked at me. Royce reached up, picking it from the tree.

He crouched down next to me, taking a bite from it. "This is going to be entertaining for me," he said with his mouth full.

Slowly, cries escaped my lips as I tried to lift my head, but my blurred brain wouldn't let me. Dizziness kicked in, causing me to lie back down. Roy brought the apple over his head and quickly brought it down, knocking darkness into me.

Well, fuck me with an apple.

Word count: 2,001

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