I’d caught her in the act twice before and the silence from the upstairs bedroom was louder than the TV broadcasting the news tonight. Any other night, I could hear her footsteps against the floorboards, the opening and shutting of doors, cupboards, closets, but tonight when I muted the TV, all I heard was quiet.

I walked cautiously up the stairs, always unprepared for what I might find. I kept my ears open for any hint that she was simply sleeping. The light glowed underneath the closed bedroom door and I knew that she was inside; asleep or passed out from an overdose, I could never be sure.

Pushing on the door, it didn’t budge; a little harder and I could tell she’d put the chair to the vanity under the doorknob to keep out intruders such as myself. I could hear the clicking of an object and I couldn’t be sure what it was.

“Seely, open the door,” I said to her through the crack I’d formed between the door and the frame.

She was out of sight, which left me still unsure of what the clicking I’d heard before was.

“Babe, come on,” I said, “open the door.”

I pushed harder and the barrier opened a tiny bit more. One more push and I’d broken through her barricade. She was standing with her back facing me, her hands playing with the object in front her chest, but still out of my sight. Her long, brunette hair hung to the middle of her back and she was wearing a slimming backless, black dress that had no occasion to be worn for tonight.

“Seely,” I whispered, entering the room more cautiously than I had while climbing the stairs.

Edging closer to her, I suddenly recognized the clicking coming from between her fingers. I gently touched her shoulder and she turned to face me, tears streaming down her face. Her mascara was a mess over her rosy cheeks and the circular indent from the barrel of my small handgun was imprinted against the side of her forehead.

She’d dressed up to die and I’d interrupted her date with death.

“I can’t figure out how to load it,” she said with her eyes glazed over in tears, mascara continuing to streak down her face.

“Jesus Seely,” I said and quickly grabbed the weapon from her. “What the hell are you doing?”

The safety of the gun had been switched off and she’d placed one bullet inside the chamber. I unloaded the weapon and placed it in the closet, making a mental note to get rid of it in the morning. Returning out of the closet, Seely had sunken against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, tears steadily streaming down her face and landing on top of her legs.

I ran my hand through my hair, tugging on it out of frustration. I sighed in anger and closed my eyes in an attempt of thinking what I should do next.

“Why do you do this?” I asked her from across the room. “Why?”

She only shook her head and I knew she held the words on the tip of her tongue but could never tell me what exactly was going on inside her mind.

“Why can’t you see that it’s not your time?” I said a little louder, “why can’t you accept that?”

“Because I don’t want to be here anymore,” she said with the same tone of voice that I had. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Well God doesn’t want you yet; it’s not your time,” I was almost yelling at her now. “Don’t you think if it was your turn he’d have taken you the first time I found you with three bottles of pills swallowed? Why would he let you live long enough to have your stomach pumped and survive?” I paused, letting my words sink in. “Or the second time when you wrapped your car around that tree and you hadn’t been wearing your seatbelt. The suicide note was taped to the dashboard and your body was ejected from the car a few feet away. You should’ve died, Seely, but you didn’t. He doesn’t want you yet.”

She was sobbing now as I dug up her skeletons from the past. I sighed loudly and knelt down beside her, grabbing her hands and holding them in mine. The truth was, I didn’t know if it was her time or not. I didn’t know if God wanted her right now, tomorrow, the next year or in fifty years, but I knew that she couldn’t get lucky three times. She’d upgraded to the gun I had stashed in the closet and I knew there’d be no coming back from the bullet she was preparing to take to the side of her head.

“Seely, talk to me,” I whispered to her. “Tell me what’s going on inside.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she whispered.

And I knew that I wouldn’t but it didn’t stop me from trying.

Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
So am I (by this traiterous means surprized)
By thy hydroptic father catechized.
Though he had wont to search with glazed eyes,
As though he came to **** a cockatrice,
Though he hath oft sworn that he would remove
Thy beauty’s beauty, and food of our love,
Hope of his goods, if I with thee were seen,
Yet close and secret, as our souls, we’ve been.
Though thy immortal mother, which doth lie
Still-buried in her bed, yet wiil not die,
Takes this advantage to sleep out daylight,
And watch thy entries and returns all night,
And, when she takes thy hand, and would seem kind,
Doth search what rings and armlets she can find,
And kissing, notes the colour of thy face,
And fearing lest thou’rt swol’n, doth thee embrace;
To try if thou long, doth name strange meats,
And notes thy paleness, blushing, sighs, and sweats;
And politicly will to thee confess
The sins of her own youth’s rank lustiness;
Yet love these sorceries did remove, and move
Thee to gull thine own mother for my love.
Thy little brethren, which like faery sprites
Oft skipped into our chamber, those sweet nights,
And kissed, and ingled on thy father’s knee,
Were bribed next day to tell what they did see:
The grim eight-foot-high iron-bound servingman,
That oft names God in oaths, and only then,
He that to bar the first gate doth as wide
As the great Rhodian Colossus stride,
Which, if in hell no other pains there were,
Makes me fear hell, because he must be there:
Though by thy father he were hired to this,
Could never witness any touch or kiss.
But Oh, too common ill, I brought with me
That which betrayed me to my enemy:
A loud perfume, which at my entrance cried
Even at thy father’s nose, so were we spied;
When, like a tyran King, that in his bed
Smelt gunpowder, the pale wretch shivered.
Had it been some bad smell he would have thought
That his own feet, or breath, that smell had wrought.
But as we in our isle imprisoned,
Where cattle only, and diverse dogs are bred,
The precious Unicorns strange monsters call,
So thought he good, strange, that had none at all.
I taught my silks their whistling to forbear,
Even my oppressed shoes dumb and speechless were,
Only, thou bitter sweet, whom I had laid
Next me, me traiterously hast betrayed,
And unsuspected hast invisibly
At once fled unto him, and stayed with me.
Base excrement of earth, which dost confound
Sense from distinguishing the sick from sound;
By thee the seely amorous ***** his death
By drawing in a leprous harlot’s breath;
By thee the greatest stain to man’s estate
Falls on us, to be called effeminate;
Though you be much loved in the Prince’s hall,
There, things that seem, exceed substantial.
Gods, when ye fumed on altars, were pleased well,
Because you were burnt, not that they liked your smell;
You’re loathsome all, being taken simply alone,
Shall we love ill things joined, and hate each one?
If you were good, your good doth soon decay;
And you are rare, that takes the good away.
All my perfumes I give most willingly
T’ embalm thy father’s corse; What? will he die?

Fond woman, which wouldst have thy husband die,
And yet complain’st of his great jealousy;
If swol’n with poison, he lay in his last bed,
His body with a sere-bark covered,
Drawing his breath, as thick and short, as can
The nimblest crocheting musician,
Ready with loathsome vomiting to spew
His soul out of one hell, into a new,
Made deaf with his poor kindred’s howling cries,
Begging with few feigned tears, great legacies,
Thou wouldst not weep, but jolly and frolic be,
As a slave, which tomorrow should be free;
Yet weep’st thou, when thou seest him hungerly
Swallow his own death, hearts-bane jealousy.
O give him many thanks, he’s courteous,
That in suspecting kindly warneth us
Wee must not, as we used, flout openly,
In scoffing riddles, his deformity;
Nor at his board together being sat,
With words, nor touch, scarce looks adulterate;
Nor when he swol’n, and pampered with great fare
Sits down, and snorts, caged in his basket chair,
Must we usurp his own bed any more,
Nor kiss and play in his house, as before.
Now I see many dangers; for that is
His realm, his castle, and his diocese.
But if, as envious men, which would revile
Their Prince, or coin his gold, themselves exile
Into another country, and do it there,
We play in another house, what should we fear?
There we will scorn his houshold policies,
His seely plots, and pensionary spies,
As the inhabitants of Thames’ right side
Do London’s Mayor; or Germans, the Pope’s pride.