He didn’t mention it in his profile. You’re glad he didn’t. It might have deterred you from meeting him, and though it’s early, you’re starting to think meeting him is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.
“You don’t know who it is?” you asked on your second date, when you finally started discussing the elephant in the room.
“Nor do I know why,” he said.
You stared at the red dot as it flickered ever so slightly closer to his heart.
“How long has it—”
“Eleven years.”
“And he’s never once fired?”
Just once. It was late. He was in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He heard the shot and turned around to find a man with a knife in his hand dead on the ground. A mugger.
“He protected you,” you said.
“He wanted me to know my life is his to end. Not some mugger’s. His alone.”
You watched the red light flicker some more then you demanded he take you home.
That’s been the pattern. You stare at the dot on his chest until you’re so certain there’s about to be a gunshot that you can’t even breathe, and you need to be brought someplace and made love to as quickly as possible. It’s better with the dot. It makes you want to be as close to him as you can, so intertwined that you can feel the dot wander onto your skin too.
“I want to be with you to the end,” you tell him tonight, after.
“To the end?” he asks. “Or at the end?”
Both. One and the other. You need to be there when the shot is finally fired, when the dot finally turns into a bullet hole, when the gunman is (hopefully) finally identified. If that’s the main reason why you’re willing to spend the next fifty years with him, so be it. People have stayed together for a lot less.
Happy Your New Boyfriend Has A Laser Target On His Chest At All Times Day!