Good Advice or Bad Advice?

I signed on to my instant messenger. Erika was online, like she usually was. I quickly opened up a conversation window and typed “hi” while I checked my e-mail. She sent a reply of “hi” and immediately started typing again, as I could see by the message on the bottom of the window.

“can i ask you a question?”

“sure” I replied. It seemed innocent enough. I saw that she was typing again, though she appeared to have deleted her message and start over a few times. That made me feel a little anxious.

“if you were a girl and your boyfriend said “give me a blowjob or i’ll kill myself” what would you say?”

I was shocked. I had known that she had been having boyfriend troubles for a few months, but this was getting a little disturbing. Her boyfriend, Jake, had seemed innocent enough despite his shady past. His mother had found him unconscious in their overflowing bathtub, and it was later discovered that he had purposely overdosed on pain medication. He had cleaned himself up after undergoing therapy and met Erika afterwards. They had hit it off right away.

But now she often typed sad stories to me about how he would try to guilt her into doing things, mainly sexual acts. As far as I knew, she hadn’t been forced into anything…until now at least.

“i think the question should be “what would you do”” I replied after a short moment of thinking. “i would probably slap him, and if he came after me I’d kick him in the balls”

There was a brief pause between us.

“but i don’t want him to get hurt…”

I watched the animated ellipses blink in front of my eyes and typed back. “sometimes you need to think about yourself indent if he’s trying to force you to have sex with him, he doesn’t love you”

We had had this discussion before. It wasn’t anything new. What was new was the response from her.

“you’re right. you’re the greatest friend ever!”

“nah”

---

A week later she sent me an eager e-mail saying that she had broken up with Jake without too much of a fuss. I congratulated her on her success. We continued on with our daily lives, me continuing the routine of getting up, going to work, coming back home, and sleeping. I lived by myself in a moderately sized house in the suburbs.

I had just come home from the grocery store with large paper bags in both of my arms and jingling keys clasped in my hands. It was already dark outside. I kicked the front door shut behind me. Ahead of me was a long hall extending to the back door and stairs to the second floor. To my right was the kitchen, and to my left was the living room. I turned right, managing to flick the light switch on. I dropped the bags on the counter and started to unpack the food.

After that was over, I proceeded through the small entryway past my front door into the den. It was a cozy little room with bookshelves, a fireplace and an entertainment unit, with an overly large couch in the centre. I plopped down on the left side of it as I usually did, and looked over at the table next to it that had the phone and answering machine on it. I had one new message. Yawning, I pressed the “Play” button.

I was bombarded by a lot of noise in the background of the message. Someone must have been calling from a cell phone. I turned the volume down quickly, but it didn’t help when a voice started screaming at me.

“Daniel, you son of a bitch! You made Erika break up with me!”

Jake was the caller, and his tone sent chills up my spine.

“She was everything to me, you fucker! I can’t go on living without her…”

I could hear muffled sobs.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you for what you did to me! Don’t even try to run!”

The message ended. I couldn’t breathe. The tone in Jake’s voice…he was serious.

“Message recorded at seven oh nine PM,” said the monotone recorded voice. I glanced at the clock. It was now 7:25. Erika lived in the next town over, as did Jake, and if he was making that call while driving here…

I stopped myself. I was getting too paranoid about it. I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me.

I responded to that thought by rushing to the fireplace and grabbing a log poker from the small rack next to the hearth. There was a sudden crash from behind me. I whirled around, poker held like a bat, slowly walking towards the source of the sound.

I found a window in my kitchen smashed and opened. I automatically panicked. Jake had to be here. I started breathing heavily and quickly as I whirled around looking for any sign of him. The house was silent, save for the blowing of the wind through the window. I moved to close it, being careful of the broken glass on the floor…

Or lack thereof…

There wasn’t a single bit of glass on the floor or surrounding area. I was confused for a moment before a thought flashed through my mind. I poked my head out the window.

The broken glass was on the outside. Someone on the inside had broken the window.

He tried to distract me so that he could—

There was a sudden click like a gun being cocked, just like in the movies. I turned around as fast as I could.

The last thing I saw was Jake’s wild eyes as he pulled the trigger of the gun pointed at my head.