He swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His gaze drifted around the courtroom, resting momentarily on the unforgiving eyes of the jury, the dust particles floating haphazardly in a steak of muddy August sun, and his girlfriend, beautiful, unmoving, and perfectly impassive. A fly smacked itself repeatedly against the only window, desperate for a way out.

His mind wandered lazily out the door of that stuffy courtroom, away from the dreariness of that day, and toward the reason he was there. The crystal blue lake was still vivid in his mind, every detail acute in his memory, from the water dripping slowly down his girlfriend’s back as she lay on her stomach, air-drying in the sun, to the gentle rhythmic smack of the canoes as the waves pushed them into the dock, then pulled them away again. More than anything he remembered the way they looked at her.

That was why he did it. It wasn’t really the fact that the one with the dark hair and the red shorts had no problem catching his girlfriend’s eye as he sped back and forth on his jet ski, stealing glances in her direction. It wasn’t that his girlfriend accepted a ride on the back of the machine when he pulled up next to them and offered. It wasn’t even the sight of her getting into his truck and driving away afterwards, without so much as waving to him, still sitting on the opposite shore with her empty towel spread out next to him. It was that he loved her. And he couldn’t stand to see them look at her that way.

The thought of that dark hair and those red shorts lying in a ditch somewhere, cold and lifeless, brought him some comfort. He was insane for doing it, he knew that. But love makes you crazy sometimes. The day after his girlfriend drove away, he knocked on the door of her house and her father answered. Said she wasn’t home. But he saw her car parked out front, and he knew. He pushed his way into the house and strode into her room. Her door made a heavy bang and a dent in the wall when he threw it open to find her curled up on her bed, trying to hide the deep purple bruises on her face and arms. She pleaded, screaming that they weren’t from last night, that the red shorts has nothing to do with it, but he couldn’t believe her. That was the breaking point.

The cataclysmic smack of the judge’s gavel yanked his attention back to the present. He noticed he fly, now lying dead somewhere between the shades of the window. It had tried too hard to escape. Convicted of second-degree murder, he was lead out of the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind him. He wasn’t sorry. He passed his girlfriend in the stands, still staring straight forward, pokerfaced, still beautiful. The bruises on her face had faded into nothing. As his steps carried him out of that cramped room and closer to his death penalty, the little box in his pants’ pocket smacked gently, rhythmically against his thigh, reminiscent of the canoes of forever ago. The diamond engagement ring tumbling around inside this little box that would never be opened was, like everything else, desperate for a way out.