Cut the veins vertically

It was pushing midnight and I was drunk. Meg was sleeping under my chair. I filled her bowl and gave her some fresh water. Kara was passed out on the floor. I sat down and looked at my boxes of work, at my typewriter and my bike. The years of wreckage and waste and slime and blood and work. Thirty grand was nothing compared to the compromise. I didn’t want to be an old author of my words, heard or unheard, with a motherfucking sitcom on my record. I dialed the number and left her a message. I told her that I respectfully resigned from even the chance and to keep the screenplay for the hundred bucks she flowed me and to please return my story. I hung up.

Kara jumped up looked at me, and her face flushed with anger. She started to open her mouth. The phone rang once and stopped. It happened at least once a day, him letting her know he was home. I was tired of it. He answered. I called him by his name, and I asked him why he was hanging up on me. He tried to deny it, but I had the proof. Kara stormed into the bathroom. I asked him politely to hold on. I opened the door. She was holding a kitchen knife to her wrist. I told her to cut the veins vertically so no one could save her. She shot me an ugly sneer.

“I mean it. Get away from me or I’ll kill myself!”

“Do it.”