Part 72 (2/2)
”Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never,” Annja said.
”I'm tired of the maybes. I'm tired of saying to myself, 'tomorrow's going to be the day this all gets taken care of.' I'm tired of wis.h.i.+ng so hard that I make my head hurt. And I'm tired of the endless disappointment.”
”I don't know what to tell you, Jenny.” Annja shook her head. ”I wish I had the power to make all your pain go away. But I don't. None of us do.”
”I do now,” Jenny said. ”And I'm not walking away from the chance just because it's not the right thing to do in someone else's book. For me, this is the right thing to do and it's the right time to do it.”
Annja looked at the ground. ”I can't let you take the drugs, Jenny.”
”Why not? After everything I've just told you. I poured my heart out to you. I'm dying here and you still cling to some supposedly n.o.ble ideology? How is that your decision to make?”
Annja shook her head. ”I don't know. But it's a decision that has to be made and I'm the person here, right now, standing in your way.”
Jenny raised the gun. ”Like I said, I don't want to hurt you, Annja. But so help me, G.o.d, if you try to stop me from achieving my happiness, I will put a bullet in you. I'm not going to go back to my crummy life and try to spend the next forty years telling myself that it would have been wrong to take the drugs and give myself the life I've always wanted. No way.”
Annja got up from the ground. ”I can't let you do that, Jenny. You'd never forgive yourself if you did. That junk only hurts more people than it saves. The money those criminal kingpins have is taken from the suffering of others. You don't want to be any part of that.”
”I do now.” Jenny shrugged. ”I just do not care about anyone else anymore except myself.”
”In that case,” Annja said. ”You'll have to shoot me.”
Chapter 37.
Jenny shook her head. ”I don't want to do that.”
”You're not taking the drugs, Jenny. So if you're determined to do that, then I'll have to stop you,” Annja said.
”After everything we've been through together. You'd really try to stop me?”
”I wouldn't try. try. I would do it,” Annja replied honestly. I would do it,” Annja replied honestly.
Jenny shook her head. ”I thought you'd understand my reasons for doing this.”
”I do understand your reasons. But that doesn't mean I have to condone them. And I can't. I hope you'll understand that.”
Jenny shook her head. ”Actually, I can't understand why you'd stand in my way. That's equal to you telling me that I don't have the right to live my life the way I want to.”
”No, that's you saying you don't care if living your life comes from the suffering of others.”
”What about my my suffering? Doesn't anyone care about that? Isn't that important, as well? Or am I just going to be forgotten again like every other time?” suffering? Doesn't anyone care about that? Isn't that important, as well? Or am I just going to be forgotten again like every other time?”
Annja looked Jenny in the eye. ”You're starting to annoy me with the woe-is-me stuff. You're no different from millions of other people. We all struggle in some way, shape or form to make our way through life. No one ever said it was going to be an easy thing.”
”No one ever said it was going to be this difficult, either.”
”Granted. But what's the choice? You're going to abandon all your morals now just because you've got the chance to take advantage of a situation that you'd normally steer clear of?”
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