Julie

Julie. Julie. Julie. Julie.

Julie. Julie Julie Julie.

I don’t remember writing it, or even picking up a pen, but there it is, scrawled all over scattered pieces of paper, on the table, on the walls even. Just one name, over and over and over again.

Julie. Julie. Julie. Julie.

I sit there, watching my hand start writing again. Crazy that I don’t even feel it moving. It’s like it belongs to someone else, a lovesick kid who won’t stop scribbling the name of their crush on everything and anything. My fingers creep out and slide the next sheet of paper over once both sides are completely covered.

She told me I’d never be able to get away from her no matter how far I ran. That one way or another I’d regret leaving her.

It started with constant text messages, phone calls in the middle of the night, social media stalking. Later that became physical stalking, lurking around outside my job or my house, following my car with hers. She’d leave what I assumed were ‘presents’ on my doorstep. Half-burnt candles, bundles of twigs and plants and hair tied together with string, a still-bloody bird’s wing.

That last one had me wondering if I was dating a really fucked-up cat this whole time, but it did what she wanted. It got my attention. I’d been ignoring her constant calls and texts since we broke up, but after finding that wing laying there, I called her.

“Alright Julie, what the hell? What’s next, a horse’s head in my bed? A pentagram in goat’s blood? A pig’s heart stuck all over with pins?”

She laughed, a giggle I used to think was cute. “Don’t be stupid, Jason. The curse doesn’t need any of that.”

“The curse?”

“Right, the curse I put on you. You’re going to be sorry you left me.”

I hung up after that. Curses and spells didn’t scare me, so if she thought that she’d get me that way, she was dead wrong. I shrugged it off, figuring my nutcase ex was getting desperate for attention, since nothing else had worked.

The first time it happened I didn’t think anything of it. I was talking about her anyway, about how nuts she was and how I had no real recourse but to move in order to feel safe from her. Idly writing Julie’s name was a little weird, but she was on my mind already. Not like any of her flaky ‘spells’ had done anything to me.

Sitting here with a novel’s worth of pages repeating only her name, I’ve started to set a little more stock in curses.

I don’t sleep much; hard to when your own fingers will claw her name into your skin. They want to write, and if there’s nothing else to write with, they’ll resort to blood. Never in my life did I think I’d have to wrestle my own hand to get it to stop scratching me, but here we are. I don’t eat much either, because my fork or knife will become less of an eating implement and more another way to inscribe Julie’s name into everything.

It ruined my last date too. There’s really no way to explain to someone why you’ve gone into her bag and started writing the name of your ex-girlfriend all over the table in wine-red lipstick. ‘My crazy ex cursed me and now my hand won’t stop scrawling her name everywhere’ isn’t about to go over big with anyone. In fact, she blocked me just about everywhere she could, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she told all her friends what a weirdo I am.

The times where my hand doesn’t act up and allows me a bit of normalcy are enough to make me cry. They’re becoming further and further between, and I’m sure eventually there won’t be any.

Everywhere in the house I see her goddamn name. It’s scribbled, splashed, scratched, etched, scrawled, burned, and clawed into every surface possible. I can’t have anyone over like this. Not my friends, not my family, not anyone.

There’s no escaping her. I can hear that giggle, see her crazy eyes peering at me through every window. I can smell that stupid, overly-sweet perfume of hers. She’s nowhere near me, but she’s everywhere.

I try to force my hand to write my own name. I got as far as J-A-S before the ‘O’ turns into a ‘U’, followed by ‘LIE’. Julie. Julie. Julie. Julie. Julie.

She’ll never leave me be. She’ll always be haunting me, always be ruining my life. Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, all there is is her goddamn name.

There’s only one way to stop it. Only one way to end this madness for good, and the answer’s outside in the tool shed. I hardly pay any attention to the late-night chill, flinging the door open. The key to my salvation hangs on the back wall.

Like I said earlier, the hand hardly feels like it’s mine anymore. It doesn’t listen to me. It only does what it wants, or rather what Julie wants it to. I’m no expert on curses, but I damn well know that a hand can’t write if it’s not attached to a wrist.

Maybe I won’t feel it. It’s not like it’s mine anymore, it’s hers. Maybe it will hurt her.

God, I hope it hurts her. I hope she’ll be screaming and writhing on the ground, feeling like there’s nothing left but a bloody stump.

I hope it never works again. That’ll teach her.

Grinning at the thought of Julie getting her just desserts, I bring the hatchet down on my wrist.