Read an Excerpt
This Is How It Happened (not a love story)
Chapter One
I never intended to kill him kill him. I mean, actually kill him. It started as a joke. Two women in a coffee shop talking about their ex-disasters. And when Carlton's name came up, the pain was so searing, so literal across my chest, I checked my stomach to see if someone had sliced me open with a knife.
That's when I told my best friend, Heather, I wanted to kill him.
"I'll hide the body," she said, taking a demure little sip from her cappuccino. And we both giggled like schoolgirls. But then she did something she's never done before. She put her hand on my shoulder and shot me a look. It was one of those pitying looks. The type of look a person gives a wounded dog before the vet puts him down. She even crinkled her eyes and said, "Be strong, Maddy."
And that's when I knew I was serious about killing him.
An hour later, after Heather and I parted company, I found myself browsing the gardening section of Half Price Books. I was looking for a book on poisons. And I didn't want to pay retail.
I felt angry. Angry as a tornado. Wild and swerving and unpredictable. For some reason, maybe anxiety, my eye had begun to twitch. I rubbed my eyelid and skulked up and down the bookstore aisles.
The book I plucked from the shelf had a picture of a rat on the cover. I imagined Carlton's face attached to the rat's body. And then, for a split second, I imagined Carlton's real body, and us having sex on the kitchen floor, like we always used to do.
Another wave of anger swept over me and I shook my head back and forth, trying to erase the image from mymind. I was an assassin on a mission, after all.
I flipped open the rat book and began browsing through the pages.
Chapter 4: How to Exterminate those Pesky Pests.
"Making your own poison: The organic alternative," I read quietly to myself.
Am I really going to kill my ex? I thought. I blushed and glanced suspiciously up and down the bookstore aisles, as if half expecting a bunch of FBI guys to burst in and arrest me for Intent to Kill with Lavender-Scented Mouse Repellent.
I strolled to the register, casually, book tucked neatly under my arm.
"Cash or charge?" the longhaired clerk asked. He stroked his goatee and peered across the counter at me. I could smell the pungent scent of marijuana emanating from his clothes—particularly the hydroponic "kind-bud" variety preferred by the closet intelligentsia crowd of East Austin.
I winked at Mr. Greenleaf and slid a twenty across the counter. I'd seen enough movies to know I'd definitely be paying cash.
The first rule of killing an ex-fiancé: never leave a paper trail.
This Is How It Happened (not a love story). Copyright © by Jo Barrett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
