Everyone Learns Faster On Fire

Frank walked up the stairs to his apartment in a pleasant mood, still buzzing from the practise session he had just had with Leathermouth. They had practised their newest song together for the first time that afternoon and he was amazed at how good it sounded in it’s initial state. He was still pumped full of adrenaline and couldn’t wait to share his excitement with Jamia.
He used his key to unlock the door. It wasn’t late, only about 7PM, but he didn’t want to disturb her by knocking just in case she was taking a nap.
The first thing he noticed when he entered the apartment seemed very out of place. A medium sized suitcase on wheels was sat in the middle of the floor. Frank frowned. They weren’t due to go on holiday to Hawaii for a couple of weeks yet. Maybe Jamia had wanted to start packing her things early? This was no surprise to him, as he knew that she had been going on and on about how excited she was for weeks.

He stepped over the suitcase and called out to her. “Honey! I’m back! Are you around?”

There was no answer. The sound of the clock ticking away in the hall was his only reply.
He shrugged and walked into the living room, expecting to see her asleep on the sofa while a cheesy game show was being played on the TV. But there was no one there. Instead something else caught his eye. There was something stuck to the mirror on the opposite wall.
Frank moved closer to get a better look. He gasped.
It was a photograph of himself and Gerard kissing in the diner a few weeks ago.

He reeled back in shock, nearly tripping over the fluffy rug on the floor. What was that doing there? Where had she got it? That diner was empty, so who took the picture? His brain was overwhelmed with desperate questions wanting to be answered, but he just could not comprehend them.

He rushed out into the hallway and over to the bedroom, where there was another picture tacked onto the closed door. This one was just as bad - he was kissing Gerard’s neck and Gerard’s hand was on his thigh. He ripped it away from the door and screwed it up violently, his heart threatening to leap out of his ribcage.

“Arrrrrrrghhhh!” Frank cried as he vehemently threw the remains of the photograph to the corner of the room in frustration.

Jamia knew. Jamia knew all about Gerard. He could almost feel his whole world crashing down around him. Who would do this? Who would take these pictures and give them to her?

Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open. Jamia appeared carrying a sports bag and a jacket. She didn’t even acknowledge his existence. The dark spidery trails of cried off makeup was still visible on her face and her eyes were bloodshot and irritated, but there was no sign of tears. They were dry. Vacant. Cold. She didn’t look like the woman he loved.

“Jamia, I-”

“DON’T talk to me.” She interrupted, looking at the space behind his left ear. “You’re dead to me.”

She carried on walking and placed the items she was carrying next to the suitcase. Without even so much as a glimpse in his direction, she once again walked past him into the bedroom. He could hear the frantic opening of draws and items being flung into another waiting bag.
He dared himself to look in the room. She was violently pulling her clothing out of the wardrobe and putting as much as she could in the bag on the floor. He looked over to the bed. Hundreds of photographs similar to the ones he had just seen were spread out all over the bed linen, some ripped into pieces. Some had fallen off the duvet onto the floor, and he could see that they had been stamped on multiple times by the way they were curled up at the edges.
Jamia must’ve sensed his gloomy presence because she looked up, straight at him this time. Tears were streaming down her face and she aggressively wiped them away.

“Get the hell away from me!” She shouted. “Don’t you dare come any closer. I HATE you. I hate you, you fucking homosexual cheater!”

Frank’s whole body had become numb. He tried to speak, but instead he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he was being choked by his own tears. He just wished that he could explain why she should stay. But he could not find a reason that would be enough convince her to.

“5 years! 5 whole years I’ve loved you!” She continued to rant, throwing her clothes in the bag in rage. “I didn’t think you were like that Frank!.. I thought we were going to be forever!”

“Jamia, please!” Frank cried, finally finding his tongue. He ran over to her and desperately tried to wrestle the bag away from her, in a feeble attempt to prevent her from leaving. “You were never meant to find out!… I-I love you!”

“I was never meant to find out, huh?!” Jamia lashed out, viciously kicking and punching him off her until he let the bag go. He dropped to his knees and began sobbing in agony.

“So you we’re going to keep this from me for the rest of your life then?!” She spat, looking at the man hunched over on the carpet in disgust. “You think it’s right? You think it’s okay to cheat on your fiancé with your fucking scabby friend who is also a man?!… Who the hell are you?!”

Frank looked up, his vision blurry with fresh tears. He watched sorrowfully as she shoved the final items in the plastic bag. He could not believe that this was it. He just did not know what to do. He tried grabbing onto her foot, but she kicked it away as if it were dust.

“People tried to tell me that you weren’t right, that you were a dishonest little shit!” She raged, staring at the blank space on the wall opposite her. She picked up one of the photographs from the bed and stared at it, her eyebrows almost becoming one as she intensely frowned. “You know what? The crazy old lady downstairs tried to stop me last week. She tried to tell me about you and…and him. And you know what I did? I laughed in her face. I was naïve enough to think ‘Oh, my Frankie wouldn’t do anything like that’, but I was so wrong about you, wasn’t I darling? I was wrong to trust you and think of you as ten times the man you are.”

She turned to face him and ripped the picture up into minuscule pieces. Frank watched in horror as they fell to the floor in front of him.

“So I come home today to find a lovely little collection of photographs just waiting for me to feast my eyes upon them.” She said, ladling on the sarcasm at the word ‘lovely’. “It doesn’t surprise me after the bathroom incident. You make such a disgusting couple!”

She began marching out of the room. He scrambled after her, trying to hold her back as she stormed into the hallway, ignoring her remarks of ‘Get off me’ and ‘Leave me alone’.
Frank tried hugging her as she put her arms in her jacket, but she batted him away with her hands.

“Jamia, you don’t have to do this!” He cried, getting down on his knees and begging. “Please! You belong here! Please don’t leave me here on my own!”

“Oh, you don’t have to be on your own. You’ve got Gerard remember.” She wiped the tears away from her eyes and spoke in a forced polite tone, as if she was speaking to someone important on the telephone. “I’m going to stay with Cassie for a bit. I’ll be back to pick up the rest of my things in a few days.”

“No. No, no, no. You can’t go.”

“I can. There’s a taxi waiting outside for me.” She said matter-of-factly. She put the sports bag on her back and picked up the plastic bag and suitcase in each hand. “Goodbye Frank.”

Her heels clicked on the laminate flooring as she walked towards the front door. She paused before she unlatched it and turned to face him once more.

“Oh yeah, and you can have this back, seeing as I won’t be needing it anymore.”

There was a clang and a white gold engagement ring came skidding across the floor towards Frank. It finally came to rest just inches away from him, still spinning from the force of it’s flight when the door had finally been slammed shut. Frank collapsed face down on the floor, sobbing until the sun began to set.