Magnolias.

It started with a lawn chair.

The morning was full of mildew and, in the air, there was the beginning of humidity. In one hand was a crumpled beer can and, in the other, a cigarette was pressed between my first and middle fingers.

Bare feet touched the earth and the dew from the grass dripped on my skin. I was staring off into the distance, right in the middle of the front yard in that lawn chair, noticing when cars drove down the road and past the house. There was a sounding silence that filled the air. It sent this raging shiver up my spine and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I just wasn’t ready for it. Getting home from a beer run with Garrett to find Ivy and some piece of shit I didn’t know laying together in our four-post bed wasn’t something I was ready for at all. We’d been together for two years.

My grip on the beer can tightened and I brought the cigarette to my lips, inhaling deeply. God only knows how long they’d been together since we moved in, or how many other men had laid in my place in our bed. This sudden heat crept from my heels to my head and I began to sweat. The absolute resentment I felt was incomprehensible.

The look on her face when she saw me walk in the bedroom door was etched into my brain. I couldn’t shake it. It was wide eyes paired with an open mouth and blushing cheeks. She had the sheets wrapped around her flawless body and her brown hair cascaded down around her bare shoulders.

“Oh, shit,” was all she said. I remember it clearly. Her tone was hard and sudden, and - above all things - it was estrange. Loveless. And it broke my heart to hear it.

Garrett came in right behind me and looked with darkened eyes from Ivy to me to the man behind her. His fists were clenched. Pain must have been written all over his face because I knew how much he was holding back walking right over there and beating the shit out of whoever she’d just fucked.

“Ivy?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“It isn’t what it looks like,” she managed.

The morning heat started to hit me. Arizona that time of year was hardly tolerable, even early on in the day when the cold dew found your feet.

I shook my head, trying to clear it, but it didn’t help. So, after my eyes glazed over for a few minutes, I stood from the chair, leaving it smack dab in the middle of the yard. I made my way toward the front door and walked inside, kicking the door shut behind me with my left leg.

The house was so quiet after I made her leave.

As she packed a few of her things into that small leather suitcase, she sobbed loudly. I watched her with my back pressed up against the corner of the room, my arms folded in front of me. It hadn’t processed in my brain correctly at that moment, I think. Her clothes were wet with mascara tears and her cheeks had black stains running down their pale white exterior.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered shakily. I don’t think it was really directed at me, just a spoken thought.

Either way, I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

A growl escaped my mouth, animalistic in nature, and I stepped from the wall, glaring down at her.

“You think you haven’t done anything wrong here, is that it?” I asked. “You think you’re still fucking Jesus Christ?”

“No, that isn’t it!” she sobbed, turning her eyes to face me. She looked so guilty.

I didn’t know what to do, all I knew was that my rage was finally beginning to surface. My eyes searched endlessly for something, anything, to hit or smack or punch. And all I saw was Ivy, staring up at me with mascara eyes and shaky hands.

But I couldn’t hit her. As much as I hated her, I couldn’t hurt her.

I ran a hand through my hair as I made my way up the steps, morning dew still fresh and clinging to my feet and the bottoms of my pant legs. The medicine cabinet was calling my name as I reached the top of the steps. I headed for the bathroom and closed the door behind me, locking it as soon as I’d walked inside.

I hadn’t slept at all that night. Sometime between the exact second I found Ivy with a new lover and when I got up from the lawn chair, I knew what I was going to do. It was inevitable, really.

The pills left the bottle before I had time to think.