Status: Completed
Good-bye, My Love.
A Victim of Apathy
Can I kill him?
The thought trickled through her subconscious, dancing though her mind before releasing with a defeated laugh and an exhale.
A young woman, just barely twenty-five, sat firmly on the end of her bed, hands resting softly on knees kept firmly together. The feeling of the soft cotton nightgown was overlooked as she gripped the skin beneath them. She stared intently, with tired eyes, at a small digital clock situated on a vanity directly in front of her. 3:00 am. She let out a distressed sigh as the clock clicked, almost inaudibly.
Her stare was broken momentarily as she glanced toward the bedroom door, waiting for the man she once loved to walk through, carelessly, as he always would. The routine had become regular, expected, but as the times began to push further into the morning, her sympathies wavered, leaving only the feelings of betrayal and disgust.
As the time ticked slowly forward with no sign of his homecoming, her mind began to wander once again.
If I make it look like an accident. She humored herself by imagining her smiling face as she stirred a deadly poison into his morning coffee. The erratic thoughts played through her mind as if an old film noir.
Or a suicide. The imaginary scene flashed over to a man hanging from the ceiling fan, her nylon stockings the rope.
Or maybe just cold blood. One more time, as his body laid sprawled out on the floor, the pure-white carpet tainted by the crimson color, the knife in his back a clear indication.
She rubbed her eyes roughly trying to shake the sorrow-driven delusions.
Things weren’t always this way. The imagery continued to play on in her mind, this time a memory, a couple walking hand-in-hand along the shoreline. The woman stared out toward the sea almost failing to notice as the man, dropping to one knee, pulled out a tiny black-satin box. In it a ring, one that was suppose to mean eternal love.
It’s not my fault. She stared down at the same ring which now only stood for regret. It’s not, she repeated as the tears began to fall, dropping one-by-one onto the back of her hands.
3:35 am. He’s late. She remembered the first time it had happened, when he came storming through the front door, drunk, one o’clock in the morning. She had let it go. I shouldn’t have let it go.
She touched her stomach lightly trying to recapture a lost moment and sooth an unhealed wound. He is just upset that he couldn’t meet you. He just needs to release his sorrow. He’ll be better soon. The excuses began to pile up as night after night the same scene replayed, as if a broken record. And then, it changed. The nightly intoxication turned into infidelity and the excuses switched from hers to his.
She let the memory of a woman’s perfume, masked by the smell of cigarettes, linger in her senses as she recalled the source of her resentment. If the scents and traces of smudged lipstick on his clothing weren’t sufficient evidence, the foreign love bites would have been. As she tried to ignore the blatant signs, he grew distant, belligerent and she, apathetic.
A love, once so strong, was cut short by an unforeseen tragedy. As she looked to him for support, he looked to outside sources, solidifying the end.
It’s not fair, she murmured as she began to feel remorse and embarrassment for her desperation. I loved her too. What gives him the right to self-destruct when the pain is equal.. Why should I have to bear it alone.
4:05 am. She laid back, staring at the rotating ceiling fan above her, her long dark-brown hair falling haphazardly about the bed. The warm streaks that trailed down her cheeks, now dry, only caused her more frustration, adding to her helplessness.
She exhaled heavily, resisting the temptation to adhere to the monotonous cycle of self-loathing and blind sympathy. I won’t kill him, she said with a small smile and a deep breath. Using her fists as support she pushed herself up off of the bed, feeling a sense of relief for the first time in months.
Pulling out two pale-blue suitcases from under her bed she grasped a bundle of clothes from her closet and laid them in. He won’t die without me here, she whispered softly, trying to reassure herself as she continued to collect her things, but I’ll die if I stay. As the clothes fell, so did the tears, and with them the pain began to subside. As she pushed onward she realized that the hardest step was now in progress. When she looked down at her disheveled belongings a sense of pride arose.
A suitcase in each hand she made her way to the front door, stopping just before taking the final steps outside. Looking around for the last time she let the tears well up once more as she remembered both the happiness and the misery that was borne in just a few short years. With a consoling inhale she placed her hand on the door knob knowing there was no turning back.
I loved you, she looked up past the ceiling, toward the intangible and smiled gently, and I always will. It’s time to move forward.
Good-bye, she whispered sweetly, as if a final memo to the man she had once loved, hoping that he would re-emerge from the place he had retreated to within himself, finding the will to heal and the strength to move forward. Finally allowing her guilt and regret to slowly dissipate she passed the threshold, letting the door close gently behind her.
The thought trickled through her subconscious, dancing though her mind before releasing with a defeated laugh and an exhale.
A young woman, just barely twenty-five, sat firmly on the end of her bed, hands resting softly on knees kept firmly together. The feeling of the soft cotton nightgown was overlooked as she gripped the skin beneath them. She stared intently, with tired eyes, at a small digital clock situated on a vanity directly in front of her. 3:00 am. She let out a distressed sigh as the clock clicked, almost inaudibly.
Her stare was broken momentarily as she glanced toward the bedroom door, waiting for the man she once loved to walk through, carelessly, as he always would. The routine had become regular, expected, but as the times began to push further into the morning, her sympathies wavered, leaving only the feelings of betrayal and disgust.
As the time ticked slowly forward with no sign of his homecoming, her mind began to wander once again.
If I make it look like an accident. She humored herself by imagining her smiling face as she stirred a deadly poison into his morning coffee. The erratic thoughts played through her mind as if an old film noir.
Or a suicide. The imaginary scene flashed over to a man hanging from the ceiling fan, her nylon stockings the rope.
Or maybe just cold blood. One more time, as his body laid sprawled out on the floor, the pure-white carpet tainted by the crimson color, the knife in his back a clear indication.
She rubbed her eyes roughly trying to shake the sorrow-driven delusions.
Things weren’t always this way. The imagery continued to play on in her mind, this time a memory, a couple walking hand-in-hand along the shoreline. The woman stared out toward the sea almost failing to notice as the man, dropping to one knee, pulled out a tiny black-satin box. In it a ring, one that was suppose to mean eternal love.
It’s not my fault. She stared down at the same ring which now only stood for regret. It’s not, she repeated as the tears began to fall, dropping one-by-one onto the back of her hands.
3:35 am. He’s late. She remembered the first time it had happened, when he came storming through the front door, drunk, one o’clock in the morning. She had let it go. I shouldn’t have let it go.
She touched her stomach lightly trying to recapture a lost moment and sooth an unhealed wound. He is just upset that he couldn’t meet you. He just needs to release his sorrow. He’ll be better soon. The excuses began to pile up as night after night the same scene replayed, as if a broken record. And then, it changed. The nightly intoxication turned into infidelity and the excuses switched from hers to his.
She let the memory of a woman’s perfume, masked by the smell of cigarettes, linger in her senses as she recalled the source of her resentment. If the scents and traces of smudged lipstick on his clothing weren’t sufficient evidence, the foreign love bites would have been. As she tried to ignore the blatant signs, he grew distant, belligerent and she, apathetic.
A love, once so strong, was cut short by an unforeseen tragedy. As she looked to him for support, he looked to outside sources, solidifying the end.
It’s not fair, she murmured as she began to feel remorse and embarrassment for her desperation. I loved her too. What gives him the right to self-destruct when the pain is equal.. Why should I have to bear it alone.
4:05 am. She laid back, staring at the rotating ceiling fan above her, her long dark-brown hair falling haphazardly about the bed. The warm streaks that trailed down her cheeks, now dry, only caused her more frustration, adding to her helplessness.
She exhaled heavily, resisting the temptation to adhere to the monotonous cycle of self-loathing and blind sympathy. I won’t kill him, she said with a small smile and a deep breath. Using her fists as support she pushed herself up off of the bed, feeling a sense of relief for the first time in months.
Pulling out two pale-blue suitcases from under her bed she grasped a bundle of clothes from her closet and laid them in. He won’t die without me here, she whispered softly, trying to reassure herself as she continued to collect her things, but I’ll die if I stay. As the clothes fell, so did the tears, and with them the pain began to subside. As she pushed onward she realized that the hardest step was now in progress. When she looked down at her disheveled belongings a sense of pride arose.
A suitcase in each hand she made her way to the front door, stopping just before taking the final steps outside. Looking around for the last time she let the tears well up once more as she remembered both the happiness and the misery that was borne in just a few short years. With a consoling inhale she placed her hand on the door knob knowing there was no turning back.
I loved you, she looked up past the ceiling, toward the intangible and smiled gently, and I always will. It’s time to move forward.
Good-bye, she whispered sweetly, as if a final memo to the man she had once loved, hoping that he would re-emerge from the place he had retreated to within himself, finding the will to heal and the strength to move forward. Finally allowing her guilt and regret to slowly dissipate she passed the threshold, letting the door close gently behind her.