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The Day That Destroyed us Both: Part 3 (Short Story) |
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I sit up quickly, tears flowing down my cheeks. The sun hasn’t even risen yet, so not even she can see these tears. I wipe away my tears, and let out a crying breath. I can still feel that sting on my cheek, and I can still feel that throbbing burning on my back. I wince as I lay back down onto my back. “What a nightmare…” I mumble to myself, but was it just a nightmare, or could it mean more that just that? His words though…All of his words in my dream, they were all scrambled, and incomprehensible…Oh, what I’d do to know what it was that he was saying to me…
I lay under the covers for at least an hour, thinking, “I need to sell all of this stuff… Today…” I tell myself that once I do that, it will all go back to normal, in a sense, and I will be able to move on. I’m so sure that this is the solution to all of my problems. This will remove his constant reminder, only this, there was no other way.
As it grows to a decent time I slowly begin my daily routine. I start by reluctantly slipping out of the sheets, and then heading to the kitchen. As I arrive into the kitchen, again, there’s a fresh pot of coffee waiting for me, along with the cream and sugar, but even more odd, there are two ceramic cups sitting on the counter, waiting to be filled with coffee. “Must be sleep walking or something…” I tell myself, and that could be it, I remember that one time that he- “No” I stop myself from thinking about him.
I shrug and put one of the cups away, and pour coffee into the cup left. I put the cream and sugar away, and then take my cup and sip away. I sit alone at the breakfast table, across from the empty chair. I sigh as I finish the cup and set it into the sink. I turn and then head to my room to get dressed for the day, and I notice my bed was made. I stare at this perfectly made bed as if it’s an odd phenomenon for me to see. It is, I don’t make my bed, unless I’m having company over. I never make the bed…but, of course, he did. Every morning, that’s how he was raised.
Right now, I’m thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me! This is ridiculous! There’s got to be someone in here, or I’m just going insane.” I might as well be insane; I might as well be locked up in an asylum; Take me away from this hell of a life, no one would miss me; There’s no one here for me anymore.
I call in sick to work, and my boss wishes me well, and I have a free day. It’s not really free though, since today I have to sell all the crap that I hold dear to my heart, all this s**t that teases me every moment I see it.
I call Salvation Army, and donate most of his old clothes; I call an old electronics store and sell our TV, our DVD player, all of our movies, and our computer; I call a clearance furniture store and sell our love seat, our bed, our table, our desk, our chairs, our end tables, our dressers, and our Entertainment stand; I trash all of our photos, and toss out all of our personal crap, the high school diplomas, the college degrees, the marriage license, everything; I put all of the knick-knacks, all the Christmas gifts, and all the junk we shared together in a box and leave it at a dumpster; I pawned the rings, and all the jewelry he gave to me and I traded the car in for a newer, but not quite as nice, vehicle; The only things I kept was the mattress, the coffee machine, the fridge, some of my clothes, and the first letter he ever wrote me that had a picture of us attached to it. I know I should’ve tossed it, but I just couldn’t completely part with him. That letter meant so much to me, and I could never just toss it.
After getting all of that done, it was very late, and I had just pulled up to the apartment complex after dropping the last of his clothes off at the Salvation Army drop-off and saw, clearly that my room light was on. I looked three times, and it was still lit. I grinned, “There has to be someone there.”
I zoomed into the complex and ran up the stairs; as I arrived at my room I heard movement inside. There was definitely someone in there, but whom?
I quickly push open the door, shut my eyes and scream, “Who the hell are you!?!”
“Ah, there you are Tristan,” a man replies.
I slowly open one eye, as if not wanting to see who it was I had just embarrassed myself in front of. As I realize who it is I just glare at him; it was Hougon.
“I tried calling you, but you weren’t answering your cell phone, and then the line was disconnected. I was worried that you weren’t doing well, but it looks like your feeling fine now,” He explains with a sly and intimidating voice.
“How’d you get in here?” I ask him, already knowing the answer as the last words left my lips. I never lock the doors, there is and was nothing more that could be taken from me that I’d honestly miss.
“Why, the door was unlocked Tristan, you have a habit of not locking the door,” He replies with a smirk, an arrogant smirk.
I glare at him; How does he know? Has he been coming in my apartment and ******** with me this whole time? Was it him? “How do you know about my habits detective?” I ask him with an aggravated smile.
“I read this letter here,” Hougon said as he holds up the letter; his first letter to me.
“Oh, yeah it’s the only thing here to read I guess,” I replied with a smile on my lips, but pure hatred in my eyes. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I screamed in my head.
“Yes, I have noticed some renovations to your apartment, can’t say I prefer it all empty like this, but if that’s your style, it is your home,” He adds.
“When have you seen my house before detective,” I ask growing more and more upset with this guy every time he opens his ******** mouth.
“Yesterday, while you were at work I stopped by,” He responds, confident, as if that was okay.
“Why?” I ask, gritting my teeth, holding myself back from choking the man.
“I had to…Check for more evidence, I have a search warrant,” he answers, “Sorry, about the intrusion Tristy.”
“What did you call me?” I ask, frozen. He didn’t just call me Tristy, did he? That’s what he addressed me as, in his letter. How dare this piece of s**t address me by that name; how dare he think I have any evidence; how dare he think that he can treat me like this.
“Tristan, I meant, sorry,” He corrects himself quickly.
“Well, detective, it’s late, I really think you should go,” I say to him with a look that I hope tells him I want to be alone.
“I’ll go Tristan, but tomorrow you need to come in, or I will send someone to escort you to me,” he threatens me as he walks past me and towards the door. He’s about two feet from the door and he trips, on his own two feet, I assume, since there was nothing there, and hit’s his forehead on the doorknob.
I hold back a laugh, the little b***h deserved it.
He stands up quickly, and turns to me and says, “I’m okay.”
I nod and smile at Hougon.
He nods back and then turns, walking up straight, and holding his head up high, as if to compensate for his lack of dignity or pride. He exits the apartment, and I look out the window to see him drive away.
I sigh, I can relax, I can be alone. I go into my room and sit on my mattress. I start to think, “I can’t believe that he’s been screwing with me this whole time…That b*****d!!” I start to devise a plan, I’ll catch him in the act…Tonight I will stay up and wait for him to come in and I’ll call the cops on his a**…I’m not quite sure if this will work, but it’s worth a shot.
I get up and then drag my mattress out into the living room. The living room is pretty much the same room as the kitchen since it’s an open floor plan, and to get to the kitchen from the front door you have to go through the living room, so there was no chance he’d get by me without me waking…If it was him who was doing all of this.
I lay on my mattress as it grows later, and later. I only grow cold and tired. I dare not make coffee since I don’t want to make it to easy for Hougon. Hougon will have to grind the coffee beans, he has to get the water, he has to do the whole deal, no short cuts.
I grow very sleepy and I decide that the coffee grinder will easily wake me since I’m out in the living room. I lay on the bare mattress and let sleep take its grip on me.
I’m back in the room on that day, that horrid day that curses me with its constant reappearance in my nightmares. The gun, it’s shoved into my hands, and I tremble as the painful sensations of before, return to my back and cheek. He yells at me again, his words still jumbled and foreign. He drops to his knees, tears wearing away his soft cheeks. He then grabs my hands that are forced to clasp the gun. He pulls my hands up and presses the gun against his forehead. His brown eyes, full of love, sadness, and desperation, while mine also full of love, are also full of fear and confusion. He grips my hands and moves my hand to c**k the gun. I shiver at the sound that kills a piece of me. He forces me to hold the barrel of the gun against his forehead, and then he begins to speak.
I quickly wake up from my slumber to the scent of coffee. I stand quickly, and I see that the coffee is already made, and there are two cups set out. Ones that I thought I had sold, they were ours. We had them custom made, one said his name and the other said mine. They had matching images of a romantic, beach sunset. As I approach the cups I see they mine is filled with black coffee, and the other, his, is full of coffee as well, but it already has the cream and sugar in it; which was odd, since yesterday I threw out the cream since it had gone bad.
“Damnit…How did Hougon do it? How?” I ask myself, there was no way Hougon could grind the coffee beans and not wake me, the grinder was so loud. I just didn’t understand how Hougon could do it…It had to be him, there was no other way…No one else would have a reason to do this, no one but Hougon himself, but I have no proof, and I’m not going to make myself look stupid by accusing the detective without any evidence.
I mutter curses under my breath as I take my coffee and take a sip, but quickly spit it out into the sink; It burns my tongue, as if its straight out of the pot. The other days it was warm, drinking temperature, but today it might as well have been molten coffee beans.
“He must’ve just left as I woke up,” I mumble as I glance around the room, as if I would see a post-it note stating, “Hougon was here.” There was no such thing to be seen.
After I fumble around my, pretty much empty, apartment and find a couple of quarters, I head out of my apartment, in the same clothes I wore yesterday. As I’m walking down the stairs I think to myself, “I should’ve locked the door…” but I shake my head I was just going to make a call, I’d be right back.
As I enter the apartment lobby, I swear I see a man run out of the building. I just tell myself that I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I make my way over to the pay phone in the corner, and I take a seat in front of the machine. I drop in my quarters, and dial the number of my work. When my boss answers, I put on a sickly tone and explain to him how I think I’ve come down with a bad case of the flu, and am going to the hospital today, and probably wouldn’t be back for a few days, I apologize through a “fit of coughs” and hang up. It was a lie of course; I had no intentions of seeing a doctor. I was going to pay the good, neighborly detective a visit in a few hours; that’s when his office was open, in a few hours; if I could go in right now, I would, I had a few things to ask him.
 Ookami_Oshima · Sat Jun 13, 2009 @ 03:33am · 1 Comments |
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