‘I am so sorry my love,’ read the first line of the letter. ‘You must understand that I’m not doing this because of you; you are my world and I could not have asked for a better wife, but I have fought this feeling for too long now and I cannot bear this pain any more. I hope you find happiness and a new love who can give you the children I could not, and that your memory of me fades as painlessly as it was made. I love you, but now I must go.’
She pored over the text again and again; at first she was bewildered and confused, but as she began to truly understand its message she became agitated and frantic. Though it had clearly been written with a shaking hand and many of the letters were misshapen and contorted she could not mistake her husband’s handwriting, though it was missing his signature which he proudly placed on all of his correspondences. This fact seemed trivial at first but as she considered it and everything else he had done to her, it became a focal point for her heartache.
'He didn't even care enough to sign his last letter to me'.
A mix of anger and frustration overcame her as she considered the callous and calculating man who had once been so warm and passionate, but who now spent the majority of his time in his office or hotels around the world. Her face twisted into a grimace as she remembered their last embrace; him panting and wheezing for a few minutes before announcing his climax with a semi-stifled grunt and rolling onto his side like an over-fed pig. Perhaps even more pathetic was the fact that he could barely find the time to commit to that much intimacy these days; it had been several months since he had touched her and several years since she had even enjoyed sex with him. She began to weep as she considered the toll the last seventeen years had taken on the both of them, and at the realization that she could neither get that time nor the man she fell in love with back. Tears crept from her tired eyes and traced the subtle wrinkles on her cheeks as they fell to the floor and melted into the soft black rug that dominated the room.
For hours she sat there and grieved not only for her husband but for her marriage, until she was suddenly disturbed by the faint sound of a heavy door shutting. She strained to listen and she heard the familiar sound of shoes clicking on the marble in the hallway. He called her name once… twice… three times before he began to bellow and wail for her like a lost child.
She snapped out of her trance and ran from the room, scrambling through the half open door as she went. I have to get to him, I have to change all of this before it is too late. She began to call his name as she neared the hallway, and she could hear his footsteps clatter up the steps to the second floor. Bursting through the last door she sprinted to the staircase and stopped at the top of the landing, stopped by the sight of her red-faced husband scrambling and lurching up the final few steps to join her.
“I’m sorry I put you through this,” he panted as he took another step. “I love you.” As he reached the top of the landing he grasped hold of the banister and sucked at the air with a pained face whilst his body shook and teetered with exhaustion. His wife drew his face up to hers with a touch as soft as silk, placed her hands on his shoulders and waited for him to catch his breath.
“I couldn’t do it. It was such a horrific idea, and all I could think about was you and how much you need me. I couldn’t… kill myself.” His whole body began to quiver once more as he burst into tears and stooped his head. He had not noticed that he was dangerously close to the edge of the staircase with only his wife to hold him up, and as she let her hands slip from his shoulders and saw him begin to topple backwards she said only one thing,
“I could.”
—
Credits to: NorthofNorthofNorth
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