Kill Or Be Killed

Chapter Three

Scale Number: 4 & 5 (Once Jessie shows up)

Cat shifted where she was sitting at the end of her couch, her eyes moving between the TV and the lazy-boy chair left abandoned less than a yard away from her, then back again.

The memory of Greg sitting there sipping on a cold beer as they watched some kind of car show he'd introduced her to; was enough to make her lose the little bit of appetite she'd managed to get from not eating all day. The microwavable food in her lap was just mush at this point from how much she played with it. Vaguely wondering if she might have eaten more if she knew how to cook a proper home cooked meal.

Standing, she set the handmade blanket off to the side, making her way over to the slop bucket. A metal container that she gave to her nearest neighbor in exchange for enough bird feed for the week.

First, scrapping the contents into the thing, she then straightened to place the dishes in the sink. Using the pre-filled soap wand, she washed the plate and fork before rinsing them off and drying them with a hand towel. Once they were put away, a microscopic amount of tension inside of her chest diminished.

Prior to the accident, when she was still married to the man she married out of highschool, a dirty dish never would have bugged her. She could have left a sinkful until the following morning then did them after making her husband breakfast before work.

Now?

Now she was incapable of leaving a single thing in the sink for more than twenty minutes, let alone a whole night.

Sighing, Cat gripped the edge of the lip in front of the basin, leaning until the cold metal touched her forehead. She knew she was messed up, Greg's death scared her far more than he would ever admit out loud.

Although it was probably clear by the life changes she'd made afterward. Like quitting her job and basically becoming a recluse; save for the times she was forced to go to work in order to pay bills and essentials.

She hated the idea of relying on the surprisingly large payments she got from her late husband's pension plan. Monthly payments since the week after his death, coming in much sooner than she'd thought, with much higher figures than he'd ever expressed. Money she'd only touched when it was needed for his burial and the tedious paperwork that had come in the mail for her.

Things she tried not to think about, as it was more confusing the more she tried to piece the pieces together. Not that she was stupid, but something just didn't fit.

It also could have been that the encounter with Jessie after work didn't help her state of mind either. Not when his face still haunted her nights, even though it had already been three months. Just as long as since he'd mysteriously popped into her life. Coming to town and getting a job all in the same day, and then...

A shiver ran down her spin as she straightened, looking at her reflection in one of the four panes of glass that made up the kitchen window. The lights from above made it impossible to see anything outside, instead revealing the reflection of someone she hardly recognized.

A broken version of herself who was left broken and bleeding on the work bathroom floor.

Jessie's lingering musk still burned her nose whenever she walked somewhere he'd recently been. It was growing more and more difficult to avoid him, especially when the man had been going out of his way to talk to her. Like he thought she enjoyed the events that happened between them.

It was coming to the point that she'd thought about carrying one of Greg's hand guns with her, more than once. But she knew without a license, it would only cause more trouble than it would solve. Instead, she settled with a can of mace that never left her side when she was out of the house. Like today, when she'd almost sprayed him right there on the side of the road for getting too close to her.