Confessions of a Broken Heart

Chapter 2

There's a certain look that a man gets in his eyes when he loves a woman. He's desperately in love and she's all he wants and he doesn't need anything or anyone else. I can recognize that look because Mike used to have it too, every time he looked at me.

I suppose I got used to it. I took it for granted. My life was warm and beautiful and full. I had Mike and we had Andre.

We would have friends over for dinner and sip wine, talking and laughing into the small hours of the night. We would pin Andre's crayon scribble masterpieces on the wall and pretend we were at an art museum, and then we'd take a picnic lunch to the park.

I was happier than I'd ever been and I couldn't imagine why any of it would change. I didn't notice, not at first anyway and not until it was too late, when that honest desperate love faded from Mike's eyes.

Looking back, I know it didn't happen suddenly, but it felt sudden to me. In the space of an afternoon I went from believing that Mike and I would raise Andre and grow old together to feeling like a woman lost in a sudden snow storm, everything around me distorted and unfamiliar.

'...I swear, I wouldn't have done it if I'd known. Anyway, I just thought you should know. Sorry.'

Even with a strange woman's text on my phone, I probably would have forgiven him, eventually. That's how much I loved him and my life with him.

He stood in front of me and he didn't deny anything. He didn't apologize once.

"How could you do this to me?" I demanded, still in shock.

His eyes were hard then, cold and so far away from me.

"I don't owe you anything," he said bitterly, "I never married you! I don't owe you my whole life! This is my life too."

We fought for a long time, yelling and slamming doors. He said such cruel things and I threw it all right back at him, an awful fire inside me burning hotter with every second.

"What about our son?!" I cried, slamming my hands into his chest.

"He's yours, Michonne. He was always yours," and then the words that I'll never forgive, "I never wanted him in the first place."

I had no more words. My fist tightened and snapped forward, connecting sharply with his jaw. He cursed and grabbed my arms before I could swing again.

People always talk about a broken heart, like something made of glass that falls and shatters into a thousand jagged pieces. That's not what happened to me. My heart didn't break or shatter.

My heart turned cold and hard and distant. I saw myself take my katana down from its place on the wall, pull the shiny blade out of its sheath, and plunge it through Mike's heart.

I stood there, stunned that I'd thought of something so horrible, so out of character. But deep down I felt a new certainty that I could have done it. It would have been easy.

Thinking I'd finally given up, Mike pushed me away and I backed into the wall. I sank to the floor, staring blankly into a world where the father of my son didn't love him and I was capable of murder.

......................

TBC!

Preview: Next chapter is how Michonne and Rick first meet!