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Damaging Hearts

I wake in a cold sweat, lying close to the woman I've called wife for three years today. All seems right in the world for everyone else, but the terror of night still clings to my skin with a noticeably salty smell. The memories of our wedding day haunts my mind and my biggest fear to this day is the thought of Beth denying my hand in marriage, and for one night every year I'm woken every hour weeping through my skin.

Its two hours before the sun is beginning to rise, and not long after the body beside me starts to do the same. The face stained with so many years of hard work is still so beautiful to me, the dark hair, blue eyes, curved cheeks and dark shadows just above the cheeks symbolize the wariness she carries on her shoulders day by day. And yet there's always the other. The man I've called friend for so long of my life, the man she denies all claims of sleeping with and the man who is always out the same night she has 'Girl Nights' with friends who deny seeing movies with the woman I call love.

The hatred for John has grown incredibly since the start of last year, since the lies were uncovered a month since they were first buried. A lie I was always unable to confront for fear of having Beth leave my life on a larger scale then she has already with the week-long 'business trips' that I don't hear about until the night she's packing a bag and heading out the door. And on the anniversary of our wedding day it only slowly begins to dawn on me the pure seriousness of recent months, and still I do nothing.

Dinner is cancelled. She claims that her co-worker has called in sick with food poisoning, and leaves only half an hour before our reservation at her favourite hotel. And finally the volcano in my chest erupts, spewing forth a wave of molten hate that until this very moment was contained beneath just beneath the skin. A quick shopping trip to stores I never thought I'd be visiting at this hour leaves me with a few tools that'll leave a mark on John's body long enough for my heart and soul to see.

A mixture of rope, cable ties, hammers and blades fill my boot almost to the brim, all lying nicely by 'a jerry can filled to the point of overflowing with petrol from the nearest station. It's hard to believe the time it took me to even attempt to find his home while Beth is out with her 'friends'. And it seems to take only minutes but half a tank of fuel to locate his complex.

The building is easy to enter, nobody in the lobby to question the bag and can that I hold in each hand. Nobody even at the front desk, likely hood is he's out for a smoke and will likely get fired for not being around to prevent the outcome of tonight. This of course makes the elevator ride to the third floor seem almost too easy with the contents of my bag, and room thirteen appears to be only a few moments' walk of the metal platform. His door is all too easy to kick in with the crazy amount of adrenalin flooding through my body.

Throwing her off his body left her with a bloodied face, and John wishing he'd live long enough to be able to pay for his wall repairs. Beth won't be awaking up anytime soon. The same strength used to throw Beth zeros in on overpowering my friend. Zip tying his already naked body to the bed takes no time, and before long the procedure will have him souring around through heaven.

The blade cuts down and into his skin like a hot knife into melting butter, no resistance besides a little tug when it hits the muscles. The blade is sharper then even I could have hoped. The man beneath the blade screams, but I'm deaf to the sound and instead listen for the sound of me doing real damage through muscles and across bones. I don't want that, John must feel the agonizing torment I've held in for the previous months.

It's not long before the fold of his back are cut open, like angels wings. Like a majestic Blood Eagle. Only something's missing, the screams continue but grow tiring. It can't be too long before John dies and we both know it. His anguished cries grow less satisfying by the second, by the minute and by the end of an hour his lifeless body still drips red onto the covers he shared with my wife on so many cold nights.

The man in the apartment besides us must have called someone, it's something I never took into account. The witnesses. And by now it's already too late to evade my future, my present. I don't try to stop the men in uniform from taking me away, I don't try to lie when I'm asked the questions but always wait for the opportunity to strike out. Not at them, but at myself. The gun comes out of the holster on the officer beside me with ease I wasn't expecting, the safety is released before the man is finished his spin in my direction and the bullet is clean through the top of my skull before he has time to stop me.

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