Creepypasta Stories

Heather's Phase

For as long as I'd known Heather, she was into her beauty treatments. Manicures, pedicures, makeovers, all that stuff. I don't even know the words for half of them. Whatever they were, they helped her feel better. She'd always had body issues.

When we first started dating, I noticed she wore an inordinate amount of makeup. It wasn't really my thing, but hell, if it made her happy then who was I to judge? She wasn't a big fan of eating, either. Whenever we went out, she'd get a salad or a small piece of chicken or fish. Never anything good like burgers or steaks. It was obvious she didn't want to put any weight on.

We dated for a few years, then I proposed. She said yes. Our wedding was gorgeous, and afterward, we settled into marital bliss.

For a while.

As Heather got older, she grew even more concerned about her appearance. She was 40 when I convinced her to see a therapist. I knew she was depressed; I hoped a professional would provide her with the help she needed.

Heather saw him for a while, tried a couple medications, then gave it all up. She said nothing worked. That whole time, she barely ate and painted herself with all sorts of expensive products to try and regain the glow she'd had when she was younger.

She began looking at alternative medicine online. Stuff on websites that were barely written in English, let alone containing coherent, informative sentences. The online beauty communities raved about certain treatments: some for hair, some for nails, some for skin, some for teeth. Heather ordered it all. And it was expensive. We felt the strain on our budget as she poured more and more of our savings into these products.

I was at a loss. I knew Heather was sick. I'd spoken with her mom about it, but there wasn't much she was willing to do. I'm pretty sure Heather got a lot of her body issues from her, anyway. All I could do was sit back and watch, even though I did everything I could to comfort her and assure her that she was beautiful.

She was truly beautiful. Of course she'd grown older. We both had. Everyone does. But she still could turn heads, and did quite often. Still, she wasn't convinced. It wasn't enough.

One Sunday in April, Heather came to bed crying about the little pouch of fat on her belly. "Old lady skin," she called it. I studied her stomach. There was indeed a small amount of fat there. But nothing abnormal. It was something pretty much all women have. Knowing I couldn't tell her otherwise, I just suggested that she use the cucumber skin-tightening lotion she liked so much and that maybe she'd feel better in the morning. Heather took my suggestion as a tacit acknowledgement that she looked awful. She screamed and wept and left me in the bedroom.

It wasn't the first time such a scenario had happened. I let her go.

When I came downstairs in the morning, it looked like Heather had been on the computer all night. She was calm, though, which I took as a good sign. I kissed her good morning and went to make some breakfast.

She joined me in the kitchen and we chatted and even laughed over coffee and cereal before I had to leave for work.

When I came home, Heather was still in a good mood. I asked her how her day had gone, and she told me she'd spent it reading and cleaning the house. I looked around. The house really did look great.

We ate dinner and talked. She told me she had some new stuff coming in the mail. Stuff that'd be there the next day. I nodded and didn't ask what. I knew it had to be more makeup or lotion. It always was.

Sure enough, the next day, Heather received a package with some weird writing on it. Definitely not English. Not Chinese or Japanese, either. Maybe Thai? Arabic? Didn't really matter. I'd checked the credit card account online and saw it was $150. I wasn't too happy.