Fading Beauty

Writing Prompt @wallflower_r

       Together they were like salt and pepper, flavourfully perfect and yet lethally unhealthy. A picture perfect couple with white picket fences they were. Click click click the cameras went everywhere they visited with smiles and a love that could melt the coldest of hearts. Yet there were subtle cracks deep inside their hearts even though they fit together like puzzle pieces. Complicated like Rubik cubes and tesseract, they could never find the answers their beating hearts seeked for with every living breath. There was no thrill or a sense of adventure in their mundane life. It was like clockwork; repititive, monotonous and unending.

     One, the innocent torqouise eyed black beauty and the other, a rugged brown eyed looker. Complete opposites though supposedly perfect for each other in their society of small minded ignorants. One, an adept narcissist at heart with an altruistic facade and her partner a naive small town run around . They never realised this until they had fallen into the bottomless chasm of undying love. But the problem is that lies always come to the light and no matter how many layers a person covers himself up in, they will be peeled back strip by strip by the right person.
         This peeling back of layers all began on an unforgivably cold, winter's night. The wind whistled through the cracks in their home like a sombre orchestra and the frigidity seeped through the walls and persisted even with the heaters blasted on. Perhaps the biting cold was a bad sign though in their opinions, superstitions were nonsense all hocus-pocus. It all started when Nina, ready for bed cloaked in a thick woolen sweater with her feet protectively shielded from frosbite padded towards their open window and stared down through it to the street below. It was a quiet street with bright streetlamps that concealed the magnificence of the twinkling sky. Identical houses with well kept lawns and cars parked in driveways were typical of this peaceful neighbourhood. However, if you strained your ears well enough, you could hear the distant shouts of the streets behind. The street notoriously famous for its crime rate, drugs and unsafe alleyways.

     "You could turn up dead and no one would hear about you for days. You're better off keeping to your side and minding your own business" fretful parents would warn their quetioning kids. Whether the rumours of the vile abominations were true or not, Nina's husband never knew for his curiosity never reached the level of wanting to find out what lay on the other side. Lost in her thoughts, Nina was startled when she felt his arms around her for his footsteps had been muffled by the thick carpeting in the room.  "What do you think is happening over there?" he said gesturing in the direction of No Man's Land sadly. "I honestly don't care" she said unable to keep the condescending tone out of her words but her husband didn't notice. He just shrugged and let it go.
             "Crime rates have been skyrocketing as Blintex Street more commonly know as No Man's Land has turned up two dead bodies that were brutally murdered by an unknown suspect still at large. Alleged witnesses claim they saw a robust man scaling a fence near the crimescene though they are too frightened to speak any further. We urge the  people of this town to remain calm as the authorities are trying all they can to bring the perpetrators to justice.." And the article continued on for various pages. Nina's husband only skimmed through the article and threw it in a wastebasket .
           A few weeks later with the same aura of restlesssness that cloaked the once peaceful town of Cunningrey, whispers continued and mothers pulled their children close to them and bolted their doors before  the sun even had a chance to set. At half past six on a cool  Monday evening, Nina had come back from work and was now resting in the rocking chair placed in their patio. She had her head tilted towards the sun, enjoying the slightly lower temperature compared to the iciness of the previous weeks when her husband came speeding down the street and parked haphazardly on her groomed rose bushes, destroying them. Ticked off, she opened her mouth to start ranting about how much time she had spent on the bushes when he cut her off. "We need to leave now Nina" he said frantically. "Leave? What do you mean? Go where? You're scaring me" she said as she followed him into the house and up the stairs where he stopped abruptly on the sixth stair and prised it open. In the hollow hole was a badly wrapped parcel which he hastily tucked into his jacket. It made an odd lump on his jacket that would've normally amused Nina but this was not the time.

      "I'm not going anywhere unless you explain what is going on" she said defiantly as he checked the windows for God knows what but even as she closed her mouth, distant sirens could be heard and her husband cursed under his ragged breaths. "They've found out, Drew from work tipped me off just now" he said vaguely as the sirens got louder and louder. "It couldn't possibly be" Nina said shaking her head in a frenzy. "You mean it's true?" Her husband asked disbelievingly as the colour drained from his face. Before he could say another word however, they both heard what she thought she would never hear in her life. Her body was numb and she couldn't move a muscle as her husband's face swam in and out of focus, his reassuring words sounding far away.
          He lead her towards the door and as if watching through a heat haze, she saw a few police cars parked in front of the house and felt someone coming closer with handcuffs.  "Mrs Nina, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can-" but he was cut off. "No" she shrieked. "I have immunity you idiots" she said derisively but the deed was done. The layers had been lifted and as she watched her husband with tear filled eyes mouthing the words " I'll get you out" and "I love you", she knew she didn't deserve his love. She knew it was all over. A lost cause for her facade had finally been lifted. It was time to pay the price!