Every word that dripped from his tongue felt ice cold, penetrating the darkest depths of my soul and freezing it from the inside out. The bitter shouts that echoed through our apartment were a stark contrast to the heart touching marriage vows that we had just renewed but a few months ago in a quaint church surrounded by loved ones. They didn't make a difference. Not the constant enforcing our marriage had to suffer every single day for the past two years. Not the hugs, the half-hearted 'I love you.''s or the forgotten promises that we made after every fight. could heal the wounds that had become the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Ziegler. The couple that seemed perfect but, in reality, was anything but.
We slept apart that night, again. I shivered on the rock-hard bed while my should-be-devoted husband took the leather couch downstairs, no pillow, no blanket, just five layers of stress and emotional pressure between him and the withering corpse that was our relationship.
Believe it or not, things had always been this shitty between us, we just didn't see it or we chose not to. Once upon a time, we thought were in love.
It was in college when I had first met Scott. He was a shy and awkward teenager stepping into the adult world not unlike many other freshmen while I was the rebel who stood ready to take any challenge while downing three cosmos' at the same time. It would be safe to say that we weren't exactly the likely match.
Well, add a club opening, a lot of alcohol, a one-night stand, AND a pregnancy, and you got yourself a doomed couple. It took three months for us to come clean to our respective families and start figuring everything out. Our families were christian and pretty religious so a wedding was to be held before the delivery. I was okay with it. I had grown to like Scott, he had too. Things were fine. We were going to be a family.
Third month, a stormy night and a car crash. I lost the baby. It was too early to know the gender but I had heard the heartbeat. The timid thump-thump of the piece of my soul disappeared that night. Somedays I can still hear it.
The pain brought us closer, and a year later, we got married. A quaint ceremony in the hills, a summer wedding took place. I wore my dream dress, walked down the aisle and surrounded by my friends and family married Scott Ziegler, the love of my life. All in a fucking lie.
The years that followed were filled with torment, paired with occasional moments of romance. Compatibility was not something we had paid much attention to during the pain of losing a child, the weak thread connecting the two of us.
I was an entrepreneur at heart while he just wanted a stable income. He wanted light, I wanted dark. I needed to go out every weekend, while he really needed to get some work done and couldn't I just go alone? But we both pushed. Pushed our dying relationship to the edge of the cliff and panicked to keep it from falling. We had become sad and damaged people and were terrified to let someone else see it.
But we fought though, each other and to keep the marriage running, albeit on fumes. Spoiler alert: that didn't work.
Fast forward to four months ago, when I just had it and I drunk. Vodka, tequila, beer, anything and everything I could get my hands on in the bar three blocks away. In this drunk stupor, I somehow turned the bartender into my personal therapist and grabbed at the single piece of advice that he gave me.
"Maybe you guys should renew your vows."
Cue extremely forced confessions of love to keep the relationship afloat for some reason. We didn't even kiss when we came back home that night. A couple doomed to end and yet, we still forced us to keep going.
This is the bitter reality that hit me with more ferocity that it ever had that moment after another one of our stupid arguments, who even remembers what it was about.
The house was silent as I packed my most important and necessary possessions into my duffel bag, Scott had always been a heavy sleeper. I scribble a quick note and place it on the dresser, visible enough so he would read it in the morning. Quietly making my way out of the house, I get into my car and drive off into the silent night. I don't hear the heartbeat anymore.
On the dresser, the note flutters open revealing the writing inside,
We make the perfect divorced couple. Don't you think?
- Kaylee
