Just A Random Story

chapert 7

~Kendra's pov~

Ring... ring...

What the hell is that sound? Ring... ring...

My head is pounding, each ring reverberating like a hammer against the walls of my skull. Ring... ring...

Why is it so loud? I squint through the suffocating darkness, struggling to pry my eyes open. Ring... ring...

Oh. My phone. Where is my phone?

Ring... ring...

I fumble blindly across the couch, my fingers grazing the hard surface until they knock over an empty bottle with a dull clink. Finally, I brush against the cold metal of my phone, the familiar weight both comforting and infuriating. I groan, dragging it toward me, the screen a blurry haze of light. Ring... ring...

"Hello?" I answer, my voice thick with irritation and exhaustion, gravelly as if I've been swallowed by the very shadows surrounding me. My tongue feels like sandpaper, each word scraping against the dryness in my throat. I glance at the clock on the wall—3:36.

AM or PM? I can't tell anymore. The boundaries of day and night have blurred into an indistinguishable haze, much like my thoughts after too many drinks.

There's a pause on the other end, then I hear it—a voice I haven't heard in what feels like a lifetime.

"Kendra? Hey... it's me."

His voice hits me like a punch to the gut, knocking the air from my lungs. I freeze. It takes a moment for the weight of his presence to sink in. Him.

My mind races, fumbling for a response. What do I even say to the man who vanished without a word? To the man who shattered our family and left me spiraling into this endless, drunken haze? Oh hey, honey, it's been a while. How's your new girlfriend?

No. No, I can't say that.

But what the hell am I supposed to say?

"Kendra? Are you there?" His voice slices through the thick silence, tinged with something resembling concern. That—that—almost sets me off. Concern? Now? After two months of radio silence?

I can feel the anger swelling inside me, rising like a tsunami ready to crash over everything I've built. My grip tightens around the phone, and my heart pounds like a war drum in my chest. It's not just rage—it's heartbreak, betrayal, and all the feelings I've bottled up until now.

"What do you want?" The words spill out sharper than I intended, and I flinch at the crack in my own voice. I hate how small it sounds. How broken.

There's a brief pause, and I can hear him breathing, the hesitation stretching across the line like a taut wire before he speaks again. "I... I just wanted to tell you what happened. Because you deserve to hear it... from me."

Oh. Now I deserve to know what happened? Now he wants to play the noble one, offering me some semblance of closure? After two months of being left in the dark, after nights spent wondering if he was dead or if he'd just decided we weren't worth it anymore?

I let out a bitter laugh, one that feels foreign in my throat. It's hollow, jagged—like something shattering inside me.

"You think I deserve to be abandoned? Without an explanation, without a single goddamn word for two months?" My voice rises, trembling with the anger and hurt that has festered inside me for weeks. "And now you think you can just call me, out of the blue, and tell me what happened? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I can feel my pulse pounding in my ears, the sting of unshed tears burning at the corners of my vision. "I hope leaving your wife and kids was worth it to be with that... that skank," I spit the words like venom, each syllable laced with bitterness.

Before he can respond, before I have to hear whatever pathetic excuse he's about to offer, I slam the phone down. My chest heaves as the room spins slightly, the world tilting around me as I stare at the phone still clutched in my hand. I want to throw it. I want to scream. I want to tear this feeling out of me and be done with it forever.

But instead, the tears come. Slow at first, like the first drops of rain before a storm, and then they pour out of me, unstoppable. My body shakes with the sobs I've been holding back for weeks, for months.

The anger, the pain—it twists inside me like a knife, cutting deeper with every memory of him. How could I have let myself fall for him? I knew... I knew, deep down, that he would leave me. That he would hurt me.

But I let him in anyway. I let him into my heart, into my life, into the lives of our children. And now I'm sitting here, alone in the dark, drowning in my own emptiness while he's... with her.

I curl into myself on the couch, my tears soaking the cushions beneath me. It feels like the world is collapsing in on itself, each breath a struggle against the suffocating weight of despair. I wonder why... why wasn't I enough for him to stay?

As I sit there, lost in the shadows, the darkness seems to whisper a cruel truth: maybe I never was.