The Betrayal

Flash Fiction Piece

The Betrayal

 

When did it all begin? Where it always does I suppose, with the vows. Do you take this woman, to have and to hold in sickness and in health? Bullshit! Michael thought to himself. It ought to say are you taken with this woman. That’s exactly what he had been with Irene…. Taken! The better question he thought to himself as he sat there, alone in the waiting room was where did it all go wrong?

 

         Sitting there alone in the twelve feet wide by twenty-three foot long white box. Michael sat in the same waiting room chair that decorated every waiting room across the country. Two plastic arm supports thinner than any person’s forearm he had ever encountered. Who the f***s arm is this suppose to support? A predetermined back angle as if everyone set with the same posture. Michael was angry, not with the room although it did irritate and enrage him for many reason but no, Michael was angry at life and how his had turned out in particular.

 

         Sitting there in only chair in the white, picture less, waiting room Michael rotated his wedding band between his fingers like a magician does before making the coin disappear, starting at his pinky finger ending at his index finger before starting the process over again. One might look upon Michael as if he was lost in thought had they walked in on him, but he was not lost in thought for Michael knew exactly where his thoughts were at. They were on the wedding band, for that he surmised is where everything went wrong.

 

         A white gold band size ten in his case, with ten little diamond chunks set inside the band itself when it was purchased. It of course was bought as a match to Irene’s. He remembered the event like it was yesterday and not ten years ago. They had been in the mall and both spotted the Kay’s sign and went in. Irene and Michael were doing it backwards, they had married just hours earlier at the Bell County, Courthouse.

 

         Her face lit up when she saw the one carat diamond, it was one of the many smiles he would see on her face during the first two years of their marriage, but like everything else in life even the smiles fade he thought. The woman behind the counter Camille, Michael never forgot the name of a person that made Irene smile. It was a blessing back then and a curse as of the last few years. Camille placed the ring on Irene’s finger with all the tenderness and caring that Michael did not get to do back at the courthouse.

 

         He had to admit that when he first looked at the rings on their hands after they purchased them. “No need for bags he had told Camille! We will wear them out give everyone a chance to see an ordinary ring on an extraordinary woman!” Irene use to eat up his compliments back then no matter how cheesy he thought they sounded, she would always smile or squeeze his arm tighter. Yes, even he believed in the happiness they represented when they walked out of the store ten years ago to the day.

 

         Looking at the weathered ring now brought him back to a sobering reality. The scratches some deep, some minor, the diamond that fell out once and was replaced. It fell out again along the years and like most stuff in life you get tired of trying to fix it and you let it be. In some ways the wedding band had outlasted him. It was still on his fingers albeit worn and beaten but still there. Michael wished he could say the same for his Irene.

 

         He thought about how if he had never bought her the ring or stood in front of that justice of the peace then there would have never been broken promises. There never would have been late nights. There never would have been whiskey on his breath. Most of all Michael thought there never would have been him.

        

         Hindsight’s twenty/twenty his father had told him. Bill, his name was Bill. He had never had such rage in his heart for any name as he did for that name. The name that stripped everything from him, his life, his passion…his soul mate. He had never met the face behind the name; Irene had not afforded him that opportunity. Michael chose not to dwell on the memories of Bill; after all he had so few only the details that Irene had provided him before waling out of his life.

 

         She told him only enough so that he could understand why. Irene had not wanted to hurt Michael so she left out how they met after all that wasn’t important. What was important is that they met. Michael sat there in the only chair in that white picture less box of a waiting room when the buzzer sounded signaling that one patient was coming out and the next one would be buzzed in. A woman who looked to be about twenty three exited the room casually glanced at Michael before leaving.

 

         Michael stood slowly wondering if the blonde had smelled the whiskey on his breath as she passed by. If she had then she had not let on. She probably had problems of her own. The doctor stepped into the doorway bridging his office and the waiting room glancing up from his clipboard to pronounce Michaels name. Michael pointed the 357 Magnum Solid Black Revolver, one shot rang out and as the Doctor slumped to the floor Michael turned the Revolver toward his temple squeezing the wedding band tight in his left hand pulling the trigger with his right. One Shot rang out in the room as Michael’s lifeless body fell to the floor.

         The size ten white gold band rolled out of his hand…..ending where it all began.