Till Death do us Part

A sad song inspired me to paint with broken hearts. Nothing left to win - Adam Eckersley & Brooke McClymont.

Those once passion filled nights had become a nightly chore. Those whispered conversations after dark fell away to the snores of daily life. Those promises broke apart, piece by piece, and then he was just walked out the door. Or so to speak.

He comes home every night, eats the food she puts on the table for him, and falls into the sheets with no interest in the woman hunched on the other side. He ignored the trembling of her body, and quickly felt the world slip away and slept the sweet night away.

It was the same thing, stuck on repeat. If she didn’t know better, she would swear she was stuck on a loop. But the cravings were different every day, and although at the same time, the nausea wasn’t always the same. He still didn’t know.

When someone loves you, their actions speak just as loud as their words. But when someone stops loving you, their words become lies and their actions are daggers into the heart. Destroying the very thing they used to handle so precious.

Sweet perfume burnt the innocence of his clothes, and a cheating twinkle in his eye, it made her want to crawl into the hole and die. And it wasn’t as easy as talking it out, their miscommunication was the only thing holding their lives together. Or, it was the only thing holding her life together.

He had a whole new life, one that didn’t include her anymore.

**

He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he couldn’t stop going back for more. He needed a break from the angst at home, the pain and the silent dying of his marriage. And while this was making it worse, it made for a temporary release.

Her perfume choked his system, it was much too sweet, of candy and roses. It was nothing like his wife’s, but perhaps that’s why kept coming back for more. He was a sucker for punishment. Those green eyes that held nothing for him, staring up at him in this moment, begging him to keep going, they made him want to break down and cry. They were the wrong colour.

He missed the gleam in hazel eyes, the laughter that would never stop for him, and the love that would shine through, no matter what. He wanted those hazel eyes back, but he had gone too far. He was too far from home.

**

“I’m leaving you,” She promised herself she would stay strong.

He stopped breathing, and he stared at the hunched figure sitting on the edge of their bed. She was dressed warm, still showing the figure he had come to love and know. The figure he missed so dearly.

“Huh?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say. It crushed her. He couldn’t even fight for her, he couldn’t even pretend to want her to stay.

“I’m going to my sisters. I’ll stay there for a while. We can figure things out through a lawyer.” She kept her face hidden from him, but he knew her too well. The soft shaking of her shoulders, the way her arms clutched her sides, he knew she was crying. He knew she was in pain.

“Ok,” He whispered.

“God Chris, can’t you even pretend to fight for me?” She whirled around, surprising both of them.

“What do you want me to say Jess?” He couldn’t look at her anymore. He couldn’t see the pain in her eyes, the pain he put there.

“I don’t care, anything but ‘ok’. Nothing about this is okay Chris.”

“I don’t know what to say,” He sat down, head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do baby, what am I doing?”

“Don’t call me that.” Jess whimpered, her heart breaking at his name for her. “You don’t get to call me that after you’ve been screwing somebody else.”

His head whipped up, staring at her in surprise. He wasn’t surprised that she knew, but the fact that she was bringing it up to him, that was so unlike Jess. She was always the quiet one, the one that hated confrontation, the one who would apologize first.

“Don’t look at me like this Chris. I didn’t make you do this.” She wiped the tears from her face, everting her eyes from his face to her partially packed suitcase.

“You can’t go Jess.” He shouted, standing from the bed, refusing to let his tears come through.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” She swore at him, feeling all the pent-up sadness turn into rage.

“Please, baby, don’t go,” He stepped a little closer, needing to feel her warmth. “I’m not ready to lose you.”

“You lost me slowly Chris, you didn’t do a thing to stop it.”

“What did you do to stop me then huh?” He shot back at her.

Jess stared at her husband, wondering how they could have gotten so lost when they used to be so in love. “I lost you quickly, before I could even figure what was happening. One day you were here, and the next you weren’t. There was nothing I could do.”

“You didn’t try to save the marriage.” He stated again, wanting her to stop packing and promise that she would never leave him.

“Is there any point in trying to save something that is already dead?” She looked at him in the eye, all the pain of his late nights, perfume infused guilt and broken-hearted lies, showing in her hazel eyes. “Is there any point chasing after you when you’ve got your heart set on something else?”

“I…But…You…” Chris stumbled for words, desperate to find the right ones. Instead he watched his wife carry her suitcase down the stairs and to the front door.

“Bye Chris,” She mumbled, her chin wobbling and her eyes crying.

“Stop, please. Jess, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry baby.” Chris dropped to his knees, tears in hand. “Baby please come back to me,” he cried out.

The silence killed him, knowing he spoke too late, once she had already exited their marriage. But he knew it was his fault. He pushed her away. He cut the final stitch that was keeping their marriage above water. And know he was drowning.

“Baby, baby please don’t leave me here.” His cries reached her aching heart, sitting outside the door on the porch step. The words she wanted to hear for so long, and yet she feared it was a little too late.

“I can’t…” He sobbed, reaching for the door but unable to stand from the weight crushing him to the ground. “Please my darling Jess, please come forgive me.”

The tears leaked from her eyes, listening to the pain in his voice. Listening to the breaking of his heart, knowing that she was partly at fault here. Maybe she didn’t cheat on her husband, but she too closed him out. She shut him out when they lost their child, and she pushed him into the arms of another woman.

He didn’t know where they had gone wrong, for only four months ago, they were about to be a family of three. Love was not something that they thought they could ever lose, but here they were. Sitting either side of a door, crying for the other, and wanting to erase the past few months of their lives.

“Baby, come back to me,” Chris whispered, head against the carpet, cheeks soaked in tears and hope crushed beneath his own feet. “I’ll do everything to fix this, I’ll do everything and anything, baby we don’t have to say goodbye just yet. Give me one more chance,” he pleaded in pieces.

She opened the door, hand pressed against her mouth in anguish in seeing her husband on the floor like he was, hands reached out to her and self-hatred written in his dark blue eyes.

“I’m so sorry Jess, I am so bloody sorry,” Chris clutched her hands, thanking the heavens that she came back, even if it were for only a moment.

“I’m sorry Chris…” Jess looked for the right words to say. “I can’t…”

“Please, give me one more chance! I’ll find a new job, we can find a new house, we can make a new baby, we can… we can make our marriage work. Let me make you love me again, please baby,” He held her face in his hands, aching to kiss her lips and tell her that everything would be okay.

“I…” Jess looked at her husband, knowing that she only had one choice. “Till death do us part?” she whispered.

“Till death do us part baby.” Chris repeated after her, slowly and clearly saying each word.

Jess kissed her husband softly, asking him to stay and work their marriage out in the house that their baby hadn’t the chance to come home too. Maybe Jude couldn’t live long enough to come home with them, but the next one will. Their next baby will survive through the love they were going to rebuild here.

The couple sat there, holding each other and whispering promises to each other they knew they were going their hardest to try and keep. Maybe they nearly lost each other, but they weren’t going to let that happen ever again.

They weren’t going to let their past mistakes come between them. They were going to do this for each other, for their darling Jude who wasn’t supposed to die so early, and for the baby that was slowly growing in Jess. They were going to do this for their family.

Till death do us part.

Reviews

[Alice.H.Austen]

This piece is so overwhelming, kicks the reader in the feelings as it deals with really real issues to relationships. To be honest I think it’s the dialogue that really catches me here more than anything. It’s really well crafted and totally feasible as what a couple would actually say in this situation and how they would react with these feelings.

[Coyote Poetry]

Marriage, is never easy. Bad days and the good days we shall know. You create hard situation, struggle and decision. Outstanding work my friend.
Coyote