Short Stories

Rage

~ Rage ~

The night of our last fight, I thought of every promise that we ever made to each other. My mind brought me back to the field of lavenders where she rested on my lap and told me she loved me for the first time. Where I ran my fingers through her hair and told her that I loved her too.

We were so young back then. We were rebels in a town where God felt more like a dictator than a father. A town where the mere thought of two girls holding hands would incite a mob of Christians whose sole purpose would be to tear us apart and "religion" the gay away.

We were each other's little secret and this was our first promise to each other; that no matter what, we wouldn't tell a soul about the love we shared because "no one would understand," she once said.

When we decided to run away and start a life together, we made another promise to never look back as the people of our town would never accept us for who we are. We made a home out of four hundred and fifty square feet in a town where nobody knew our names. We wrote our names into forever and promised that nothing would ever damage the foundation of our love.

Easier said than done because as we grew into adults, she began to seek out earthquakes. The first time an earthquake shook our seemingly strong home, her phone rang at two in the morning and the other woman hung up at the sound of my voice.

She disguised the earthquake as construction and told me that I had nothing to worry about. I, still madly in love with her, patched up the crack and covered it with a rug of excuses so that I wouldn't have to look at how ugly it was.

Soon after the first earthquake, we made another promise to never keep secrets from each other. I wish I would have noticed that her fingers were crossed behind her back at the time.

Every day I watched her fall out of love with me as I patched up more cracks from the many earthquakes she brought into our home. The foundation of our love began to crumble right underneath us, but she assured me that I needn't worry myself too much. After all, she loved me and my trust issues did not stem from earthquakes disguised as construction, rather my parents watered them to life from when I was much younger.

The night I confronted her about the earthquakes, she admitted her fault, got on both knees and promised that she'd stop slipping.

I, still madly in love with her, ignored the echoes of shatters in my chest and welcomed her back home. For a while, it seemed that the stress on our love had lessened and we began to pour newer cement over top of the old, faulty, cracked foundation hiding underneath Ikea rugs made out of the finest excuses and gaslighting.

Naively enough, I believed that she, the human embodiment of San Andreas would stay true to her promises. In the time that I watched her apply more stress to our relationship, something had slowly been building up inside of me.

I had gone from loving her to hating every atom of her being because how could she look into my eyes and proclaim her love for me while simultaneously destroying our love for her selfish gain? She promised me. Each day I grew bitter at the thought that the earthquakes she sought after... were better than me. Maybe she only cared for the thrill of infidelity while keeping me under wraps for emotional comfort.

To think of everything I had given up just to be with her sent unfamiliar emotions to my core. I was falling apart right before her eyes, but she never noticed. Like when I changed my hair color to match that of the earthquakes she lusted over. Like when I stripped myself of my dignity and begged for her attention. I wanted us to work. Our names had slowly been fading from forever and I tried desperately to keep that from happening. I hated her so much, yet I still loved her.

The night of our last fight, I came home to find her in our bed with an earthquake that she swore was just a coworker. The night of our last fight, I felt the foundation of our love finally give out and for the first time, my first instinct wasn't to fix it. It crumbled past the point of being salvageable.

I always wondered how far anger could go. I had kept my anger suppressed for so long that I wondered what it would turn into. I thought it would dissipate since things were going okay for a while. I thought I could be the person who walked away quietly but she had done way too much for me to stay silent.

She lied, cheated, and manipulated me for years. I couldn't just leave her to move on to another person that she'd most likely destroy too...so when my shaking hands drove the chef's knife through her heart, I finally got my answer.

When anger is left unattended for too long, it turns into rage.