'Murderer' He Whispered

1

Megan Evans dabbed her trembling fingers against her bottom lip, feeling the rough marks of damaged soft tissue against the layers of skin from how much she'd been biting on it. A terrible, painful habit.

Ignoring the pain, Megan kept her pale, blue eyes fixed in front of her as she sat on her couch, not daring to look down at the newspaper lying patiently on the coffee table below her, staring up at her, waiting for her to read it.

The woman who felt so much older than her forty-five years gritted her teeth in anger at herself. She knew she should just tear the newspaper to shreds, burn it in the fireplace, or just simply throw it out. However, Megan knew she'd come to learn what was written on the front headlines today sooner or later, and perhaps learning by reading it herself was a less cruel way than to hear about it first from an angry stranger shoving the headline down her throat as they passed by.

It's not my fault, Megan whispered to herself over and over again as she slowly unfolded the paper. Her chest grew tight and heavy as her eyes began to slip away from the cream-coloured wallpaper in front of her, until they lowered, latching onto the sight of the black ink printed on the grey, crispy paper that seemed to only grow in size the longer she stared at it.

'Megan Evans, wife of the infamous and deceased Charlie Evans, ignored her late husband's deteriorating mental state that eventually led him to butchering and murdering...'

Suddenly jumping up from her couch, Megan snatched the newspaper from the stained coffee table and tore the front page like a vicious animal until she could no longer read the headline, or recognise the small photo they added from Charlie's passport that now only looked like a mugshot.

As the tiny pieces fluttered down towards the floor, Megan clutched at her throat in pain as she bellowed out a scream, a scream that made her lungs feel as though they were about to burst inside her chest and kill her right on the spot.

She screamed and screamed, until her breath ran out, leaving her gasping for air as though she'd been drowning in the ocean. Although, it certainly felt like she was drowning, every single day of her life since it happened.

Collapsing back down onto her leather couch, Megan held her head in her shaking hands as a hurricane of confusion, fear, sadness and anger hit her all at once, causing her stomach to twist and turn until she might throw up.

It had only been a month since her late husband had snuck into the home of an innocent family that was unknown to her or him, and murdered each and every one of them, including a teenager and a child, with a kitchen knife, before ending his own life. For weeks she had been questioned by police, who were trying to figure out why he did this, but she couldn't give them any answers. She was just as clueless as they were.

Megan and Charlie had been married for twenty years, and she knew her husband to be a loving man and a loving father to their two daughters, Olivia and Bethany. He'd never been involved in any dirty work, and yet...

And yet...

Tears began to flood into the brims of Megan's eyes as the crime scene photos flashed through her mind that she'd been shown when questioned, all filled with so much red that made her want to vomit until her stomach became crumpled and dry. She was confused and upset that Charlie, her beloved Charlie, was even capable of doing any of that.

Finally heaving herself off the couch and picking up each piece of shredded newspaper to throw into the bin, Megan grimaced when she remembered that she was to meet Christie for coffee later like they had planned.

The woman stopped dead in her tracks as she peered out through the living room window, remembering how horribly she was treated now by people she didn't even know as they put the blame of what Charlie had done, on her.