"Was bittersweet to say the least

One life begins, one comes undone"

✦

"Hmph." An incoherent grumble clambered up my throat as I stirred from sleep.

Uncomfortable pressure on my shoulder and lower back muscles left me straining for comfort. But at the sudden awareness of the cold tile my exposed skin laid upon, I quickly swung into a sitting position. My path was however obstructed by an unknown hard slab above me.

I groaned at the painful sensation pulsing beneath my forehead. Peeling my crusted eyes open, I recognized the early morning light seeping past the windows and casting a subtle glow over the room through my blurry vision.

Thawing out of my sleepy state, I rubbed my eyes to help clear my sight, but my dried contacts met no defeat. I rested my bruising forehead in my palm, with my knees to my chest, and tried to make out my situation.

I had harshly clipped my head on the edge of the kitchen table I slept partially underneath. I'd fallen asleep amidst my distraught state of the night before.

Dizziness clouded my senses, throwing me off of my balance as I stood to my feet. Woah.

Once the sudden wave had passed, I drowsily walked to the nearby bathroom, my body sore. At my appearance my hands balled into fists and head turnt in disgust. In disappointment. In embarrassment. No wonder he doesn't want me.

Splotchy black streaks carved their paths to my jaw from my red, straining eyes, their circumference puffy and pink beneath smudged mascara. My skin looked dry and pale, the creases filled with black pigment, and olive tone further tainted by little spots. How had he sucked the life out of all of me?

My hair was a frizzy, messy mop of disorientation, crowning a similar inner thought process. I drew my polished finger from my hairline to my eyebrow and around my face in a light engraving, finishing the adventure at my lips. Poking and prodding at the chapped flesh, I searched for a familiarity in feeling when one of sight had diminished.

I moved to grip at the edges of the mirror, leaning so close my breath became a foggy round mist over the glass, reflecting a wobbling lip and squinting eyes. The ring on my left hand clinked as I gripped the border, reverberating like a whistle in search for survivors. Is anyone out there? Anyone? Is she still alive?

Drawing my hands back shakily, I looked at myself in fear and confusion. My brain had fried to a swamp of murky water and sea of mushroom like trees with long arms of leaves to block the passage to anywhere meaningful.

I drifted upstairs to the en suite in our bedroom, feeling like a ghost, silently reminiscing and trapped in my home, the light a small lick of a flame I have yet to find.

Entering the room, I peeled my expired contacts from my eyes and sighed. Is this is what my life has come to?

Stripping of yesterday's wear without another glance at myself, I twisted the knob of the bath so it could warm. I huddled onto the narrow edge of the bath, retracting into my bare self. Chills ran down my spine and goose pumps infected the exposed expanse of my body at the frigid surface and air.

It held a certain stillness. The running water. The room. The tears trailing my face. The house. Me. The ticking of his watch.

It all waited for him and his presence. I waited for his existence. To set things back into motion. To disperse life into the inanimate objects of the house and the inanimate entity I became.

It was the polar opposite of the springing action succeeded by the announcement "Andy's home!" in Toy Story. Instead, I tried actually acting alive when he was here. I felt like a wind up toy, with a knob to be twisted on my back. He had only winded it up so much at his last "I love you," and the time of my insentience and motionless was nearing.

I plugged the drain at the sensation of steam up my back. Thinking back to my appearance, I plucked a makeup wipe from its packaging and began to scrub furiously at my complexion, ridding myself of the tattoos my ruination had begun to bring. I want her back. I want her back. I want me back!

A garbled scream clawed its way out of my mouth. I sunk down to the floor, numb to the temperature the tile held. I want him. I want him. I want him back. I want the me that came with we.

My mind was a frenzy of wants and desires of what had slipped between my promised fingers. I chucked the wipe in anger and aggressively twisted at the silver metal band that transformed into a deflated symbol of what could have been. The touch served to diffuse my exasperation, but left an unsettling emptiness in reminiscence.

Fidgeting with it, I wondered how he'd react if he found it lying around. Would he be disheartened? Or would he just shrug and wonder how it'd look on his secretary?

I bet it'd look nice on her hand, complimentary to the entirety of her being. Though, I bet he'd have bought her gold, that would suit her perfectly.

Suddenly scolding water began to drizzle over me, creeping over the edge of the bath. I cursed at the burning pain and my stupidity in harmony with the ringing my phone had begun to sing.

Leaping up, I quickly shuffled to my pile of clothes to retrieve my phone, making a mess of the fabric. Matt? Matt? Matt?

The phone read and unfamiliar number. Not Matt.

I picked it up and slowly moved to turn off the faucet, feeling crestfallen. The floor was slick with water, congregating into puddles.

I kneeled down into the lukewarm pool beneath me.

Leaning my upper arms on the white acrylic with my head downcast, in a pray like position, I rested unmoving for minutes. I wasn't one to frequent church, though my faith in everything else had disintegrated to ash in my palms. Who'd I have to turn to?

"Help... I need help—" As I begged, the words became more congested, my throat clogging.

The more my thoughts wandered around the intricacies my downward spiral consisted of, the tighter my chest became and the quicker my breaths raced. I swaddled my shins with my arms and curled into a ball, trying to regain control.

Focused intently on the rapping of my heart and my brain ushering a loud booming sound articulating Matt, Matt, Matt over in repetition, I hadn't even noticed the door had opened until the resulting breeze brushed my skin.

Matt? Matt's home!

I slid 180 degrees around to face the threshold, my respiration slowing at the greeting of his magnificence, polished and adorned in a perfectly tailored dark suit.

I wrapped my arms tightly around my naked breasts and squeezed my legs close to pull at any thread of decency I could.

Matt stared deeply at the grey paint on the wall behind me, not daring to take in the ghastly creature before him.

My mouth bobbed open and closed. I didn't know what to say. Shouldn't we know how to speak to each other?

"I thought you had work," he cautiously stated.

"I slept late," I explained, my voice more energized than it had been before he arrived, his aurora fueling me with a quarter tank of life. I should tell him. I should have told him. He should know.

Ratty curls penetrated my vision, but I could still make out the outline of his face with my imperfect sight.

"Um, why'd you come home?" I inquired. If I didn't acknowledge my nude anatomy could we ignore it like we have his constant betrayal?

We can and will. "I wanted to grab my charger."

"Oh." I took my gaze from his face to his black loafers. "Weren't you just going to borr—"

"Do you, uh, feel okay?" He swiftly interrupted. He cares! He cares! Right?

"Yeah... just a little cold," I attempted to joke, but his face stayed solemn and eyes blank in the same direction diagonal me.

He cleared his throat and took a step back, indicating his departure.

"I'm gonna head out, I gotta get back to work."

I just nodded my head, but he had spun and closed the door before he could even see.

Pathetic. Can't even take a bath. No wonder he can't look at you.

The farther he traveled from me, the more gasoline I felt draining from me. Carefully, I stood up and put on a terry cloth robe, tying it tightly around my waist.

In the hallway, I gripped the banister and watched through the large window above the front door as he made his way to the car, charger in hand.

But he didn't sit in the drivers seat.

Because she was there.

Through the windshield, in all her glory, with her long coffin shaped nails drumming upon the wheel of his black sedan. She smiled warmly, revealing her pearlescent teeth, as he got comfortable in shotgun and tucked a loose, straight black strand behind her ear.

They reversed and drove out from my view.

And everything went still.

woot woot another one down :P

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made my whole life peace out ☺