Category : Stories

Sub Category : Drama

I stumble into a darkened hotel room with heavy footsteps and heavier eyelids.
I collapse on the bed and run fingers through my hair, catching and tugging painfully at tangles.

What happened to get to this point, I wonder as I stare at my  hands, caked with dried blood.

I start with the inciting incident.

My wife, lying cold and limp in my arms. 

No, it was further.

Storming out of my apartment, as my wife sobs behind me–

No. Even further.

It was late. My marriage was rocky. The why doesn't matter. I went to a bar to drown my troubles in a glass of something strong.

I didn't know how much I had drunk. It didn't matter and I didn't care. I should have known better.

One thing lead to another, and before I knew it, I was in bed with a strange and charming man. His name doesn't matter.

It didn't stop at the first time. After a fight, sometimes I would storm out... And call him. Sleep with him. Again and again. It was a ritual. A habit, almost. It was wrong, but anything to get my mind off of my troubles was something I was willing to do.

And one night my wife, my Rosie, stormed out first.

I called him again.

We met in my own bed.

Rosie came home early. She later said how she wanted to apologize.

She waited outside the bedroom door.

She didn't cry.

She didn't yell.

Her words were quiet and controlled.  They cut at my very soul. 

I stormed out. But not fast enough. I could hear her sobbing in the living room and a shattering sound. Probably a lamp or something. My heart broke.

I didn't come back until almost a week later because of a phone call.

It was over as quickly as it happened.

A quickly hushed scream and a dull thud.

I was there as fast as I could, which wasn't nearly fast enough.

I remember the dread hanging heavy over my chest as I plodded with heavy feet through the house.

You could barely tell anything had happened.

The only signs of a struggle was a broken window, a blood stain in the living room carpet, and a broken glass from a shattered picture.

The bedroom door was half off its hinges.

I stepped in.

I couldn't scream.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't feel anything.

My knees were weak.

Rosie lay dead on the floor.

I slowly walked over to her. Nothing felt real. I tried to tell myself it was all just a dream.

She was slumped against a wall, in a corner.

I crouched down next to her. Blood was crusted over a wound on her head, but nothing else. 

I drew her into my arms.

I still didn't cry.


I tracked down the man who killed her myself. It was a hate crime. I should have known. That letter on our doorstep two years ago was only a sample of what was to come, it seems.

I shot him.

And despite my hatred for that vile excuse of a human, I was horrified.

Horrified by what I had done. 

Does any human truly deserve to die?

Its only a matter of time before his body is found.

I have to wonder if he had a family.

Regret and anger pools in my stomach.

I glance at the gun. 

Maybe it can fulfill one final purpose.