My Wife’s Keeper

Before I thought she was just scared, but now I know she was warning me, but why? I think of the conversation we had on our wedding day. I stood at the altar for twenty minutes, heart in my hands ready to give it to her for life, and when she finally started to come down the aisle she froze. I heard people gasp all over the room, and my heart clinched. What is she doing? Maybe her dress got caught on something I tried to think of anything and everything that could have possibly made her stop, but as I glanced down at her dress nothing was wrong. Her dress was fine, she was just standing there staring at me as though she was rethinking every decision for the last three years that led her to this very moment.We looked at each other her eyes showing something I couldn’t quite read; sorrow or maybe pity, I’m not sure, and it was like the group of all our closest friends and family wasn't even there at all. At that moment it was just us and this problem that had just occurred. After a minute or so; I’m not sure about the duration she opens her mouth as if she was going to say something but insteads turns and runs. “Jessica!” I call out after her and as I get ready to chase her my legs feel like they are coaxed in cement; they are so heavy I can’t move, but that doesn’t stop the rest of my body and before I know it I lost my balance and fell. Part of me just wanted to stay on the ground and curl up and cry, but I didn't. I jumped to my feet and chased after her. As I reach the end of the aisle everyone is pointing to her dressing room, and I am grateful that they told me because my initial thought was that she was so desperate to get away that she just ran out of the church. I burst into the room and she is in a panic, she is grabbing at her neck like she can’t breathe. I immediately ran to her helping her rip the choker part of the dress off; once it was off the lace fell down revealing the heart lining of the dress. When she is able to breathe she looks up at me, and she’s crying. I didn’t notice she was crying when I first walked in, I thought to myself, why? Because she couldn't breath and then it dawned on me, oh yeah because she is about to break my heart. “I’m sorry, I just can't; I thought I could, but I can't.” At that moment I would have done anything for her, for her not to leave I would have sold my soul; and that was part of the problem. I was being so selfish I begged her to not leave me, and she didn't. She married me a few days later, but that's not what she wanted. I forced her hand then, and now she has left me, she left me in a house full of memories of her. I replay the conversation over in my head as I finally allow myself to drift off to sleep. It had been days since I slept that good, no exactly eight days when she was here with me, when I knew that we had the rest of our lives together. I force myself up with the little energy I have and make my way to the bathroom, as I stand there I stare at the countless things on the counters that make me miss her. Every morning she had this beauty routine, while on the other hand I thought she was beautiful the way she was. She would get up at six every morning, take a shower, brush her teeth, wash her face, before she would apply countless objects and creams to her face. It got so bad to the point that when we bought the house I made sure the bathroom was large enough for a makeup vanity. I walk to her side of the bathroom brushing my fingertips across all her stuff. I don't know why, maybe in a way I thought this would somehow give me a sense of her, but I am soon brought back to reality when there's a sharp knock on the door. I jump and with a little hope I run for the door, it’s her, she’s back I knew she wouldn’t leave me for good, maybe she just needed a few days to herself, and for the first time in days I let myself hope, but that all is shot down as I open the door to Todd my older brother. Todd was 6’3 blonde with a perfect smile and since we was born we have always been in competition with each other. “Oh, it's you” I say with a hint of bitter disappointment. “It’s nice to see you too little brother.” he says as he walks in after me shutting the door. “I see Jess hasn't come home.” he looks at the container of take out food all over the living room . “No, but she will” I say with as much hope in my voice as I can fake but for what to convince him or myself. “Look that's what I came over here to talk to you about” “Not you too, did mom send you like she did dad?” “No,” he pauses, “Well yes, but it’s not like I didn’t want to come; I just been busy, you know, running our law firm, you didn’t forget about that, did you.” I roll my eyes at him because that is the last thing on my mind I head towards the kitchen “Come on just hear me out” he pleads as he follows me “Fine” I mutter, opening the cabinets to find me a glass, I pull two rock glasses out and sit them on the island where Todd has taken a seat on the stool opposite of me. “You want one” I ask as I retrieve the alcohol from under the cabinets of the island.” “It’s twelve” he say in a protest watching me pour “Your point” I say as I down the first glass and pour me another. “I don’t think she is coming back, but that's okay because honestly you two never really made sense to me anyways. Jess is a perfect ten and I can understand the whole mental thing would lower her standards but I mean not that low. Honestly in the beginning I thought it was all about the money. Which I mean that would have made more sense.” He says this so calmly and quickly that I am thrown off guard as to what he was talking about. When his words settle in I am furious, how dare he? How dare he come into my house and say these things about my wife! Without realizing it I am glaring at him like he has just stabbed me in the back. I down the drink that was sitting in front of me before I calmly told him to leave. “Look what she has done to you, if she ever loved you she wouldn’t have left you this broken, for heaven sake she didn't have the decency to dump you in person she left a note. I'm just saying that sounds like something a cold hearted witch would do” he says in an accusatory voice and before I know what I am doing I punch him, but I don't stop there I repeatedly punch him, and soon we are wrestling on the floor. He eventually gets the upper hand maybe because he is taller and buffer then I am, I’m not sure, but he does and he lets me have it. He is hitting me non-stop like he is going to beat it into me that my wife has left me and that she is never coming back. After a few minutes he stops, maybe realizing that I am no longer fighting him back or he just pities me too much to finish the job; either way he lets me go and stands above me for a while. I think he might have wanted to say somethings, sorry maybe, but he doesn’t he just turns and leaves; when I hear the sound of the door slam I let the loneliness settle in once again, as I lay there on the ground in a puddle of my own blood I just let my mind drift to the better days.