Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Does she really believe that, or were they words said in the heat of the moment?

Either way, acid burns up my throat, chilling every cel

l of my body.

She’s not wrong.

I don’t operate on regrets. They’re useless emotions that do nothing but hold you back. But our daughter. That night. I’ll carry that guilt and remorse with me to the grave and beyond.

Opening one of the drawers, I take out a pair of gym shorts, and before I face my wife again, I gather myself.

Hold yourself together. It’s the least you can do.

I keep telling myself as I move things around on top of the chest of drawers, buying myself some time, trying to brush off everything that’s threatening to pile up on me.

“Why are you here, Christopher?” The question takes me by surprise. She seemed so lost in her own reverie that I expected nothing but silence.

Our gazes clash in the mirror hanging above the drawers, and to me it’s such an obvious reason that I wonder whether she’s just asking because she wants to break the quiet between us.

“I like it here,” I tell her as I meet her at the edge of the bed, dropping the shirt on the duvet beside her before I give her the privacy she no doubt wants to change.

It guts me. Walking away from her, knowing that she’s uncomfortable in her own skin or that she believes I’ll see her as any less beautiful.

Shutting the bathroom door, I lean against it telling myself that we’re okay. Things are going to be fine. The problem is her words are louder than the voice in my head.

You killed my baby.

You killed my baby.

You. Killed. My. Baby.

The grind of my teeth does nothing to quash down the guilt tearing through me. That little girl was mine too. She was ours. And Arabella is right…

I killed her.

Stumbling to the sink, I brace myself over it as retches pull nothing but hot sobs and burning tears from the pit of my stomach. I’m damned from my head to my toes. These deep waters I’ve been treading are finally swallowing me whole.

Oh God, I killed her.

Our little nameless girl died because of me.

The anger and sorrow and all the feelings I keep pressing down, hiding somewhere deep, claw to the surface. All I want to do is destroy. I want to break everything as my fists connect with the mirror in front of me, with the basin, until all that’s left are blood-smeared shards.

I want to break myself. I want to destroy what’s left of me. And that seems like the best thought I’ve had since everything fell apart.

I’ve single-handedly managed to tear our life apart. To hurt the one person I adore. In the process I killed our baby. Our little girl.

Picking up one of the shards, I wonder if it would relive the pounding ache in my veins. I imagine how it might balance out the relentless pain thrashing through me.

How easy would it be?

Something in this world has to be easy, right?

There has to be something that dulls all this…hell.

The shard shines in my hand, calling and singing to my torment. I am Odysseus ravaged and torn by war and love. Unbound and lured, I’m jumping ship and drowning, losing my strength and sanity to an unfounded curiosity.

Isn’t that sad?