This wasn’t from guilt, I felt physically sick. If I didn’t know better I’d swear I’d been drugged. But the only thing I ate all day was some of the dinner she’d prepared and I hadn’t even eaten that much.
The one drink I’d allowed her to pour me wasn’t enough to knock me on my ass, unless the shit was spiked. Could she in some misguided attempt to get me into bed have put something in the drink she’d made me?
Nah couldn’t be; this had to be something else. She’s not the type to do such a thing. I felt bad for even thinking that shit for even a second. But what could it be?
I didn’t have an answer but I knew something was very wrong. Was my mind plaguing me so much that it had manifested itself in this way? Stranger things have happened I guess.
I stopped just down the street from her house because my hands were trembling too hard to hold the wheel any longer. Bile made its way rapidly up my chest from my gut and I heaved.
I took deep breaths to calm the storm raging inside my chest as I felt myself begin to spin rapidly out of control. I told myself I just needed to fight off whatever this is long enough to make it the rest of the way home.
Resting my head on the steering wheel, I tried to get my bearings. Is this because I’d almost betrayed ‘her’? Is this my penance for even thinking that I could marry someone else when I was still hers?
I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s the kind of hold she has on me, the kind we have on each other. But somehow that didn’t fit either. Usually that shit would fuck with my head and eat away at my gut. This was something else entirely.
I tried to remember what I’d done that day but my thoughts were fractured and kept going all over the place. My mind decided to choose now to play tricks on me and kept going back and forth between the past and the present.
My life played out behind my closed eyes in a kaleidoscope of color. I saw my woman as she was before she disappeared; saw our happy times together. And just as quickly those visions faded to be replaced with the present.
I tried to hold onto my fleeting thoughts without success even as I tried to figure out what kind of bug I’d caught that could do this to me.
There was a burning sensation in my gut now and my head began to spin faster as nausea struck. My thoughts drifted in and out as I broke out in a cold sweat. My limbs felt numb and there was a ringing in my ear as I fought to hold on to consciousness.
What the hell is happening to me? Where was this coming from all of a sudden? Maybe I’m coming down with the flu. But why so sudden when I’d been fine all day? And since when does the flu fuck with your head like this?
I rested my head back and clenched my eyes tight, willing myself to breathe until the shaking stopped and I could breathe again. As the pain in my head eased I looked around as I tried to make sense of what had just happened.
When I left her house I’d felt almost like I was escaping. I’d felt a strong feeling of suffocation from the moment I arrived this evening. I’ve been feeling like that a lot here lately the more time I spent in her presence.
I knew it was my guilt for not loving her the way I should, the way she wanted me to, and even now I felt bad. I should’ve known that it wouldn’t work even when I tried telling myself that it could.
I never even bought her a ring, something she’d mentioned more than once. What’s more, I couldn’t even bring myself to pronounce my wife dead or file for divorce just in case she was alive somewhere, which is my fervent hope.
Now that I think about it, I can’t believe I’d even thought of doing such a thing. How had I let Mindy and mom talk me into this wedding shit?
I couldn’t quite remember now, but I know I must’ve agreed since this evening she’d only talked about the wedding.
She’d been so excited. Her every word had been about the plans she was making for the big day. Maybe that’s why I’d freaked, and why I’d finally come to my senses and put an end to the madness.
I’d known since the beginning that I wasn’t in love with her. That I’d never love another woman the way I love my wife. She knew it too, everyone did. It wasn’t a fucking secret and everyone who knew me knew this as fact.