But Ben … oh, Ben killed my soul. He gave me hope, then ripped my emotions right out of me and charred them into black ash. And now he had the gall to pretend like I didn’t exist? To go on his happy way with his miserable wife, stuck in a life of affectionless grief? I had lost babies. My grief was as wide as the ocean and as deep as the canyons. I knew what it felt like. And here I was offering him a new life, a better one with me, a woman who adored him and would do anything for him. How quickly he turned it down when I offered him my heart. No, he didn’t just turn it down. He squeezed it until it popped.
Big mistake, Ben.
He could hide behind the safety of his phone, but he couldn’t hide from me standing in front of him, face to face. Somehow through the exhaustion I made my way to my car. Somehow through the tears I saw the letter he left, tucked under my windshield wiper. I pulled it out, written on The Durham Hotel stationery. He must have written it after I left, not even giving it a full night to reconsider destroying our future! His handwritten goodbye was a loosely veiled threat. As I read the words over and over, the devastation to my soul felt more complete. It was the finality of our relationship, the death of our love.
He carpet-bombed all my hopes and dreams. I had trusted him with my life. I had given him my future. Ben was Noah all over again, a lying, manipulative, egotistical monster who didn’t care how much damage he caused, as long as he won.
I tucked his letter in my back pocket. It was torture to keep it close, but it was also fuel for what I needed to do. I was terrified as I got into my car. Panicking as I drove the short distance to his house. Then, somewhere between parking down the street and the walk to his backyard, I felt resolve mixed with indignation. It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
Fate was guiding me. I knew it the instant I found his wife’s car missing from the driveway. I would listen to that little voice this time. I knew where his wife parked, what she drove, where they kept the spare key, and my way around the house from the times Ben had snuck me in for a quickie when his wife had her weekly therapy appointments. When she stopped going, we were forced to get creative. Thank God for hotels.
No more second chances for Ben. No more fake apologies or excuses. He had used up his last. From the back porch I could hear the television blaring. He would never hear my entry above the sound, hopefully neither would the kids. I looked around, wondering how I could sneak in and sneak out undetected. I lifted the planter that he usually hid the key under, finding an empty space with a dirty outline of where the key had been.
The jerk! He was already wiping his slate clean of me. We’d see about that.
A narrow, rectangular window with an old-fashioned floral pattern etched into the glass was close enough to the back door that I could reach the lock to the doorknob. A soundless entry was out of the question. I pulled off my shirt, wrapped my hand in it, and punched through the glass, holding my breath for a full minute before daring to breathe again. No movement inside, no other sounds beside the television. I hadn’t alerted anyone.
With the shirt still attached to my wrist, I fiddled with the lock until I heard it click open. After shaking any glass shards from my shirt, I slipped it back on and entered the house. I followed the sound of Ben’s obnoxious snores, mixed with the voice of the host from Mad Money, coming from the living room, something I would have adored, once upon a time. I had never had the bliss of sleeping next to him until morning, feeling the rumble of his snores against my back, and I never would.
I tiptoed up to Ben’s sleeping form on the wheat brown leather sofa that should have been ours, watching him so peacefully ignorant in his narcissism. How could he sleep so soundly after destroying the woman he proclaimed to love? How could he slumber so deeply after betraying the wife he vowed to love faithfully? Maybe I was doing his wife a favor, too. Though the woman deserved nothing from me. She was the reason he came to me, yes, but she was also the reason he refused me.
I padded into the kitchen, careful not to touch anything. A hand towel hung from a bronze rod, so I grabbed it and selected a knife from the cutting block. The thickest handle would be the biggest blade. Easy peasy. I’d never stabbed someone, but how hard could it be? Especially when they weren’t fighting back.
Returning to my lover’s side, I blew him a kiss and made a wish. I wished that he’d find happiness in the afterlife. As much as I hated him, I had loved him twice as much. But I also couldn’t let him destroy lives without consequence. This was the price one paid. I positioned myself above his rising and falling chest, then raised the knife over my head. I’d need enough force to kill him on the first try. I aimed at his heart, then stopped.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t kill
