She’s leaving me? I’m confused for a second, and then I see it. My phone.
I left my cell phone charging in the bedroom while I worked in my office.
She must have unlocked it and read my texts. To Milla.
When she sees me standing in the doorway, she picks up the phone and throws it at me. “You asshole! How could you? This whole time you’re lying to me, acting like you’re my husband, playing house—while you’re actually planning to leave me and be with her?”
“Evie…”
“Don’t you dare! Harvard? That’s what that was about? You’re working on your English because you’re planning to move to America to marry Milla? You gave her an engagement ring while you were still married to me? Are you fucking insane, Gabriel? I wasn’t dead! I was not dead! I’m still not dead!”
“I know,” I tell her softly.
“Motherfucker!” she yells, picking up a lamp from the night table and throwing it at me. I just barely dodge it, and it crashes into the wall behind me and smashes into pieces.
Realizing what she has done, she sits down on the edge of the bed, dissolving into tears.
“Evie,” I say, approaching her cautiously. I try to soothe her by touching her shoulder. “You and I haven’t been good for a very long time. We were basically separated for over a year…”
“I don’t care!” she shouts. She rips my hand off her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me this. You let me believe we’re getting back together and that you love me. You even fucked me, and then you go back to texting her?! What the hell are you doing, Gabe? Why don’t you just be a man about it and end things if you don’t want me anymore?”
“I couldn’t,” I tell her softly. “I didn’t want to hurt you. And you were so sick…”
“Fuck that!” she shouts. “I’m not sick anymore. Okay? I’m not sick. Stop touching me!” Getting up and grabbing her walker, she limps across the room to the closet where my clothes are. “Here’s a cashmere sweater I bought for you, for Christmas a few years ago. I don’t think you ever wore it, probably because you hate me.” She moves to the window and opens it, before throwing the sweater outside. Then she stares at the sweater on the grass with a frown. “That was unsatisfying. I need to burn things.”
“Evie,” I say with warning.
“No! Fuck you, these are my belongings too. This is my home too. I need to burn some shit.”
I give up and sit down as Evie flies around me, moving surprisingly fast with that walker. She grabs a lighter, and random items, and she sets them on fire before tossing them out the window. She screams and yells at me for what feels like hours, until both of our heads are aching.
“You need to stop talking to that bitch!” she shouts at me.
“I can’t do that. I told you I love her. I can’t let her go so easily.”
“And what about me?” she asks. “What the hell am I even doing here?”
“I’ve been trying to take care of you, Evie. I love you, too. I want you to be better,” I say softly.
“Fuck you,” she tells me. “Fuck. You. I don’t know why the hell you married me in the first place. You never wanted me. You never fought for me. You never tried to fix things with me when they were broken. You are a quitter, Gabe. Just because you’re physically here helping, doesn’t mean you’re really here. You’ve been so far away this whole time. You’ve never been here with me.”
“I’m sorry, Evie. But you know the reason we fell apart. The main issue we always fought about—you know what broke us.”
“You want a baby,” she says simply.
“Yeah,” I answer her.
I can see the hurt and pain flash across her face. “I was never good enough for you. You could never just be happy with me alone, just the two of us. I need to burn some more shit.”
I am sitting outside of my house, holding a small white object between my fingers.
For the first time since my mother’s death… I lit up a cigarette.
I couldn’t resist it anymore.
It took me a long time to calm Yvette down so that she stopped mutilating all my belongings. I forgot how difficult life can be when that woman is able to walk around. I probably lost a couple tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of antiques that were smashed, valuable paintings that were burned, expensive clothing, a TV that she destroyed—basically anything she could get her hands on.
She also dug a grave in the backyard for her wedding ring, and buried it. I guess flushing it down the toilet is no longer her style. Maybe she felt it would lose the dramatic impact after being done once already, and she needed to find new ways to make her asshole, cheating husband feel like crap.
It works. But I’m also just glad that she’s strong enough to dig a small grave.
Maybe being angry with me is also helping to hasten her healing curve.
Apparently, Yvette also called Milla. She cursed at her so much that Milla felt guilty and awful and broke up with me. It has all just been a total shitshow. I don’t really know what to do next, and I just feel exhausted from all of this. It’s too difficult, and I am tired of hurting everyone. I pull out my phone, and stare at the messages from Milla. I know it’s been hell for her lately. It’s been hell for all three of us, and I don’t see any way of resolving it quickly.
But I don’t want to let Milla go.
I sit here and smoke with one hand, breaking the promise that
