To The Bitter End

II

It was already dark when Holly got back home. She got off the bus at her usual spot, near the neon lights of the vape shop. From there she made her way into the estate at the next turn, walking through the middle of the parking lot that belonged to the estate. She was happy every time she saw her house. It hadn't taken her much to persuade her husband to paint it in a full, dark red. Whenever she came back home to it, it looked warm and inviting and glorious.

She searched for her keys in her bag, as she got closer to the house, fishing it out of her bag, just as she got to the door. She unlocked the door, closing it behind her and locking it again. She took out her earphones and stopped the music on her phone, before heading up the stairs.

She could see the faint light coming from the office and she knew that it meant her husband was probably playing some video games. He usually did that when she was away. She opened the door and smiled at him. He didn't seem to take any notice of her, so she put down her backpack on the office chair and took off her jacket, tossing aside on top of the pile of all her other jackets.

They had only moved in a few months ago and were still busy renovating the new place, so things were kind of all over the place. Holly took a deep breath and turned back to her husband.

"Sam? I'm back." she said to him. He glanced to the side, barely seeing her, but he didn't say anything. He muttered something into his headset and then muted his microphone looking back at her.

"What did you say?"

"Just that I'm back. How was your evening?" she wanted to know. He sighed and turned his microphone back on, ignoring her.

"Sorry, my wife just came back home... Yeah, haha... Oh, shit!" he said into the microphone. Holly raised her eyebrows, figuring that he was in the middle of a tense game with his friends. She almost wished she would have stayed a little longer and had taken the bus an hour later, but that would have meant that she would have gotten to bed incredibly late and she had to work in the morning.

Holly sighed to herself and sat down on her office chair, pushing the backpack a little further back, as she untied her shoelaces and took off her boots. She was hungry and she also needed a shower. She got her keys and her earphones out of her bag again and put them on her desk. She could deal with all that later. She took her phone and checked if there were any new messages, but there was nothing since she had gotten off the bus. Just a few random notifications, nothing important.

Holly turned back to her husband, who was still playing, but it looked like he wasn't in some tense gunfight anymore. Maybe he'd be a little more talkative now. She wished they could go and watch something on TV - maybe some sort of snarky Youtube video or some sort of unhinged documentary about the most niche topic. Maybe they could even share a glass of wine or a beer.

"Did you have dinner yet?" she asked him. No reaction. She tapped his shoulder and he glanced back over his shoulder again, rolling his eyes at her, before muting his microphone again.

"What?!" he asked, in an unusually aggressive tone. Holly recoiled a little. He sometimes got angry like that and she always hated it. She had hoped that over time he was going to mellow out, especially since he already had all evening to himself with her gone to her branch meeting and everything.

"I just wanted to know if you already had dinner or if you were going to make something. If not, I'll make myself something quick." she repeated.

"I had the rest of my pizza from yesterday."

"Okay, so I can make myself my own food, yeah?"

"Yes."

That was the last word he said to her. Holly nodded to herself and made her way down into the kitchen. She'd have to see what they even had in terms of quick and easy-to-make food. She really wasn't in the mood to throw on the stove at this time of night, but she was pretty hungry.

There were a few ready-made pouches of rice, there were some cup noodles and there was bread. Holly managed to find a ready-made pouch with some sort of lentil and chickpea mix that she could heat up in the microwave. She put it in and went to toast two slices of bread to eat with it. In the fridge there was some cheese and some chorizo left. She grabbed both packages and put them on the counter, before getting herself a bowl to pour the lentils in. It wasn't a great meal, but it would do.

Her eyes wandered toward the bottle rack where lots and lots of different kinds of alcohol were stacked up neatly. She could do with a nice drink, especially if Sam wasn't going to join her anytime soon. She already had a good bit of wine at the branch meeting, so beer was out of the question. But maybe a nice, spicy liqueur? It seemed like a good idea. Holly grabbed a small glass and filled it almost to the brim with some dark red liqueur that looked a little like blood.

Before she could take a sip from it, the microwave beeped. She quickly went over and poured the lentils into her bowl and got her two slices of bread, putting some cheese on them and some of the chorizo. She laid the bread out across the brim of the bowl and wedged her phone under her armpit, so she could carry everything. She put a spoon in her bowl and carried it with one hand, while carrying the shot glass in the other hand. Thankfully, the living room wasn't far.

The room was big and it always seemed empty, since their new couch hadn't been delivered yet. It made the room feel so much colder than it actually was. But they already had a TV and it was huge. Her husband had insisted on getting a massive TV. Holly would have preferred a smaller one and putting some paintings on the wall behind it, but she had finally conceded to Sam.

She put the bowl down on the table, the glass next to it, before throwing her phone onto the old couch and sitting down, grabbing the remote. She went onto Youtube, just clicking through the suggestions until she found some sort of documentary about ancient aliens or whatever.

She knew those documentaries were trashy, but that was what made it so much fun to watch them. She grabbed her food and started wolfing it down. She really had been hungry. As the food was filling her stomach, she felt less dizzy from the wine she had been drinking before this. She had finished her food within a few minutes, which meant she was finally able to focus on what was being said on the TV. Not that Holly actually focused. Instead, she got her glass and started slowly sipping her liqueur while she was scrolling through her Twitter feed, trying to find something funny she could send to Sam at some point. Something that might bring him down here.

But there was no hope of that. Once she had finished her drink, it was already getting late and there was no point trying to watch something with her husband. Holly sighed and went back up the stairs again and into the bathroom. She pulled off her clothes, throwing her underwear into the laundry bins and climbed into the shower. Tomorrow would be another day. Maybe a better day.