Harmonious

No one ever thought Jill and I would end up so good, so snug, the feeling of a warm blanket. At least, I didn't.

She was my neighbor, recently widowed with a kid. She tried to say hi so many times.

I didn't want to. I looked away every time.

I had loved her to death in college, and then I had hated her because she wouldn't look at me, Frank, the very good kid, and instead, looked at Robbie, the very bad kid who smoked chain cigarettes and slicked his hair back with pomade so he looked like Elvis.

I always thought she was shallow for choosing him. Everyone else thought I was blind for not seeing the Ferrari he drove to school.

He was rich, I get it. I wasn't. I studied hard and worked at a lab as a research assistant for a professor who worked on mice. I thought mice were cute. I liked mice.

The mice were test subjects in a breakthrough and became Twitter darlings. I didn't like mice.

It was in the mix of dealing with my newfound hostility, that my former crush slash neighbor came around and knocked on my door.

I let her in.

Jill told me that she loved me in my tiny apartment. Robbie hadn't died in a fall as we'd all thought (I always thought it strange really). She had killed him with a kitchen knife.

Yep, you heard right. Right through the temple. Jael come 2023.

She had killed him because she wanted all his money so she could get with me. She had known that I loved her ever since the first day of class. She asked me with beautiful eyes, do you want to get married, Frank?

I said it was too soon.

She said she loved me to death.

I said I didn't know, Jill. I paused a bit. Then, I said okay.

We got married the next Tuesday. I adopted her son the next Friday.

We made a baby. We were the most harmonious couple in town. We made two babies. Everyone else gave me a pat on the back, sly expressions on their faces.

We never saw this coming Frank, they say.

Me too, I'd want to say before I remembered Jill had to be around somewhere. So I never said.

It's been ten years. I still wait for my own kitchen knife.