Muse Go Brrr

Hesitance

I never found the courage speak up with the woman I thought would be my forever. I lost that from the day she set so many expectations for me, for our future together. I felt, if I really wanted this to be reality, I would have to set myself aside for a little while and that she would have done the same no matter the cost. My stupidity and blind agreement to such a neglectful headspace is what lead me to such a shattering state of being in the end. I came home one day to find that, after my efforts to keep us afloat, someone else was in our home. It started with food I never cooked, but it ended with blood I spilled on the carpet. 

I saw her with him. I saw her with the man I thought I could call my father, rearranging the contents of her stomach on the bed I built with my two hands. I am not as innocent as I let on with this information, however. From the moment I slipped that wedding ring on her finger, I already knew. When I asked her to marry me, she hesitated to tell me the truth--hesitated to just say no and leave me with the bill. On our wedding day, she was late and smelled just like he did. I tried to ignore it, gaslighting myself into believing it was coming from him right behind me. 

The first few times she left to sleep with him, I ignored it and pretended she was going on trips for a job I knew she never had. After that, they got sloppy. Pictures they took together, openly texting one another like a pair of horny teenagers... I kept it all out of mind, repeating to myself that I loved her until the darkest night and the brightest day. Somehow, someday, that little voice got quieter. As it got quieter, my gaslit wiring became riddled with a virus of plotting and vengeance. I couldn't find it in my heart to "forgive and forget" anymore, I started to tell myself every day. Why would I be so stupid as to keep letting this poorly written play continue to run in my theater? So, I started to keep track of things.

She at at the same time but came at a different hour, a different minute. When he did what he was meant to, she would consider a round two with me before promptly falling asleep with her phone in hand, preparing for the next day's "freaky crusade" as they had learned to call it. I would clean her up, tuck her in, and fill my search history with anything that lead closer to a disposal I saw fit for them. Yet, despite all this, they found a way to land right into the metaphorical palm of my hand. I had come home from work, unbeknownst to the two, and observed them. The first few times, a part of my hesitated in doing so for fear of being seen. Afterwards, that hesitance turned to malice as every "session" was a new weakness seen, a new way to hurt the two of them the way I thought they hurt me.

During one afternoon while they thought I had left for the day, he had brought her wedding ring.
"Must've left it when you forgot you were married." He said with detest in his voice.
"Please." She started, "I was far from being married when we even had that stupid ceremony. Not to mention how pathetic he was when we first met. If I wasn't already seeing you, I wouldn't have had a reason to agree to his proposal! You know that! Besides, I don't think Reggie even notices when I leave that cheap little ring these days. Now, come here and give me sugar."

The complete disregard for our marriage, our relationship as a whole, broke me. All the work I had done to make sure she was loved, that violent gnashing in my head demanding my deep dedication was all for naught. Hesitant to leave my hiding space, I watched as the two of them embraced and realigned her plumbing for hours end in the living room, the musty smell of his cologne and their mixed sweat filling the room like it always did. When they finished and lay flat on the floor, I crept out with my knife in hand and stared at them from the darkness of the room.

"Jane never loved me, did she?" I said, fiddling with the point.
"R-Regginald?!" She shouted, startled by my voice, "When did you-"
"I never left. I was watching the whole time."
"That is..." My dad started.
"Unsettling? Sick? Irredeemable? You could say the same about yourselves."

After a long pause between us, the only sound being the occasional hum of the air conditioner and the sun fully setting, Jane stood up and left to put something on. I could hear her stifling her crying, short breaths cutting the thick atmosphere like a fork in cold butter. Eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dad and I met one another's and locked.

"So." He said plainly.
"So." I replied.
"What's your plan now?"
"I was going to ask you the same. Ideally, you would need to stop fucking my wife, but we know you couldn't if you tried."
"And? What of the non-ideals?"

I felt the edge of my knife delicately, contemplating the question. I blinked and I found myself crouched over the man's corpse covered in his blood. Taken aback, I jumped up and dropped the knife. Jane, discovering the horrific scene, let out a terrified shriek and--through the eyes of someone I didn't recognize--ran away before meeting the same fate as Dad. 

"You know what to do next, don't you?" A voice asked me in the corners of my mind.

Quivering and hesitant, I began dragging the bodies to a set of graves I had dug a few days prior, stopping to rethink my decision to pretend this hadn't occurred. I found nothing within me to forgive myself of this, whether I was myself or otherwise, reaching for my cellphone. I reported the murder of the two and sat down on one of the patio chairs, staring at my reflection on the weapon used. A part of me wants to stop the chase, end the rush, though the remainder hesitates and wishes to do things right through the justice system. I suppose in the end, however, I had to come to a final decree.

I was done hesitating.