Until Death

IV

And then silence...

Oh, what an annoying animal that dog was, always listening to him and never her. The more it barked, the more irritated she would be.

Years together and there were still new sides of him that she had yet to discover... and to hate. That last chance, she didn't know why but she gave it her all. Wanted, needed their relationship to be that of the beginning of their marriage where it was all love, happiness, and bliss, where they just needed each other's presence to have a wonderful day.

But how to feel when he wasn't taking it seriously and had once again, rekindled with his secret affair thinking her none the wiser.

She found that she could hate. With passion. As much as she had once loved him, she was now hating him.

And he was leaving her.

The row the night she confronted him about it, was nothing like how they once spar. It was more violent, the words exchanged were more bitter, they were yelling louder.

It was unknown, who started it first, but they did get physical and at one point between flinging things at him across the room and running away from him and the things he was throwing too, she took hold of the arm in their bedroom's cupboard.

Oh, what a stupid idea that gun had always been. She had always hated it. 'It's for our protection' he would repeat incessantly, letting the dangerous weapon reside in the place they were sleeping.

Far from being scared, he taunted her, daring her to do it.

She was agitated, asking him to shut up.

When he made a motion to jump on her, her fingers shook and pressed, the projectile actually going straight for his head.

He laid there, on their bedroom's floor, motionless.

She hurried to him, pleading with him to not be dead.

The insufferable animal was barking still and she was agitated and crying and a mess.

He was, no matter how much she beseeched, dead. No matter how much she implored, dead. He stubbornly kept on being dead no matter what she did.

She finally stopped pleading, stopped crying and at one point, stopped feeling. She looked at him without looking anymore almost as though her soul had long left.

When the now giant pet kept on barking at her, her motionless form which was sitting in a daze took hold of the arm and shot straight at it. The animal died releasing a strange and altogether otherworldly sound.

It was so quiet. So peaceful. Finally.

The dog finally stopped barking.

She was herself no more.

"Why?" she had asked again and again like a broken record, not really knowing herself what she was asking for.

Was it why he cheated on her? Why he stopped loving her? Why they couldn't go back to how it was before?

Or was it why she stubbornly never let go?

Ah, she loved no more. Had stopped loving for a long time now. Yet she was so used to how things were that she couldn't let go.

His sleeping form was peaceful though, so enviously peaceful. There was on his face no more frowns, no more snarl forming on his mouth and there will never be anymore hurting words pronounced by him. As she stayed there and looked, he resembled more the boy and young adult her old self fell in love with than the man she married ever did.

Could she go back? To a time where they wouldn't break their friendship, where they would be the best friends of the world.

At the background blaring syren's sounds could be heard, but she, in her own little world now, could hear it no longer. Nothing felt real. Nothing other than that image her mind was conjuring.

The gun had long been placed on her temple and as she thought, "dear friend, wait for me" the trigger was pulled.

In life and death, let them never stopped being friends at least.