Eileen felt numb. She felt like her soul had flown from her body, and was watching her from outside, like she wasn’t connected to her own flesh anymore. She watched John’s mouth move, watched as a tear rolled down his cheek, as he gesticulated and paced. She felt her eyes fill with tears, her vision blur, but still she sat, frozen.
His words echoed around her mind, blocking everything else out. I am so sorry. She blinked, swallowed. It meant nothing. She didn’t know what to do. What to say. What to feel. She meant nothing. Eileen, believe me. Eileen, I love you.
She jumped at the touch on her shoulder, realizing the last line had been spoken aloud. She slowly looked up at him, too tired to even try and read the expression on his face.
“Eileen, please, say something,” he begged, kneeling before her, taking her hands in his.
She slowly pulled her hands away, feeling like it was someone else moving. She searched inside for her heart, but instead found an empty pit. She nodded to herself. That made sense. He had pierced her heart, had torn it to shreds, had thrown the pieces to the wind. Of course her chest was empty.
All at once, her soul slammed back into her body. She gasped for air, stumbled from her chair, backed away from the man she had once loved.
“Get away from me,” she whispered, her quivering voice a match for her shaking hands.
“Eileen, please,” he pleaded, taking a step forward. He stopped when she put her hands up. “It meant nothing. She meant nothing. I don’t even know,” he said, his hands flying from his face, his hair, his stomach. “I don’t even know how it happened.”
“You don’t know…” she muttered. “You don’t know how you SLEPT WITH ANOTHER WOMAN?”
John flinched at her words, sinking down into her abandoned chair. He held his face in his hands. A coldness settled over Eileen, flooding her bloodstream, filling her hollow chest with ice. She embraced the cold, embraced the anger. She had loved him, sworn to be true to him, and she had maintained those bonds. He, he had shattered them, and she owed him nothing.
“Eileen, it will never happen again,” he whined, looking up at her. Those eyes had once made her melt, had made her feel seen, and loved. Now she saw those eyes, and she wondered who else had been seen by them, loved by them. She traced the contours of his face, his chest, his arms and legs. Who else had traced his body with their eyes, their hands, their…
She shook her head, backing away. “Get out, John.”
He looked at her, stunned.
“Wh-what?”
“Get out,” she hissed. “Get out of my house. Get out of my life. You don’t get my forgiveness. You don’t get my sympathy. You don’t get my house. Get out.”
She turned her back on him, and moved in a daze to the kitchen. She braced herself against the counter, and waited. She listened as he slowly left the living room, as he made his way upstairs to their – her, she thought bitterly – bedroom. She listened to the closet and drawers opening, closing, heard the zip of a bag. She listened as he paused in the doorway of the kitchen, but she kept her eyes closed. Then she heard him walk away, out of her home, out of her life.
She stood still, the tension slowly working its way out of her body. She felt each limb relax, sag. She slid down the side of the counter, crumpling to the floor. She sat, numbly, watching the shadows creep closer and closer.
And finally, in the dark, she wept.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020