It had gotten to that point during the summer when the heat of the day blurred the lines of morning and afternoon and night together into a loop of stiflingly hot monotony. She hovered over the cutting board, sweating in her new apron when it began.
He said with such a casualty, as though discussing the weather or a recent sporting event. His eyes never lifted from his newspaper spread across his legs. He punctuated his thought by taking another bite of the apple he held in his hand.
“What? She asked
"Let's not act like this is some big secret now" he responded.
He looked up then, caught her eyes with his and held them for a moment before disappearing again in the daily news.
They had talked about it before, but never like this. When they discussed it, it was abstract, intangible, something that could never truly happen. Her sweaty hands clutched at the knife in her hand, the knife set they had been given as a wedding gift from her parents. In the heat, the handle felt oily and slick and completely out of her control.
“I guess I just don’t understand. I thought things were ok”
“Now don’t be ridiculous”
He got up then, folding the newspaper and rolling it back up. She had never noticed how tired he looked. It was like he had aged ten years right there at the table. He walked up behind her, kissed the back of her head.
“I think I should go”
Without turning around, she slowly raised her head up, and stared into the middle distance, out the window. The day was so brazenly hot that the trees in the yard seemed to glimmer, trapped in their own mirage. The heat had made the world seem static, no movement could be seen in the yard, or in the street, or even in through the neighbors windows. All life seemed to have suddenly stopped right along with her heart.
She began to cry now. Silently. She didn’t want to give him the benefit of seeing her hurt.
“Please don’t leave me here. I love you” she begged.
“What’s done is done” he answered cryptically.
Quietly he left the room. Left her standing over the cutting board in her apron. Left their kitchen they had spent some much time decorating. Without any sort of conscious effort, she took off her apron, a gift of her mothers, and folded it neatly on the counter. She wiped off her knife, a butcher’s cleaver, to be used for the bone in ribeye she was going to prepare for him, and followed him down the hall.
With a cold and calculated grace he began folding his shirts and recollecting his socks. His eyes searched the room for little tokens of himself; a book here, a hairbrush there. He gathered his items methodically so as to avoid her glaring eyes.
It was clear to her now that he really meant it. He really truly was going to leave her here like this. Her body broke out into great gurgling sobs then, and she fell to her knees.
“I tried to love you. But you are so difficult to love” he said sleazily.
She produced a sort of sound then. Somewhere from deep within herself, a guttural scream, not too indifferent to the sound she imagined an animal being shot would make. He said it again, slowly this time, drawing out those harsh syllables like a branding iron across her skin.
“You are difficult to love, don’t you understand”
Her breath hitched, but her body remained rigid, standing there in that room, her eyes followed his every move.
“Please don’t say that”
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s the truth”
“Please stop talking, I mean it”
And it was true, she had never meant something more in her life. Her head felt like it was full of tv static, a constant humming that just grew louder and louder with every word he spoke to her. The heat laced its burning fingers over her body, making her twitch. The ominous silence of the environment seemed to become heavier and heavier, a weight pressing down on her.
“I have never loved you”
That was all it took. With a swift motion she plunged the knife through the back of his head with so much force, the tip of the knife came jutting out of his mouth, splitting his tongue down the center and shattering his front teeth.