I have been single for the past 12 years. I don’t know if I will ever find love again, and I sure as hell hope it doesn’t find me. My therapist recommended I give writing a try, something about closure. I was married once and I am still trying to recover from what happened. So here goes nothing, this is my attempt at journaling what happened.
Annie was the love of my life. I worshipped the ground she walked on. We had been married two years at that time, and they’d been the fastest two years of my life. I would say we had a really good thing going. Or at least we did before I found out about Mark.
Mark was just a coworker, according to Annie. Maybe he erred on the side of “a bit too friendly” or “lacking boundaries,” but those were her words. To me he was a fucking weirdo who clearly wanted to put a baby in my wife. I thought it was all one sided, until one afternoon when I stumbled upon a video on my wife’s phone of Mark taking Annie from behind.
It was an unsuspecting Tuesday in June. The summer evening air flowed in through the open windows of the kitchen, carrying with it the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers and freshly cut grass. The sun had just set, casting a warm orange glow across the sky. The sound of crickets and cicadas could be heard in the distance, providing a soothing background noise. As I stood by the sink, I watched as the last bit of light faded away, leaving behind a serene darkness. My neighbor Terry was locking away his mower for the night, as he waved at me from his yard. I truly believe this to be the last happy moment I would experience in my life.
Annie was in the shower when I saw it. I needed to go onto her Google calendar and add an appointment, or grab a mutual friends number from her contacts, I don’t even remember anymore. All I remember is the message that conveniently popped up as I unlocked her phone.
Mark: Is Jack still leaving next weekend for his business trip?
Curiously, I tapped the notification and quickly skimmed their message thread together. It looked like it was all innocent enough, until I got to the video. The video showed a side profile of what was going on, as if it was propped up on a night stand. I could tell it was filmed in a shitty hotel. The kind you only stay at when you’re either hiding, or shooting dope. In the frame, I could see that Mark had his hands firmly planted on Annie’s hips and lower back. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
I never thought it would happen to me. My wife, my rock, my everything. My Annie. But when I found the video, I couldn’t deny it any longer. My stomach churned as I imagined her in the arms of another man, moaning his name into his ear. My mind spun with thoughts of revenge, of screaming and yelling and breaking things. But deep down, all I felt was a hollow emptiness. How could she do this to me? Was I not enough? I wasn’t sure how to react, so I didn’t.
Once Annie was out of the shower and dried off, she came and found me in the living room to let me know she wanted to go to bed. I told her that I would be there shortly and to not wait up as I wanted to catch up on my show, avoiding eye contact and feigning indifference. The burning I felt in my face was akin to the surface of the sun as she softly spoke. Eventually, she left me to my own devices. As the minutes went by, the clock hit midnight and I could no longer stagnate on the couch. I decided a night walk around my neighborhood was what I needed to come up with my next move.
I stepped out into the warm summer night, feeling the familiar crunch of gravel beneath my sneakers. The air was thick with humidity, and the scent of freshly cut grass mingled with the sharp tang of gasoline from passing cars. The sky was a deep shade of blue, with stars twinkling like diamonds scattered across a black velvet canvas. As I walked, I felt a sense of peace settle over me, the kind that only comes with the stillness of a summer evening. I passed by houses with windows aglow in soft yellow light, the distant sound of laughter and music drifting through the air. It was a moment of tranquility in an otherwise hectic world, and I savored every step I took, knowing that when I went back home my entire life was going to be different.
As I rounded the corner onto the street I lived on, I noticed something odd. Terry, my neighbor, had left his garage door wide open. As I approached, I saw that it was empty, alit with only a warm incandescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling. That was certainly unusual for Terry, as he was a very fastidious neighbor and made sure his doors were always locked and his property was all buttoned up. A real square.
I walked around the side of the garage and climbed the three steps to his front door, and as I raised my hand to knock the door fell slightly open. Terry peeked around through the small crack, and looked puzzled, as if I had walked in on a private matter.
“Hey uh- Terry, it looks like your garage door is wide open man, just a heads up.” I uttered meekly.
“Oh! Thanks Jack. I must have left it open when I put my shears away earlier. What are you doing out here so late, by the way?” Terry replied, almost suspiciously.
“Had a rough night. I like to walk sometimes to clear my head. Especially if I need to make a big decision, or feel better about something.” I confided in my neighbor.
“Do you wanna come in for a drink? I know it’s late but it looks like neither of us are ready for the night to be over.” Terry asked, almost too excitedly.
I thought about it momentarily, but ultimately decided to take him up on his offer.
As I entered his home, I took note that the inside of his house was just as clean as the outside. The faint smell of bleach wafting into my nostrils told me that he was sanitary. Clinical, even. I followed him sheepishly into his kitchen where he was already pulling a bottle of what looked to be bourbon out of his cupboard. He poured me a shot, and this is when things get a bit blurry.
We were pounding down shot after shot, admittedly a little too quickly before I started to notice what was happening to me. My heart was rapidly beating in my chest, while my brain seemed to be moving at a snails pace, and my vision moving even slower. I took a seat at his counter and inhaled a deep breath of the clean, slightly bleach smelling air.
“So why are you really walking around in the middle of the night, Jack?” Terry prodded, with his eyes narrowed. He seemed unaffected by the alcohol.
“I- uh- have a tough decision to make tonight, with the wife ya know?” I slurred back.
Terry nodded.
“You finally caught on to her and Mark, huh Jackie boy? Took you long enough. I had them figured out months ago. Did you know that he likes to have your wife in the kitchen too? With the curtains open in the middle of the day. I can see exactly what he likes to do to your wife from my garden shed.” Terry stated calmly.
My stomach dropped, my heart skipped a beat, and my brain began to freeze in place. I could no longer think. If I was standing I surely would have stumbled and fell over. It was all too much to take in, especially in my inebriated state of mind. I stared at Terry with tears forming in my eyes, unable to speak.
“I like you Jack. You’ve always been a good neighbor, and you always keep things to yourself. I think I may have something that’ll make you feel better.” Terry stood up and beckoned for me to follow.
I felt like I was in a trance and was falling victim to the power of suggestion. I followed him down the steps to his basement. A narrow hallway opened to a room full of large chest freezers. The room easily was 30’x30’ and each wall had its own row of freezers, with the cords plugged in to a slew of longer extension cords. This felt wrong. I knew I should not be down there, and I knew I had to run, but my brain-body connection was nonexistent and I felt like I had no control over my own movements.
We reached the far back corner of the freezer-room when he approached one of the units in the corner. He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the lid. When he lifted it, I immediately recognized what was inside. There were two bodies, laying in sardine style. On the right hand side I recognized the face of Mark, and it seemed to be permanently frozen into an expression of fear. Primal, unfiltered fear. His throat was cut and all the blood had been cleaned from the wound to leave a small incision that had not been stitched. My head slowly turned to the left-hand side, where I saw my Annie. She was clearly deceased, and her eyelids were surgically removed.
Terry finally spoke. “I made her watch, Jack. They drank the same thing you did. They followed me down here with no objections, they even climbed in themselves and Annie watched helplessly as I drained Mark of his blood. I did you a favor. All your problems have been solved. I did this for you, Jack.”
Something in me woke up. Instinctually, my legs gained sentience and my brain kicked into overdrive. Before I knew what was happening, I was sprinting out of Terry’s front door and was halfway down the block. I reached the end of the street and charged into the local 24/7 corner store where a terrified middle-aged cashier helped me dial the police.
The rest of the night was a blur. I was hauled into the police station for questioning, and Terry was arrested on suspicion of over a dozen counts of murder. By the end of that week, it sounded like the prosecutor had planned on letting him ride the lightning in the electric La-Z-Boy, but I knew that could sometimes take a decade or more. He is probably still awaiting his execution.
Whenever I am cleaning my house with bleach, I think about Terry. Whenever I go down to the basement of my new house, I think about how annoying it was moving all those old freezers out of there, and how expensive it was upgrading to newer models.