My poor darling Beth. She saved me from that murderous psycho ex of hers, Robert, who really never let us enjoy a moment’s peace during the brief months we were together.
I still love her, still miss her every single moment, every morsel of food I eat, every strain of music I hear, every scene in every TV show I watch. I pretend she is with me- she manifested herself once to me, why can’t she do so again? Does it have to be a life or death situation for her to push through the curtains between this world and the next? Can’t she just join me for morning coffee?
I guess not.
Our last hours together started like every other day. I stood by the living room window, on the ground floor, and twitched the curtains. He was there, across the street, not looking at our house but at his phone. I knew he would be there. Although he was often there, this time I felt an extra surge of frustration, anger, and the underlying current: plain, pure fear.
I turned to Beth. “He’s out there again. Shall I call the police?”
Beth was already seated at the dining table with piles of textbooks and her laptop, frowning fiercely at the screen. She shook her head. “No- I can’t deal with this now. I have to get through this exam.”
“But the restraining order?”
“Please Chrys- can’t you just ignore him? Can’t you see how much I have going on right now?” Her voice started to rise.
I opened my mouth to retort sharply that I didn’t understand why I was being treated as the person at fault here, and not the stalking evil bastard out there. But then I looked back at Beth, running her hands stressfully through her hair, and thought better of it. “Of course my love. Do you want a cup of tea or something?”
“No, thanks” she muttered, “please- I just need to finish this chapter- please can you just-“
I was hurt but I did my best to hide it- I understood. “Ok. I’ll be upstairs, call me if you need me.” I left the room.
Upstairs, I went straight to the window on the landing. Robert was still there. Just standing there, his head in his phone.
Robert had taken the break-up with Beth poorly enough- but when Beth and I moved in together, he seemed to go insane. I wasn’t Beth’s first girlfriend, and Robert had known about Beth’s bisexuality before they started dating- but he just couldn’t handle it afterwards. Knowing something in theory as a cool fun fact about your girlfriend proved very different from living with something in reality, and unfortunately, his brain seemed to break. Although if you ask me, he had never been fully hinged, but anyway.
We discussed endlessly together, Beth and I and our little circle of friends, whether he would have acted the same way if Beth had dated a typical “alpha male” character after he and Beth broke up- would that made it easier for him to just accept the break up as the natural order of things? Or was it a personal hostility against me that triggered him -but who knew? And at the end of the day, what did it matter anyway? Beth wasn’t his anymore, she was living with me, another woman whom she had chosen over him, and he just couldn’t deal with it.
I went to the washroom, and then went back out to the window. Robert wasn’t there anymore.
I felt a moment of relief that he wasn’t there, which almost immediately gave way to fearful unease- I didn’t know where he was. And the fear I had been feeling since I saw him earlier rose to the surface.
Then I heard Beth scream, and then I heard the scream cut off short, replaced by deadly silence.
Not being in a horror movie, I didn’t dash downstairs- I was pretty sure what had happened anyway. I darted back to the washroom, glimpsing Robert with a bloody knife at the bottom of the stairs, and I locked myself in.
Damn damn damn. I just realised I had forgotten my phone.
I heard him coming up the stairs, slowly.
“I came for you Chrys” called out Robert. “I don’t care about Beth anymore- It’s not about her. I just can’t let you get away with what you did to us.”
He was at the bathroom door, rattling the handle. Then he started hurling his body against the door. “We were fine-“ SMASH “until you” -SMASH- “you fucking dyke” -SMASH- “came along” he called out. Even at that terrible moment, I couldn’t help being irritated by his stupid outdated slang. So typical of Robert.
I deliberated between the toilet plunger and the shower curtain as the best weapon, and chose the shower curtain, ripping it off the hooks. I stood by the shaking door ready to entangle him as soon as he broke in- which would be any second now.
And then – something unexpected happened.
I heard Robert scream in fear - completely unlike his angry yelling - and the door stopped shaking as he fell silent.
A moment of eternity passed.
Then I heard Robert sobbing quietly- “no no no please” – the noise came from towards the floor.
I cautiously opened the door. Robert was curled in a ball on the ground, his hands over his ears, trying to tuck himself deeper and deeper into himself as if he could vanish into himself, if that makes sense. The bloody knife was lying on the floor, where he must have dropped it.
Beth, her throat freshly cut and bleeding freely from the gaping wound, was crouched down next to him, whispering in his ear.
“Beth?” I whispered.
Beth paused from her mumbled whispers and looked up at me. She mouthed “Go, go.”
I tried not to look at the gaping wound in her throat, I tried not to scream with grief and horror, I resisted the urge to pick up the knife and stab Robert where he lay blubbering on the floor.
I didn’t wait. Stepping over Robert and through Beth, I fled.
I have never seen Beth since.