My wife Quinn used to be a nice person. She was kind, considerate, understanding, and helpful; she had all the attributes that you would want in a friend. She once spotted a person begging for food on our way out of the grocery store and walked back in to buy them one of those pre-packaged lunches as well as a drink and a dessert.
I was always in awe of my wife’s acts of kindness and incredibly grateful that I had found her. She always made sure to do the laundry every week, which included ironing all of my work clothes and folding or hanging everything up so it would be good to go for the upcoming work week. She would remind me about big events that didn’t even concern her; like my mother’s birthday or my niece’s school dance recital. If it wasn’t for her I’d be fucked when it comes to most areas of my life. But that’s just how we balance each other out; I’m a dunce she pays attention to details and makes sure that I don’t miss important dates.
I don’t know what caused the sudden change in her attitude; I’ve tried to pinpoint it down to one specific event, one specific day, but so far I haven’t had much luck.
I do have a very vivid memory of when I first noticed the biggest change, however.
I had gotten a call at work. It was from my mother, and she wanted to know if my wife and I would be bringing anything to the family dinner that weekend. I, of course, was confused as I had no memory of a family dinner being discussed. Upon hearing this, my mother became annoyed, saying we had discussed this just two weeks ago when we got together for my cousin Jolene’s birthday.
I was also getting annoyed at this point. Firstly because my mother was calling me at work while I was busy, but also because my wife, who was always on top of stuff like this had somehow forgotten to give me a heads-up.
“Look, mom, I can’t really talk right now. I’ll discuss this with Quinn when I get home and I’ll call you when we figure something out,” I replied as I turned back to the pile of documents I was trying to get through.
“Fine Tony, whatever. Just make sure you let me know by the end of the day so I can go buy whatever we might be missing.”
I hung up the phone as I tried to ignore my frustration. Unable to completely brush it off, however, I picked up my phone again and sent Quinn a text: My mom called. She wants to know what we’re bringing to dinner??? Didn’t even know a dinner was happening, thanks for filling me in I guess.
In hindsight, the message was probably unnecessary, and albeit a little passive-aggressive, but at the time all that I could focus on was the fact that my normally responsible wife had caused me to get scolded by my mother while at work.
That evening when I got home, the house was quiet.
Normally, at this hour, Quinn would be finishing up dinner but I walked into the kitchen to find two pots on the stove while my wife was nowhere in sight.
I approached the stove and lifted the lid on the pots. The first one had some boxed mac and cheese that had cooled down enough for it to get all dry and clumpy. The second one had steamed broccoli.
I set my phone and my keys down on the kitchen table and made my way upstairs to look for my wife.
I found her in our bed, laying with her back to me with a blanket pulled up over her head.
“Quinn?” I asked.
She didn’t reply.
I took my shoes off and approached the bed, reaching out to shake her.
“Quinn, are you asleep?” I asked.
She sighed. “Not anymore.”
I walked around the bed towards the bathroom, getting out of my work clothes and stepping over the clothing as it fell on the floor around my feet.
“Did you get my text?” I asked.
She still hadn’t moved but I could see her face now and she was staring off into space.
“Quinn? Did you see my text?” I repeated.
Her eyes flickered over to me for a second before she looked away again.
“Yeah, I got the text,” she replied, annoyed.
“Okay, well, we need to figure out what we’re gonna do and call my mom back.”
Quinn sat up as I began walking into the bathroom.
“We? Or me?” She asked.
“What?” I called as I turned the shower on.
She said nothing in return, so I stepped into the shower, thinking that maybe I had misheard her.
When I got out of the shower, she was no longer in bed. I dried off and walked towards the dresser to look for some clothes to change into, tripping over my work pants on the way.
I huffed, annoyed as I kicked them out of the way, towards the laundry hamper.
Once I had changed, I made my way back downstairs and into the kitchen. I spotted Quinn sitting on the living room couch, looking down at her phone.
I opened the fridge, scanning the contents for a few seconds before closing it and walking into the living room.
“Hey babe, do we have anything to eat?” I asked.
“Yeah, there’s mac and cheese on the stove. And some vegetables,” she replied, not once looking up from her phone.
“Boxed mac and cheese isn’t really a meal,” I pointed out.
“Okay, so eat the veggies then.”
I stared at her but she didn’t even seem to notice.
“Babe, you know I’m not a huge fan of broccoli…” I replied.
Quinn finally looked up, glaring at me. “So starve for all I care,” she snapped.
She got up and marched back upstairs after that, slamming the door to her office shut as I stood there speechless.
I didn’t know what to do or say as her reaction had caught me completely off guard. I ended up eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that night and sleeping in our bed by myself.
The following morning, Quinn stayed in her office as I got ready for work, running around trying to pack up all of my stuff, and get dressed, and make coffee and get some breakfast.
When I finally made it out the door, I was pissed. I didn’t know what had gotten into her recently, and for the rest of the day, I walked around frustrated, annoyed, and tired.
To make matters worse, my mother texted me during my lunch break to follow up about the dinner. I ignored her message and turned my phone off for the remainder of my shift.
Over the next few days, I would see Quinn sitting around the house. Every day when I got home was the same, however. I would come back to either no dinner or random leftovers of whatever she had eaten. She would ignore me most of the time, only talking to me when I asked her a question directly. Most of the time though, I would find her looking at her phone or locked away in her office doing God knows what.
One Saturday morning, I saw her doing yoga in her office with the door open.
I stood in the doorway as she followed along to a video she had pulled up on her laptop.
She turned to face me as she bent over in a stretch and closed her eyes when she saw me.
“Did you make any coffee?” I asked, breaking the silence.
She kept her eyes closed as she changed positions, stretching to the other side.
“I don’t even drink coffee, Tony.”
I watched her for a few seconds as she stood up and lifted one of her legs, leaning forward and opening her arms.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Her head turned towards me quickly. “I don’t fucking like coffee.”
I said nothing as she continued on with her routine, watching her for a few moments.
“You know,” I finally said. “You really need to calm the fuck down. Maybe the yoga was a good idea.”
I turned and walked out of the room after that, not bothering to hear her response. Not that she would have given me one anyway.
We didn’t speak for the rest of that day, and we also never made it to the family dinner. I, of course, received calls from family members wondering where we were. Feeling petty, I decided to tell them that it was Quinn’s fault; that she was the one who didn’t want to see them.
I realized my mistake very quickly when she threw open her office door and marched downstairs and stood in front of the television as I was in the middle of a movie.
“Can you move?” I asked.
“Did you tell your fucking parents that I didn’t want to see them?!” She demanded.
I sighed as I watched the screen around her body.
“You’ve got the be fucking kidding me,” she laughed flatly.
“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? You didn’t mention it, you wouldn’t talk about it, so what was I supposed to do?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe think of something yourself for once instead of relying on me or your mom to do everything for you?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know, you’ve been acting like a bitch lately and I don’t appreciate it. This…” I motioned towards her vaguely “…is not the person I married.”
Quinn stood there for a second, nodding at me before she turned around and left again.
The next morning, it all went to shit.
When I woke up, Quinn was in the kitchen, walking around stirring and flipping things in pans on the stove. I thought we were back to normal for a second, and walked in, ready to eat.
“Good morning babe,” I said, approaching the kitchen counter.
At the sound of my voice, Quinn turned around to face me and my breath caught in my throat as I looked at her.
Her face had changed. She still had her face, except it was different, weird, terrifying. One-half of her face was done up with makeup. It was cheery; that side of her mouth was turned up in a smile and her eye looked kind as she looked at me. The other side of her face, however, was contorted into a sneer. It was not a facial expression that a regular human would make, instead, her eyebrow was furrowed aggressively and her eye was wide and twitching in anger and dark red as if she hadn’t slept in hours. Her nose was even wrinkled and turned up and that half of her upper lip was lifted, exposing her teeth slightly.
She looked furious; angrier than I had ever seen anyone look. She looked like a monster.
“What’s wrong babe? Don’t you want some quiche?” The happy side of her face asked me.
When it spoke, the left side of her mouth did not move, and yet her speech wasn’t hindered in any way.
I didn’t reply, I couldn’t reply. I was still in shock. I wasn’t sure whether I should scream or cry.
“Are you gonna fucking answer or what?!” The other side of her face snapped.
“N-no thank you,” I stuttered. “I don’t want any.”
“Oh,” the happy side said, disappointed. “Well, I can make you something else if you want. Do you want pancakes?”
The other side laughed. “You’re such a fucking loser.”
I stepped away from the counter and backed out of the room.
“Let me know if you want anything else!” She called after me.
I hurried back up into our bedroom and shut the door, leaning against it.
I don’t know how long I stayed up there, but eventually, I was too hungry to continue hiding out and ended up walking back into the kitchen.
Quinn was still in there, sitting at the table. Both halves of her face looked at me when I came in.
“There’s some quiche still. And I also make pancakes for you in case you wanted those instead” she said.
The other side of her face rolled its eye.
I walked over and grabbed some pancakes, not really trusting that she hadn’t poisoned them.
I ate in silence as I sat across the table from her.
“Tony, why won’t you look at me?” The nice side asked.
I glanced up at her. “I am looking at you.”
“You’ve been avoiding me all morning,” she said.
“I’m just tired.”
I could feel her gaze on me as I kept eating, and tried to ignore it.
Once I was done, I put my plate in the sink and quickly walked out of the kitchen again and into the living room where I sat on the couch to watch some TV. I thought about what I should do at that moment. How was I supposed to fix her? Could this even be fixed? She was the one who always had the answers to our problems.
I heard the faucet running and the sound of drawers being opened and closed as she put away the leftovers. I wasn’t even sure if she had eaten yet.
After a while, she walked into the living room and sat down right next to me. I kept my vision forward trying to avoid her.
“Tony…” she sang.
I remained laser-focused on the TV.
She reached her hand up and turned my face to look at her. I felt nauseated as I looked at her face. Or faces. It was even worse up close. It looked fake like she had on some weird mask. The good side of her smiled at me and suddenly she was leaning in. I was unable to move back quickly enough and soon her lips were pressed against mine.
I stayed still until I felt her teeth bite down on my lip.
“Ouch!” I mumbled.
She bit harder.
“Ow!” I yelled, pulling back.
She kept biting, moving her teeth back and forth like she was trying to saw through my lip. I shouted as I pushed her back, but she was freakishly strong for some reason.
I wasn’t able to pull her away until she had bitten off a piece of my lip. I stood up off the couch as blood ran down my chin, watching the evil side of her face chew my lip a few times before spitting it out at my feet.
“What the fuck!?” I shouted.
The good side of her face kept smiling at me as if nothing had happened. “Did you wanna take this to the bedroom babe?” It asked.
“Fuck no! Do not follow me you crazy bitch!”
I ran out of the living room as my mouth throbbed. I made it into the bedroom, and headed towards the bathroom, tripping over my clothes and landing on my left knee. I closed my eyes and bit my lip in pain, which only added to the pain that was already there. I cried out as I slowly stood up and leaned against the bathroom counter, looking into the mirror.
I looked almost as frightening as Quinn, with a chunk missing off my lip and blood dripping down my chin and throat. It had gotten on my shirt now as well and I took it off, leaning forward to look at the injury in the mirror.
I held my breath as I cleaned the wound to the best of my ability. Once all the blood had been rinsed off the missing part of my lip looked about ten times bigger. I grabbed some gauze and pressed it to the wound to try to stop the bleeding.
I was getting dizzy. I sat down on the floor of the bathroom, pulling open the cabinets under the sink to grab the bottle of alcohol. I opened it and moved the bottle around under my nose to stop myself from passing out.
After a few seconds, the dizziness went away and I leaned my head back against the wall as I set the alcohol down.
I kept pressure on the wound, thinking back to the image of my wife chewing on my skin.
When I opened my eyes again, I gasped. Quinn was crouched down right in front of me, leaning in towards my face. I tried to back up but I was already up against the wall and had nowhere to go.
“Are you okay?” The evil side asked me in a mocking tone.
It no longer just looked angry; now it was amused, almost smirking.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
“Here, let me kiss it better,” the other side offered.
“No!” I snapped.
She backed up, the good side of her face changing too; into a sad expression.
“Why don’t you want me, Tony?” It asked.
“What?” I mumbled.
“I thought this was what you wanted.”
“You thought THIS was what I wanted?!” I asked, motioning at her face.
“He doesn’t like us anymore,” The evil side replied, changing into an exaggerated frown.
“Is that true, Tony?” The other side asked.
“You bit my fucking lip off!” I shouted.
She stood up and looked down at me. “You’ve done a lot worse to me. This is the least that you could live with.”
I couldn’t tell which side of her face said that, and I didn’t really care to know.
She left the room then, but neither of us have left the house.
Quinn’s face is the same, although it goes through moods. Sometimes, she doesn’t stop staring at me for hours; she won’t even blink.
On more than one occasion, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to find her hovering a mere few inches over me while she stares. Both sides of her face seem to hate me now for some reason.
One morning when I got out of the shower she was standing in the bathroom doorway holding a knife. I thought for sure she was going to kill me; the evil side of her face looked extra angry that day. I think the only reason she didn’t stab me to death was that the opposite side of her was the one holding the knife.
Every day I go to work and come home and she’s the same. I start sweating as soon as I pull into our neighborhood, and yet I don’t know what to do. I think she would track me down if I tried to run. I swear I saw her standing outside of a restaurant last well where I was having a lunch meeting with a client.
My wife used to be a nice person, but now I’m terrified of her.