Cold Shoulder (562 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: ubermadness
Rating: 2 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle.muse.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-10-15 18:38:44 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
"And this is mine."
Troy rubbed his hand over his face. He could feel three days' worth of stubble, and he sighed. It had been a bad week, a crappy week, and if this vapid bitch didn't shut up her buzzing, whiny voice in the next three seconds, he was going to -
"This is mine, too. Were you trying to hide it? Trying to hide my stuff, Troy? You wanna hide my stuff so I come back for it, huh? Jesus, you're pathetic. I told you, it's over. Let go. You need to learn to deal with rejection. Stop trying to..."
He faded her voice out by staring at the T.V. Just get your shit and go, he said silently. Just fucking get your ass out of my fucking house. Please, for once in your life, do something properly and go. He stared at the bright, senseless jumble of images on the screen. Some sitcom, complete with wooden actors and shitty jokes and canned laughter. Fine, good, great. Anything was better than listening to her, the she bitch, the demon monster of death, the lousy stupid -
Her head was in his field of vision and her mouth was moving. Yap yap yap, like a dog. Like a little ankle-humper that didn't know when to shut up. He reluctantly tuned back in. "What did you say?"
She rolled her eyes in exaggerated exasperation. "See, that was always our problem. You never listened to me, Troy, you never cared what I had to say. I told my mother, I said to her, just today, Troy never listened to me, and she knew just what I meant because that's how my father was, too, Troy. I married my father, and that's why we'll never work out."
He stopped trying to watch the T.V. and watched her, instead. Throwing her stuff into a large cardboard carton, again. Packing her clothes into a suitcase, again. Running her mouth the way she always did when he'd failed to live up to her expectations of what a man should be. She'd packed her stuff like this every damned month on average since they'd met. And still, still, she was here.
She stopped, as he'd known she would. Her face changed from the haglike harpy visage she always wore when they were fighting (well, when she was fighting. He never fought back; he was too damned tired) and her bottom lip started to tremble. "I don't want to leave, Troy."
This, then, was the turning point. This was the part where he'd apologise and she'd cry and they'd end in each other's arms, having mediocre sex on the floor amidst the jumble of her belongings. Afterwards, she'd whisper that she loved him, even though he wasn't perfect, and he was supposed to hold her until she fell asleep and make breakfast for her in the morning to make up for whatever it was he'd done wrong.
That was the script. She looked at him, those narrow, close set eyes filling with tears. Fake tears, he knew. Just part of the role. Part of the act. He was taking too long to say his lines and she was pissed. "I don't want to leave, Troy," she repeated. Her voice had taken on an edge, now, and suddenly Troy had had enough. All the fights, all the emotions she feigned and never felt, all the nights of rote passionless sex and every damned time she'd ever mentioned her mother hit him hard enough to get him off the couch and start him smiling.
"Oh, but you're nearly all packed, honey! Look, here's your Nickelback CD. Wouldn't wanna forget that, would you? You'll need to play it at top volume to make the next poor sap you pussy-whip contemplate suicide! And here's your little ballerina music box that Daddy gave you when you were a little girl and is all you have left of him after the poor bastard crawled off into the sunset, probably because you and your mother at the same time would be enough to make the Pope embrace cold blooded murder. If you haven't got that, you won't be able to punish everybody by telling that story over and over and fucking over again, will you?"
She stared up at him, disbelieving. This isn't the script, her face said. It was in her wide eyes, in her half open mouth, in the way she shook her head slowly. This isn't the script, this isn't the plan, this isn't how it's supposed to go!
"Troy, why are you doing this? Why are you treating me like this? I told you I don't want to leave!"
Troy was grinning maniacally. He felt like a man who'd seen the light at the end of the tunnel, like a man who'd been freed from prison, like a man who'd... fuck, he felt like a man! For the first time since she'd started leeching his soul out through his penis, he felt like a man.
"You know what your problem is, honey? You just.. never... finish.. what you start. So I'm helping you. I'm takin' the fuckin' step, makin' that fuckin' connection Oprah babbles about. I'm setting you free of your own shortcomings, sweetheart, princess, punkin, cutiepie." Troy lugged the carton through the front door and tumbled it off the porch steps and onto the lawn. The sound of something breaking inside made him happier than he'd been in months.
Sandra followed him to the door as he carried her suitcase out onto the porch. "Troy, you can't do this to me! I'm your wife, dammit!"
Troy threw the suitcase off the porch. It opened in midair and her clothes and underwear scattered, brightly colored pieces of her personality draping the plants and shrubs like obscenely private Christmas decorations.
"Yeah, you're my wife. But above all, you're your mother's daughter. You've threatened to leave fifteen times, and I'm sick of it. Get your shit off my lawn and go home to Mommy."
He took a moment to relish the look in her eyes - real surprise, real anger, the first real emotions he'd seen on her face since their wedding day - and turned, and went inside. When she hammered on the door he grinned again and turned up the T.V.
"You need to learn to deal with rejection, honey!" he called out. He didn't think she'd heard him, but that was okay.
He was pretty sure she got the message, anyway.
User Reviews
Submitted by shadowofthedivine (user info) at 2005-02-07 19:52:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If I could write so that the person reading it felt like
it was ripping fiery lines of recognition through their
mind, I think I'd be richer than at present
Submitted by Lunch_Pail (user info) at 2005-02-07 19:50:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
fuckin awesome
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-02-07 19:39:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
this rocks hard!
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-01-17 06:54:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautiful
Submitted by Kopesh (user info) at 2005-01-17 06:23:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice.
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 11:46:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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