"Disintegration of a Lover" by B.Carlisle

[ShortStoryContest]

The following story has been selected as a featured runner-up in our 2015 short story contest (Contest Theme - "The Self-Destructiveness of Vengeance and Hate")

"Disintegration of a Lover" by B.Carlisle

She vaguely remembered something about being beautiful once. Back when she cared. Back when admitting she cared started to make her cry. As she stared at her unrecognizable reflection in the dirty shard of mirror, she wondered at the reasons things had come down to this. She wondered if she would ever have the strength to finally give up and throw herself off the bridge.

She remembers a glittery, happy smile, a bright heart and the power that stood behind those things. She remembers her suits, hairstyles and expensive shoes. She remembers putting on a pound of make-up at six in the morning. She knows all these things showed she still cared, that she still wanted to be a part of the world. It was when she realized it was all pointless that she started to stop. He didn’t care what she looked like. He didn’t care if she wore sexy stockings or lip stick. Whatever she did, she still wasn’t as good as the women around him. The women he constantly associated with on the side. The women who took up so much of his time online when he used to come home.

He didn’t care so why should she? She stares and remembers. These thoughts and memories she cannot stop reliving kindles the pain and expands the hollow in her guts. The mantra “I don’t care” runs through her head, keeping her from jumping off a bridge, but it is not enough to convince her why she shouldn’t. The hate burns within her like a fire that is now her friend and forever her enemy.

She counts the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. They started out originally from laughs and smiles but as time went on, they became names; Sara, Beth, Brianna, Donna, Kristina… each one had its own time, name and tears attached to it. Whores that would never go away. His name was on most of the wrinkles though and a few teeth she had lost over the years. His name was on every aspect of her disintegration. He was at fault and he had created the dark place where she ran and hid until she became trapped there. She was waiting forever for him to do just one little thing. Just one to show he cared and would let her be light and free again.

It never came. He never did and never would. They were childish fantasies. She held on to childish fantasies that had led her to the bottom of this broken shopping cart. Fantasies put in her head long ago by a society that tells you Prince Charming is out there. He will rescue you. They don’t tell you that he will be rescuing you and every other princess in trouble though, do they? No, no they don’t. She grinds her teeth together without noticing. All of it was fantasy and lies. Fantasies of promises that would last. The fantasy of a warm, safe home full of children and happiness. Fantasies that there are good people in the world. That there were people who cared.

She knows now no one cares. No one ever did. Maybe not even her. Hope is a farce. Men are liars and women are never your friend. She had learned. This is her world now. Her mind walks slowly through all these things and returns to the names. The names that invoke the faces into her mind. She could never bring herself to hate or hurt him. Every thought of vengeance on him broke her heart no matter what he did, but she readily and passionately hated his women. His “friends” she could never meet. His “friends” who went to nice restaurants with him for lunch and secret dates. His “friends” who offered to pretend they didn’t know him when he was with her.

Without realizing it completely, her mind slowly continued into it’s rotation around the whores like it always had. She forgot what she used to be, how she used to look and act. She forgot that she had ever smiled. The feelings of never being good enough for him, never pretty enough, never fat or skinny enough for him and never having a good enough job or enough money. For him. All of it to compete with the whores.

Her mind reached the baby and stopped. She wondered for the millionth time if he had had a good laugh with his bitch at the time over it. If they had expressed relief to each other that she had lost it. If they had spoken of how it was better this way. Lord knows he had said that to her enough. She wished she had never told him how badly she wanted children. She wished she had never shown the vulnerability to him in the hopes that he did love her. Her childless, infertile body wretched with the thoughts and pulled at the scars from his careless selfishness.

Screaming out loud with anger and hate she tears at what is left of her once beautiful hair and sends the “happy” people nearby scampering away from her. The birds have even stopped singing in the park at the unexpected outburst. Falling to her knees in pain and grief the tears flow freely and her rag covered shoulders shake with her great sobs. The visions, the thoughts run through her damaged mind like the slim, expensively outfitted joggers he loved to watch so much. Their fake boobs and fake blonde ponytails bouncing like their fat asses. Smiles as they go by… suggestions of after or during work trysts.

She attacks the hand that falls on her shoulder. The girl was half into the “are you…” when she is smashed in the face by the crazy homeless woman’s fist. In a mad, smelly, lice-infested rage, she beats the young woman half to death nearly destroying her pretty face. Exhausted and sad again, she sits on the ground beside the bleeding girl and cries.

She is still there when the police come and arrest her for her fourth assault and battery. As she is led away she looks at those who are watching and she sees every whores face that he ever knew. That she ever knew. She sees men with women who are not their wives. She sees secretaries giving blowjobs in the bushes. She sees everything and she screams to the onlookers: “Thank you! Thank you all! She is still yelling thank you in her jail cell hours later.

[Major]

You cannot slip form past to present tense in the same piece.
Decide which you prefer to write in and stick with it all the way through.
Otherwise an interesting premise, that would benefit from a re-write with more attention to speech marks grammar and paragraphing.