Eunice
The smallest blessings in our lives need to be cherished. Sometimes they just vanish too easily. They might run away, never to return. I knew this from experience. How? In the past few months, I’ve been subjected to a life of misery. At times, it felt like an eternity passed. I was slowly dying, day by day, burning in the flames of hatred inflicted by this love of mine. I lost my patience gradually. I didn’t think I could keep going; there wasn’t enough resolve left in me to survive. The ecstasy in my life was replaced by a heart-wrenching agony.
The love of my life pushed me into the depths of sorrow and pain. He was no longer the man I once loved. He had turned into this cold man who loathed me in his heart, a place where previously only pure love resided. He hurt me beyond my limits.
The love I once cherished was replaced by a raw pain that felt never-ending. He detested me, abhorred my being. To him, I was a thing of disgust. It hurt me in the most humiliating way. This love of ours that was once so divine was now stained with filthy accusations; unwanted silences that made me feel hollow. However, the silence was far better than the voices and sounds I heard, sounds that tore me apart strand by strand. My love had vanished; the essence of my happiness was gone.
I lived inside that house—lost with nothing left worth surviving for, nothing left for me to rely on. My pain, tears, and sorrow were meant for his amusement and pleasure. It killed me to stay there with him. He was killing me. Our marriage had turned into a hurtful trap.
Death seemed more appealing than living this life. I had tried so hard to bring back those happy days, but nothing seemed to change. Now I stood on the last few strands of this love, where it had become my choice to either stay or not, to either believe in my love for him or his hatred for me. I wanted to believe in the former. I wanted to stay, but I didn’t know how long I could because my breaking point was so near.
***
Joshua
I didn’t know how to live. I wanted something to replace this emptiness in my heart. The woman I loved had perished. My love for her had faded into the mournful air. Now there only remained her pretty face that I once adored, her soft lips that I once kissed, and her brown orbs that once sparkled with love.
My hatred for her was the best thing I had. I loved the way her tears flowed, eyes turned red, skin grew pale. I relished in the knowledge that she was smoldering in tears and anguish.
She had turned into this person in front of me that I never could have imagined. All I wanted was for her to suffer for her mistakes, for the sins she had committed. I had promised to make her pay for every single one of them. I spoke the words that cut her deep, reveled in the way she withered in pain.
The truth is I had forced myself to see the demon beneath her face so I could convince my heart that what I was doing was right. I wanted to justify my acts, my hatred, and myself.
I had loved her with all my heart. I even changed myself to make her happy. But then she changed me into this devil that she couldn’t see. And like a devil, I wished to take away her soul and leave her completely and utterly drained. I needed to make her feel what I had felt from her betrayal. I wanted to see the remorse in her eyes that I had felt. It became a basic need to watch her die as excruciatingly as I did. It didn’t matter that I was going to the extremes to break, hurt, and humiliate her. Why should it? She had crushed my heart. So now I would take hers and fill it with my own misery. I would torture her with my silence just to destroy her, because her life was mine to take.
I knew she saw me, heard me. That was enough for me to know I was breaking her, destroying her. In front of her, my face was bare of emotions. I seemed to ignore her very existence. I wanted to show her she meant nothing to me, that she had lost me. But it always seemed it wasn’t enough. I yearned to kill the beast she had become.
She had destroyed and torn me into pieces; now I would do the same, and I would make sure to rejoice in every ounce of her pain.