Joshua
A week later…
“What do you think about yourself, Joshua?” the doctor asked as I sat in front of him on a chair. It had been a week since I arrived at this facility for help. I had asked for a psychiatrist and they had sent me here. I was isolated from the world. Left all alone with my thoughts, my guilt, my pain, my misery, and my foolishness. I made one call before coming here, and it was to none other than Alex, the man who had told me many times that I had turned blind. I still remember his words echoing through my mind.
You are fucking sorry, Joshua. You were so fucking blind that you didn’t see her. She had always been right there with you, right there beside you taking all of your fucking shit! All of your torture, and you never fucking cared for her. She was there to hold you when you were falling apart, and what did you do? Treated her like shit. She was with you through it all, loving you, caring for you while you never cared for her. You never fucking loved her, ever, you bastard! You never did and now you fucking realize your mistake. Now! When she is probably gone! I don’t fucking know what to do with you. You deserve to be there, Joshua. You need to get that sick mind of yours treated and I only pray that when you get back you realize how much you have lost by doing what you did. I am your friend, Joshua, and you know the only fucking reason I am still your friend is her. If it wasn’t for her, I can assure you that I would have fucking ended this friendship that very day when you started whoring around. So do me a favor and just remember how much she did for you when all you did was…hurt her and…kill her.
He ended the call after these words and they hit me. Even when I was creating havoc in her life, she was trying to keep mine stable.
“That I was blind, blinded by some disturbing lies. I hurt the one person who stuck with me in my worst time. I did nothing but kill her from the inside and I enjoyed it. I…loved the pain she suffered, the tears she shed, and her painful cries.” I closed my eyes and let the memories of her pain rip my heart apart. Her sobs, her tears, and her cries were never meant to be there, but I gave them to her. I made her life a living nightmare. I was the hell raiser in her life. These thoughts tore me apart brutally and the pain was insufferable. It was more than I had ever suffered, this pain of my heart ripping me into pieces. I felt like I was dying a thousand deaths. Involuntary tears pricked the corners of my eyes and I could only think that they were nothing compared to hers.
“I played the role of a sadist in her life. Forced her to the edge…where she couldn’t take it anymore. Accused her…accused her of horrible things that broke her. Humiliated her for them. Punished her for nothing. Only now when I think about all of this, I know what I really am,” I said with a painful chuckle.
“What is that, Joshua?” the doctor asked.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. “A monster—that’s what I really am. A killer, a murderer, and a horrible husband. A disgusting human being…” I said with a sigh.
I didn’t want to look at the doctor and see the sympathy and pity in his eyes for me. He said that my mind had forced me to believe those things. It happens at times after a trauma, and Elle’s death was a trauma to me. My mind led me to believe a lie, wander to some lost thought that Lily’s mother had put in me, and let it grow in my mind like a virus. I let those thoughts overshadow the reality that was right in front of me. My mind believed the lie. It’s like when you repeat a lie so often that you start to believe it. That’s what happened with me. As much as they say I can’t fully blame myself for it, I do. I do believe that all I had done was my fault, I had to be fully blamed for forcing Eunice to take her life and for everything else. I was ashamed to look at myself, scared to look in my own eyes. I tried to avoid my own reflection anywhere—like it was a plague. I gave up my phone and every electronic device I had before coming here. It wasn’t that I didn’t want anyone to contact me, but I feared I would call her. I was scared to call her and breakdown from her voice. Calling her would mean inflicting pain on her by talking to me, by making her remember a disgusting monster like me. I didn’t want any more of that for her. I didn’t want her to be in pain because of me. I didn’t deserve her and I never could.
“Joshua, you need to stop with these thoughts. You’ve been here for a week, and you’ve been thinking such self-destructive thoughts. I know you feel ashamed of yourself, but you can’t let yourself be sucked down in the depths of depression and sadness. You made a mistake. Your mind played a game with you and it won. It also made the life of someone you loved miserable. Your mind made you go to extremes and give pain to the one person you loved the most. It’s just a shame that it happened. It’s bad fate that Elle and your unborn child died, but everything you did with Eunice happened because of the choices you made in your life. You are to be blamed for it because of the way you behaved. You have to own up to your mistakes. I know you want to grieve the loss of your children and your wife from your life. But you need to cope with it too. She did, didn’t she? She was there for you, so why don’t you repay her the favor by just staying strong so you could apologize for the mistakes and the suffering you have caused her?” he said, trying to console me. But how could I stop hating myself? They say I shouldn’t hate myself this much, but I cannot really help how I feel. I hate myself enough to kill myself, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Killing myself would be that easy and less torturous. Killing myself would be nothing compared to what Eunice has gone through, and I want that for me. I want to let myself burn in the pit of this agonizing, heart-wrenching pain. I deserved every bit of it and more. Burn in that same pain that Eunice did—pain ten times what she suffered—because I deserved it.
“We are going to discharge you today, Mr. Morris. You will be coming to see us twice a week as scheduled and we will check your progress. Just don’t do anything harmful to yourself. You’re going through a stage where you don’t like yourself much, but we are going to help you pass this phase for your loved ones,” he said to me.
His words made me want to laugh. Loved ones? I don’t have any loved ones left. I don’t have her anymore, that person who always put me before herself. Who would still cook for me when I came home after being in the arms of another woman, still be there when I didn’t give her a glance, fully ignored her, and most of all, made her cry because of my actions. She was gone, and with her, so was my whole life. She had been the center of my world all the time, even when my mind made me believe a lie and let it grow to the point where harming her had become my need. Now without her, my life was nothing. It was empty like before. Only this time, nothing can fill it up. Nothing but her love, except I lost that. Lost every bit of it—forever.
I promise to love you forever and ever, Eunice. Whatever happens, I won’t ever hurt you, I will try my best to not even let a lone tear escape your eyes. If it does, I will be there to wipe it away and make you smile. From this day onward I promise to be with you forever, to have eyes for you only—even when we are old and wrinkly, to love you always in any circumstances even when you annoy and frustrate me. I promise to never ever let you go. I will be there in every part of your life at all times and promise to be with you until death. Only death will tear us apart. I promise you that on my life, which is now all yours.
Those were my vows to her, the vows I couldn’t keep. I shattered those vows when I became a monster. She was my wife, the loving mother of my kids, and I let her down by hurting her. I let down my marriage, and only now did I realize that.
“We have called your friend, and he has agreed to pick you up. He’ll be here in two hours, which gives you enough time to clean up and go through the discharge papers, Mr. Morris. However, I would like to give you homework—or more like a question to think about,” he said, gaining my attention.
“I want you to think about who you would have blamed if your wife Eunice had died in that accident. I want you to think on it in two different ways—where both Elle and she die, and where only she dies. In both cases, who would you have blamed and why? I would like to know your opinion on this at our next meeting. Have a nice day.” After saying that, he packed his things and left me alone with my thoughts. His question made my mind drift to that night.
You don’t want to see the reality that is in front of you, so I won’t fucking anymore ask you to. Just answer my one question, Joshua, that is what I ask from you. Tell me Joshua, who would you have blamed if on that day I would have died with our child and Elle would have survived? What would you have thought then, huh?
Those words of hers wandered around my mind, taunting me. She asked me this. She asked me this with those teary, sorrow-filled eyes. My answer that night made me realize what a monster I was. I had torn her with those words, killed her from the inside and forced her to leave this world and her loved ones—among which I was no longer counted.
I want to get rid of you, not only from me, but also from this earth.
Good riddance to a horrible bitch like you.
I want a filthy woman like you out of my life forever.
Just get the hell away from me, you bitch!
Get the hell away from me! Get out of my sight!
I called her awful things, asked her to go and kill herself. I was the one who said that. All those words I barked at her came back, biting me. I had become a person who could hurt the one who loved me most—hurt her in the worst way. Only now I knew that my answer wouldn’t have been the same like that night. I would have done everything in my power to change the past. I would have done it, but I wasn’t God. God. I chuckled sadly when I thought about this word. Why did He have to make my life so messed up? Why were Eunice and I given such horrible fates? Was it something I did wrong that made him punish me like this? By punishing someone I loved the most, and that by my own hands?
I looked over at the clock and realized I needed to get ready to leave, though the thought of staying here was more alluring. But I wanted to be near my own home. A place filled with the memories of someone who loved me, that was my home.
With that in my mind, I forced myself to get up and get cleaned. If I ever gained the guts to call her, my first words to her would be sorry. Sorry for wasting her time, sorry for making all her love be in vain. If I saw her, I would surrender my mind and soul to her for eternity, and even if she threw it away I wouldn’t care, because after what I did, I could never deserve her. So I wanted to embrace all the memories of Eunice in my home. I didn’t expect Eunice to be there, but being with her things and scent, I wanted to cherish every memory that contained her in that home of mine. A home that she made for me…a home I couldn’t think of existing there without her…ever…
I don’t know why, but I was eager to leave. For the first time in the past six months I wanted to go home—not just to a house that I bought—but a home. I wanted to remember each of the happy memories I had with Eunice and Elle. I wanted to feel her love in everything that existed in our photographs. How her eyes sparkled with happiness. How her laugh would bring me down to my knees. I wanted her things near me to keep my mind from going insane. I needed her scent in the air to keep my sins out of my mind because I knew the moment I remembered those teary eyes, I would lose myself. I would lose myself in this storm of guilt and pain inside of me, and I would cross the line of this life and die. I didn’t want that—ever. It would be too easy to get rid of my burden.
“Let’s go,” Alex said as soon as he passed me after signing the last of my discharge papers. He had come right on time and hadn’t given me a glance for more than five seconds. He had ignored me, and now I understood his value in my life. Standing up from my chair, I followed him to his car. How many times had he told me to stop? How many times had he tried to clear my clouded vision that had been distorted by lies and hatred? How many times had he tried to knock sense into me? Meanwhile, all I had done was ignore him, and only now I knew what it felt like to be ignored. Without a single word, he got inside the car and started the engine. He waited for me to get into the car, ignoring me. The silence killed me, ate me away. An uncomfortable silence fell between us.
Was this how Eunice felt when I ignored her? How could silence hurt this much, cutting into the heart and bringing such intense pain? I wanted to know what was going on in other people’s minds. I couldn’t even bear it for a few minutes, but Eunice did it for six months. Those six months filled with this deep, cutting silence, and she bore it. Did she feel the urge to see into my mind? Why didn’t she leave me? Why did she stay? For what, a cheating bastard and a monster like me? There was an itch inside me to ask about her. A desperation to know how she was, how she was doing. I was desperate to know something about her. They had told me she made it, but I wanted to know how she felt. Without her I was lost. I wasn’t whole, and only now I came to realize it. All I could do was repent my mistakes, look at them, and laugh at myself, realizing what a sick bastard I am. The images of Eunice’s pale tear-stained face and her lips flashed through my eyes, turning that desperation to know about her into a basic need.
“How…is…Eunice?” I asked hesitantly as my heartbeat increased. The mere image of her like that made me needy, made me fall to my knees and yearn to die a thousand deaths.
“Now you care,” Alex said, his voice filled with sarcasm and anger. He had every right to be angry with me and keep any news about her to himself. He had no need to tell me. Any time before, I wouldn’t have cared, but at the moment I was desperate. For the past week, I had been desperate for news of her from someone—anyone. So desperate that I would have begged them. I would beg Alex to tell me something. Get on my knees and beg him to tell me something, anything. Before I could do that, he broke my train of thoughts.
“She is alive and as well as expected. She is strong. She survived those six months with a bastard like you, so I think she can do this. She has her family and friends with her to support her, to hold her if she falls. Something that used to be your job.” His voice was laced with distaste. He hated me, and the worst part was that I hated myself more than anyone.
I looked outside in shame. Before I could stop myself, tears prickled the corners of my eyes. Alex’s words hurt me. He was right. It was my duty, my job, to hold her, to calm her and to catch her if she fell. It was a shame on me that I couldn’t be there. I didn’t have the guts to look her straight in the eyes. I was ashamed of being here. Ashamed of who I was to her for the past six months.
Before I knew it, we had reached my home. I looked at it, and in a rush all the memories from that day came back, hitting me hard. This home of mine was tainted by me and my sick acts. All I could pray was that the happy memories with Eunice could outweigh the bad ones, that those memories inside this home could make it bearable to survive, to hold on to something.
Alex parked the car and got out of it in a rush. It felt like he couldn’t stay with me, like he loathed my presence, that it wasn’t bearable for him to be with me. Just like Eunice’s presence had once affected you. My thoughts taunted me. I followed him out of the car as he stood outside my door. I was taking out my keys when he himself opened the door with a pair of keys. The red keychain dangling in his hands made it clear that the keys had been Eunice’s. I didn’t expect her to be here, but there was a sadness—an uncontrollable pain in my heart for not seeing her here. Why am I allowed to feel this pain? I brought this on myself. I had no right to ask for her to be with me, no right to pity myself.
Alex went inside while I stood there at the door. This was my home, our home that I had destroyed. It’s all my fault. I wished that I could start over, to build this home again, to fill it with love and happiness as before.
Entering inside, I breathed in the scent with closed eyes. Letting the sweet memories of her and Elle take me over. I wanted to envelope myself in the sweet memories of Eunice and me. Her sweet laugh, her smile, her every essence that made my heart flutter—I wanted it all. I wanted her, but I knew she was gone and I was lost. I looked for her memories, her things, to guide me on this lost path of mine. I hoped they were enough to set me right, to bring me back and help me to find the broken pieces of my heart. I was drawn out of my thoughts as Alex cleared his throat, standing in front of me.
“The fridge is stocked with all the groceries and things you might need. Your medications are in the kitchen over the island. Everything is clean and I have hired someone who will come to clean the place and cook too. He will come in tomorrow. I don’t want you near any women for a while…you are off work till your doctor says you are in the right mind to come back. Just rest for now, Joshua. I don’t know what happened to you. Where did my best friend go? But I want to trust in you. Trust that he will be back. That doesn’t mean I don’t hate you. I do, but you are my friend. Eunice wouldn’t want me to leave you, and you know I wouldn’t do that to you, man. I just want that old friend of mine, the old Joshua, back,” Alex said while looking at me. There was a struggle in him to speak these words. I felt like a worthless piece of shit for giving up my friendship with Alex because of this fucked up mind of mine.
“If you need anything else, I am a call away. Okay?” he asked, to which I nodded slightly. My throat was heavy, knowing that was how fucked up I was.
“Eunice has given me her keys. I’ll keep them with me for emergencies. Stay strong. I’ll drop by on my way to the office tomorrow,” he said, patting my shoulder and walking out, leaving me alone.
The first place I walked was up the stairs toward her room. I don’t know why, but on my way up there I felt something missing. There was a feeling of emptiness, something I hadn’t felt since that day after Elle’s death. I quickly made my way up to her room, our room. I don’t know why, but I felt an urgency to go there. Flashes of her lifeless body bombarded my mind. I needed to be close to her, needed to be close to her things one way or another. I needed something to calm me down, take my mind off the image of her lifeless body. I was writhing for something of hers. Her scent, her photograph. I wanted to see her smile.
I pushed open the door forcefully. I want to lose myself in her things, in her smiling photos, in her happy memories. However, a realization settled in me that this room was just a room. The photos that hung on the wall were gone. Our wedding portrait that I admired was no more. The small artifacts she had hung with the words “Love you forever” were gone. Everything that made this room Eunice’s were no longer here. My mind was frenzied with desperation. I needed something to remind me of her, of those happy days we spent. I went from desperate to crazy.
I looked at the bed, begging my mind to give me a glimpse of her love-making, but it turned worse. The image of her body flashed through my mind. I lunged towards the closet to find something, her clothes, her perfume. I didn’t know what to look for specifically, but I needed something of hers. I looked in every drawer in the room and closet only to find nothing. There existed nothing of hers.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I looked for anything to calm me. I looked in her bathroom and everywhere, but I couldn’t find a thing.
I searched the house frantically for even a photo of her, something to remind me of her. The bad memories were sucking me deep in a pit of darkness. The frames all over the house didn’t show a glimpse of her. They were all photographs of me and Elle. Looking at Elle’s pictures, all I could think about was Eunice. Photos were torn, leaving only me and Elle in frames. There wasn’t anything in the house that made it feel like home. I was surrounded by walls and bad memories. I went to my room, tearing apart my closet to find something of hers. There was nothing. My wedding band. I looked frantically for it, but I couldn’t find it. I needed something. I was going crazy. I needed Eunice. Elle’s presence in this house was not able to pull me out of the pit I was falling into. I was growing tired and crazy and I needed her. I needed my love. I needed something to remind me of her. Needed something to hold on to, to keep me from falling into my fucked up mind. I sobbed and cried. I screamed in frustration, pain, and shame.
I ran towards Elle’s room in desperate need of something to hold me from falling. She was the next closest thing to me after Eunice, and I hoped, I wished, it to help me. I was crying in pain because of the turmoil in my heart. I wanted to get rid of the memories of the torture I forced on her. I looked around the room. I took her blanket and wrapped it around me and cried. I cried for the monster who I was. I was torn and bleeding from the inside. I needed to control myself but, I couldn’t. I was like a lost river. I needed the love, I needed my light, and only now I knew it was her. My hand reached for a photo on the table of Elle and me. It was the last best moment as a family as a whole. I picked up the frame while sobbing and felt something coming with it. A chain. I looked at it clearly, wiping away the tears as much as I could.
It was the necklace. The necklace I had given to her, something that was hers. I had given it to her, telling her that it was for the most important person in my life. It was meant for that person I loved the most, and it was hers because I had loved her the most. It was a small pendant necklace, formed in the shape of a rose with a white diamond in the center. I had engraved the words “I Love You” on it. They were small, but I was content in knowing that it had it. I loved her, and it was always meant for her.
She had told me that she would wear it as long as she loved me. It was the mark of our love. Her love. It was the only thing left of her. Everything else was gone. She was gone. I felt like someone was twisting a knife around my broken heart. The breath was knocked out of me from the realization of it being here. I was writhing in pain. I was gone from her heart. I had lost her, I had lost the one person who loved me the most. I screamed in pain. I cried for me, for her, but more for the love I had lost. It was only now when I realized how important she was to me.
I had lost Eunice…
I had lost her and her love…
And with this I was lost too…
Lost in myself, and this necklace was the last thing I was clinging to…
My guiding light…
My flicker of hope…
This small necklace was the thread of my life…
Now I was surviving on it.