Jackson finished reading “Ligeia” and placed the collection of stories neatly back in the row on the bookshelf. He returned to his post on the couch. He was waiting, waiting for her. He looked around the familiar apartment. Pictures of her and him sprinkled the walls and coffee tables. He picked up the nearest one. It was a picture of the two of them at the Statue of Liberty on one of their first dates. The wind had whipped her hair into her face and flushed her cheeks, giving her a childlike appearance. Jackson’s chest tightened as he stared at the photo. Where did we go wrong? His hands began to shake uncontrollably, so he sat the picture down in the exact spot that he found it before it slipped from his hand. He squeezed the sides of his head as if he were squeezing a lemon, extracting all of the painful juices sloshing around inside. He concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. You can’t lose control. You can’t lose control. He chanted over and over in his mind. He needed to remain calm to do what he came there to do. If he lost control, he didn’t know what would happen. He had tried watching T.V., listening to music, reading, anything to keep his mind off her.
Her cat ambled up and rubbed up against his legs, coating his pants in a thin layer of white hair. Jackson had always hated cats, especially the female ones. He couldn’t stand the way they lifted their asses to you as an invitation when you stroked their backs while they were in heat. He loathed it when they rolled around on their backs and purred when a male cat was around like common street whores. No, he was definitely a dog person. He kicked the cat away. Dogs were loyal. Dogs were reliable. Jackson had learned not to rely on people. He thought he could depend on her, but she had ultimately let him down too.
They had first met at the coffee shop around the corner from his Manhattan apartment on 3rd Avenue. He was a hedge-fund manager at an office only three blocks away, so he would stop at the coffee shop on his commute to work every day. The baristas knew that he would pop in at 8:35 every morning and order a venti caramel macchiato and one of whatever the freshest pastries that day happened to be. It wasn’t hard to notice that she was new when he walked in, and she smiled as she said, “Good morning! What can I get for you today? Would you like to try our new cranberry-orange bran muffin?” He was immediately captivated by her presence. She exuded innocence and beauty in his eyes. Her two front teeth were noticeably skewed, but her lips were perfectly shaped with a touch of natural red as if she had just bitten them. She was pale but not ghostly, with golden-brown hair that stopped at her shoulders and flipped out. “What can I get for you, sir?” she had repeated as he simply looked at her. Then he released one of his rare smiles, apologized for his delay, and ordered his usual beverage and a cranberry-orange muffin. After a few more visits, he talked himself into asking her for her phone number, but she beat him to it when he walked in. She asked him for his number, and they exchanged coffee shop napkins imprinted with scribbled names and numbers. Their relationship seemed to progress quickly after that. First dates turned to second dates. Dates turned to sex. Sex turned to love. The two were spending almost all of their free time together and were a picturesque couple until the day that Jackson found the crumpled napkin with the unknown number on it.
He had been looking in her purse for a piece of gum when he came across the coffee shop napkin. Blue ink slashed across the paper. There had been no name, just those ten digits taunting him as he stared at them. He had known it was a man’s handwriting from the scraggly way the numbers slanted in odd directions. He immediately conjured up the worst. How could she do this to me? I wonder who the son of a bitch is. It’s probably that fucking nerd from the café. He’s always eyeing her like he would like to take her to the back and… He had shaken the thoughts out of his head. He couldn’t bear the thought of what the guy must have done with her. She was his. She belonged to him. Unthinking, he shoved the napkin into the pocket of his slacks and returned to the living room. She had gotten up to take a shower, and he sat on the couch pondering what the napkin meant. He pulled it out of his pocket, grabbed his cell, and fiercely punched the numbers in.
Each ring caused his body to tighten until finally, “Hey, this is Adam; leave a message.” Jackson quickly hung up before the beep. His heart was pounding like a jackrabbit attempting to escape from his chest. He had felt nauseous and dizzy. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. He repeated to himself. He looked around the room, and his eyes fell onto her pink Blackberry Pearl. Slowly, he eased himself off the couch and picked up the phone. He pushed down on the rollerball waiting for the screen to illuminate. He gripped the phone tightly, his knuckles turning white until the plastic creaked. Locked! What does she have to hide? She’s fucking him. She has to be! Jackson had set the phone back down and returned to his place on the couch.
He fought the urge to burst into the bathroom. He had no idea what he would do if he did that. He could hear his therapist's words, “When you feel yourself losing control, I want you to sit down and breathe. In. Out. In. Out. It may sound simple, but it is very effective.” He breathed, attempting to control the rage growing inside of him. I could be overreacting. It might be nothing. He was on the verge of calm. Then she had come into the room completely naked and wrapped her milky arms around his neck, pressing herself against him like a cat in heat. He couldn’t help his body’s natural reaction, and soon they were one. He had still been angry and therefore had not been gentle like he usually was. He had been as rough as possible, but she seemed utterly satiated when they had finished, giving no indication that she noticed the difference. Had she been getting it like that lately from someone else? He lay on the floor next to her, shaking internally with the conflicting urges to wrap her in his arms or suffocate her with one of her throw pillows. When he calmed himself down, he decided that he needed more proof than a crumpled napkin before doing anything drastic.
Over the next two weeks, he had watched her closely. She had been leaving the room when her phone rang and taking sudden, random trips to the store and returning empty-handed with the excuse that nothing really caught her eye. She never spent a night away from him, but her sporadic absences convinced him of her infidelity. She had also supposedly gotten a promotion to manager at work, so she worked almost every day. One day, his suspicions had gotten the best of him, and he had tried to confront her subtly.
“Why do you have to work so much now?” he whined.
“You know what they say, Jackson, ‘with great promotions come great responsibilities,” she gave him one of her dazzling smiles.
“That’s not how the saying goes. I feel like the café can’t possibly need you as much as you put on. If I didn’t know better, I would say that you might be lying to me,” he fished for a reaction, studying her face closely for any sign of guilt or shame. He saw nothing.
“Don’t be stupid, Jackson. I love you. You know that. But right now, I have to go to work,” she leaned in and kissed him lightly on the mouth before grabbing her purse and heading out the door. Jackson had stood there, convinced that she had been a little too quick to blow off his question and had left a little hurriedly. And why did she get defensive and call me stupid? He wondered.
While waiting in the living room, Jackson again tried to repress the thoughts of her because thoughts of his discovery were always accompanied by thoughts of her beauty and his love for her. He knew it didn’t matter that he loved her. She had wronged him, and she deserved to be punished. He sat on the couch, his right leg bouncing up and down like a jackhammer. He glanced at the clock; 7:15. She should be back soon. He got up and walked to the door where he had set his briefcase down. Inside the briefcase was a semi-automatic revolver, nestled among business papers and a calculator. Jackson pulled the gun out of the briefcase. He had never owned a gun before but was beginning to like the way it felt. The silver barrel was clean and unblemished. It was cool to the touch but could become instantly hot just by pulling the trigger and firing a shot. Sitting back on the couch, Jackson leaned his head back. It’s almost over. The scent of her black vanilla air freshener wafted through the room. The soft leather of the couch reminded him of her soft skin and sent his mind reeling.
They had been lying on the couch watching Gone with the Wind for the umpteen-millionth time. She loved that movie, and nearly every time it was her turn to pick a film, she popped her 70th-anniversary edition DVD into the player. She lay so perfectly in his arms that he couldn’t imagine that he was meant to share moments like that with anyone else. He inhaled her sweet scent and caressed her arms. She wasn’t fat, but she wasn’t bony and thin either. Her arms were ‘flabby’ as she called them, but he thought they were warm and inviting and just the right size for him.
He had continued to caress her arms, then leaned in and whispered, “I love you.” It was the first time he had ever said that to a woman, and he was extremely worried about the reception of his words. She had eased his concern by snuggling up to him, saying, “I love you back.” He could hear the smile in her voice.
Jackson had no idea how the two of them had ended up in their current predicament. He thought he had done everything right. He had no idea what he had done to force her to do what she did. He knew that it hurt worse than anything he had ever experienced. He had been planning this night for a week. When he had convinced himself that she was guilty, he had gone out and secured the revolver. She would walk through the door from her shift at the coffee shop at any moment. He imagined what his revenge would feel like. He could feel the power of the gun as it exploded in his hands. He could see her body lying on the hardwood floor, blood spilling out of her wound like a secret. Her skin growing pale with the loss of life, and her green eyes filled with regret. She would try to speak, but only small gurgles would escape her perfect lips. He would watch the life slowly flood out of her leaving behind only the shell of her body. This image created a tightness in his throat. To see her, once full of life, now lifeless body, would be a lot to bear. He stared at his lap. The lamplight reflected in the silver of the barrel, winking at him.
Can I go through with this? Does she really deserve it? He argued with himself. Images of her smile flashed in his mind. It was that smile that had captivated him from the beginning.How many other men has that smile sucked in? How many other men has she screwed behind my back? A white rage grew like bacteria in the pit of his chest. A key jingled in the lock at the front door. His head jerked up, and he gripped the revolver so tight the blood began to drain from his knuckles. He raised the gun, aiming it toward the door as it slowly came open, allowing bright, fluorescent light from the hall to flood the room and his mind.