mile high club.”
He nods, the vat of oil beside us bubbling and steaming.
“You don’t have to do this. What have I done to deserve death? I don’t even know who you are.”
I search his face, my lips pulling into a thin line.
“It’s not my job to know what you did. But it’s getting late, and I need to get on with it. Thanks for the explanation of the emojis, though.”
He screams when I get tired of waiting for him to jump and shove him in.
Jeffrey Millard owns a manufacturing plant that has many dangerous places where one can slip to their death.
Accidents happen all the time.
It doesn’t matter what the poor bastard did to deserve his death.
All I know is I am now a few million dollars richer, and that Lincoln was wrong to think taking contracts would help me move past Adeline.
Fourteen hours and she’ll be back.
I’m not sure what I’ll do once she is in reach.
Four Months Post Marriage:
Lights flicker on and off through the mostly empty house. One month after returning from her honeymoon, Adeline has gone through the possessions of her former life and is now walking through each room to ensure she’s taken everything she wants.
I can’t be there during the day to see what is packed and what was thrown away, but my cameras are still installed, and I’ve watched from afar.
Some of her clothes are zipped in garment bags and stacked to be taken. She tossed the majority of it, the crop tops and short skirts she often wore to go clubbing.
Most of the electronics were donated, I assume since Grant has his own in the sprawling mansion twenty minutes from her former home. But she made sure to pack all her photography equipment. I am happy to see she won’t give that dream up.
It breaks my heart to watch her stand aside while movers from a charity also take the instruments she played and loved.
Why? I wonder. She should be taking them with her.
I expect to see a real estate agent walk through in the following weeks, but none show.
Curious about Adeline not selling the home, I check her phone conversations often. She never mentions it. Not that she talks to many people anymore. Just her husband and his sister.
Five Months Post Marriage:
Unsure what Adeline will eventually do with the house she’d lived in since the day I first saw her, I remove most of my equipment. And while I would love to transfer it to Grant’s estate, I don’t risk attempting to sneak past the security he has in place.
It shouldn’t matter.
Almost half a year since the day she gave her life to another man, I should be over the woman that was never mine to begin with.
Still, my thumb swipes the screen of my phone, my eyes studying a photo she recently posted of a dinner party they threw to welcome their return home.
Grant stands proudly with his arm around Adeline’s shoulders, a table set with the finest settings.
Adeline’s smile beams at the camera, her blue eyes bright, her hair falling in waves down her back.
She is happy, I tell myself. I have to let her go.
It’s the same thing I tell myself every night before falling in bed. The same lie I force myself to choke down.
Six Months Post Marriage:
Four more dinner parties.
A new post every day about her new life.
In each of them, I don’t recognize the person she is becoming.
Still, her smile is genuine.
So, I behave myself.
Take more contracts.
Refuse to let this obsession rule me.
Refuse to slip into my old skin.
Seven Months Post Marriage:
Leaning against the large windows facing out over a waterlogged city, I enjoy the cool glass against my back. I would feel relaxed if not for the thunder that rattles the sky and the lightning that flashes.
Rain lashes at the buildings and streets, the wind howling as it whips through the narrow alleys and through the trees.
But rather than witnessing the power of a storm that ravishes the city beneath me, my stare is glued to a still image glaring up at me.
Another dinner party.
Another new dress.
Another pair of expensive shoes Adeline made fun of once upon a time.
But it isn’t the clothes she wears that bothers me. Isn’t the table settings or the arm draped across the back of her chair by the man that calls her Wife.
It’s the smile I know so well.
The one she gives to all the assholes she doesn’t like.
The fake one that means she’s dying inside.
Tearing my eyes