The glass shattered as it hit the wall. She jumped at the sound, but
quickly regained her composure. She was used to it by now. She frowned when
she realized he had used one of the expensive glasses again. She grimaced
internally, her old self coming through, hating who she had become; someone
more concerned with the price of a glass than the reason for its
destruction.
She snapped out of her reverie, her new self regaining control. She looked
up, catching his eye. They were as cold as her own, betraying no hint of
the warmth they once held. For a fleeting moment, she mourned the loss of
that warmth.
She bent down to clean up the broken glass, as she had done many times. She
wondered why his temper could not be more like his eyes, cold. They would
at least save money on glassware, if nothing else. He bent down to help her
clean and they picked up the small fragments of glass in silence.
"I could try and have glass put back together" he said as he had said
countless times before
"Why bother" she said, as she always did
She watched him walk away, as she had done countless times before. He
looked back hoping to catch her eye. She continued to stare at the wall,
silently praying for him to keep walking. Neither saw the look of pain,
which for a brief second, was in the others eyes. And like so many times
before, neither said what they actually wanted to, and the words hung heavy
between them, pushing them that much farther apart.
She sat in the big leather chair behind his desk and put her head in her
hands. When had it become like this. She remembered a time when nothing was
left unsaid between them. She remembered a time when they actually spoke.
She remembered, once upon a time, when the price of a glass was not the
running concern on her mind when her husband threw at a wall. Then again,
she reminded herself, once upon a time her husband still loved her.
She did not know why she stayed. After years of infidelity and betrayal,
one hurt after the other, everyone that loved her thought she was crazy to
stay, going back to him at the first sign of apology, defending him, saying
he would change this time. Eventually they drifted apart, she unwilling to
see them, knowing in her heart they were right.
Slowly though, she was in fact the one who changed. She became cold,
unemotional. When your heart has been broken, there really was not all that
much you could feel after all. More and more she turned into a typical wife
of her social circle, turning a blind eye to her husband's infidelities,
accepting his platinum credit card as a replacement for his love and
commitment.
What once was a warm, loving relationship became one where each partner
hardly knew the other. Where they could go more than a week not seeing, let
alone speaking to each other, provided of course there was no social event.
They played their parts magnificently. He, the successful, doting husband giving his wife anything she asks for. And she, the caring wife, concerned with the needs of her husband. Everyone saw through them, everyone knew the truth. (Mainly because they were all the same, each of them playing their roles as well, although some better than others.) She wondered how it came to be that way. How they had become everything they had once despised. How they had morphed from who they had been into who they now were. She raised her head out her hands. She looked outside and saw it was raining, melting the last few piles of snow on the ground. She walked outside, not caring about getting wet, and among the fading remnants of a long, harsh winter, for the first time in ten years, she cried.
They played their parts magnificently. He, the successful, doting husband giving his wife anything she asks for. And she, the caring wife, concerned with the needs of her husband. Everyone saw through them, everyone knew the truth. (Mainly because they were all the same, each of them playing their roles as well, although some better than others.) She wondered how it came to be that way. How they had become everything they had once despised. How they had morphed from who they had been into who they now were. She raised her head out her hands. She looked outside and saw it was raining, melting the last few piles of snow on the ground. She walked outside, not caring about getting wet, and among the fading remnants of a long, harsh winter, for the first time in ten years, she cried.
