Hairballs
It is a peculiar kind of despair you sink into, after you have wept so much your throat stings with its rawness and your eyes burn with their dryness.
It is unlike any other kind of misery she had ever experienced, this being alone business.
Angela Martin felt the tears subside, the crying and screaming end, and knew she had reached the darkest depths of her grief.
No Dwight.
No Andy.
She had loved two men. Two men had loved her. And she had gambled their hearts and lost them both.
And people looked at her and wondered how she could be so cruel.
And the man she loved looked at her with revulsion.
And she looked back and wondered at what point had she betrayed herself? Was the game even worth the stakes?
Whore. Cheater. Bitch.
Words echoed around her, filling up her house. She never cared what people thought of her anyhow.
But what did she think of herself?
What did he think of her?
Surely she knew the answer but it was too excruciating to acknowledge.
Thus she invested seven thousand dollars into a creature she could love and cherish and who would never look at her with scorn or loathing. It seemed ridiculous, really, to spend such an amount of money on a cat.
But who can put a price on unwavering love? Only one who has had it, experienced it, held it, and lost it. It shattered into so many pieces around her and only now did she understand its value. And it was so fragile. And she was so careless.
Round, yellow eyes, like flashlight beams, not a scrap of anything other than contentment in those watery orbs as she stroked Princess Lady's fur.
Her precious cats are her only friends. And perhaps she does not deserve even them.
Princess Lady purred loudly and she wondered what sound it was that a woman made when she was totally blissfully happy. Was it the sigh that escaped her lips when he kissed her? The moaning that betrayed her less-ladylike side when they were absolutely alone? Or just the sound of his name, the way it felt slipping off her tongue?
For the first time, Angela could see herself clearly; who she was and what she had done. She would never, ever confess it, but she knew herself to be the lowest of creatures, unworthy of happiness.
The fur that stuck to her tongue and scratched at the back of her throat was deserved, and therefore welcomed. The fur tickled her throat until she gagged and she coughed feeling it gather in her esophagus, her chest, her lungs.
If people could see her at that moment…if the two of them could see her right now…how they would be disgusted, repulsed.
What was wrong with her? They would ask.
Even to herself it looked sad, pathetic.
She pushed Lady Princess off her lap and went to get water to rinse her mouth out.
This would be her darkest moment, she told herself. Things could get no worse.
For how could you sink lower than Angela Martin?
And it is always darkest before dawn.