Broken glass
You still had time. And as this might be the last shower for you don't know how long, you decide to relish it. It also means that you will only smell of yourself. Another reminder gone.
Wrapping yourself in your bathrobe, you head to the bedroom. A large plastic bag is already at the end of the king-size bed - clothes you don't intend to take along. With each piece you take out of the walk-in closet you decide: plastic bag or travel bag. Or does it go into the cardboard box.
At last you heave the large handmade quilt into the box. It covers the cocktail dress, the pretty summer dress which just stopped above your knees, the lingerie. Another reminder gone.
With a critical eye you look at the travel bag: office and work clothes, comfortable clothes for at home.
Feeling dry enough you shed the bathrobe and dress yourself, a simple t-shirt and the old pair of jeans. You grab the red carton box from the top shelf in the closet and clasp it under your arm, you shoulder your travel bag and grab the large cardboard box.
Wanja stands in the door, wagging her bushy tail. You pat her head on your way out of the bedroom and she trots along as you walk along the corridor. You have to get her out of the way first.
It had been your idea to get her. You couldn't forget her soulful eyes when you saw her in a poster of the animal shelter. True, she was huge, but actually small for a Caucasian Owtscharka. True, she was protective, but actually that was what had always made feel safe when you were alone. And alone you had been a lot – recently.
You would do anything for her, just as she would do anything for you, even the silly tricks you taught her. Like the one where you made her sit somewhere and wait until you called for her. You do just that. Walking into your small office, placing the bag and the boxes there, you tell her to wait for you.
You check your emails. The verification for the ship's passage has come and you print it out. The weeks on the ship back home will give you enough time to forget and heal. It had been quite an ordeal to find a way to get both your classic car and your dog on one.
You don't want to go back home. You know the looks you will receive after all the warning you had been given.
Before everything had begun between you and Jack Daniels, you had also belonged to those who had only seen the playboy in him. You still don't know what had shifted and how you had ended up falling in love with him. In hindsight you should have known better than to believe a man like him could only belong to you.
It had been small comments, quiet evenings on observations. It had been small moments of chivalry, and you had watched each other backs in the heat of the fightings.
You walk along the corridor and through the rooms and take the pictures from the walls and the shelves. The frames discarded, the glass broken. Some won't budge, but you make them, even if you have to break them over your knee. You get them all. Another reminder gone.
When you have them all you return to your office. Wanja whines and nudges your hand. Only when you look at them, you realize that somewhere along your path of destruction you must have cut yourself.
It had been patching up each other scratches after skirmishes on the jobs, it had been you taking a bullet intended for him. And then it had been there, the confession of love.
You dig your hands into the handmade quilt, smearing it with the red liquid. Not that it would matter. Reminding Wanja to stay, you take the large box and make your way through the living room. You raise an eyebrow, somehow some of your blood has stained the wall when you took the pictures there, you shrug and open the door to the terrace with its barbeque area. Just the right place for what you have in mind.
Secretly at first, so many would have disapproved the RepublicServants, especially their CEO, your father. But later open to all, and after some time everyone had come to accept it. Even at home they had accepted that you would move across the great pond and work for the Statesmen.
He had shown you how to make a good fire. At least he was good for something in the end. When you have the flame large and roaring, the pictures are a good fodder, you reach into the box. Putting the quilt aside, you throw the smaller pieces of clothing into the flames first, only then and when sure you won't kill the fire with it, you feed the quilt to their rage. Another reminder gone.
Sometimes you had wondered at Ginger's looks. You couldn't place her expression. Now you knew. It was pity. Pity for a love-blind woman. Pity for the woman who thought she would be good enough for Jack Daniels. Now you know that she had known all the time.
You don't care if the stinking fumes drift into the house and leave the door open. On your way back to Wanja you stop in the kitchen and grab a kitchen towel to wrap around your hand. Your eyes fall onto the crystal glasses with your names on them. Idly you let them shatter on the kitchen floor. The mug – my princess – you had been given adds colour to the shards. Another reminder gone.
When you are back in your small office you sit down with a small sigh. Wanja is there to place her large and fluffy head into your lap. It gives you a minute of rest as you cuddle her, dig your fingers in her thick fur.
Then you take the red box. You dread to open it, but it is the last thing that you will do in this house, in his house. One last reminder needs to go.
You don't even look at them as you feed them to the shredder, one by one. Some still smell, from some small, dried and pressed flowers fall, you feed them all to the rattling metal teeth.
He sees the small dark finger rising into the sky and smirkes. She is trying to make a fire, probably preparing some barbeque for my return.
He drives up the driveway and sees her old estate car there. She hasn't used that for ages.
Still wondering, he gets out of the car and walks up to the front door. The first thing he sees are the broken and empty frames littering the corridor. Panic that something bad has happened rises in him. Not again!
The first thing he hears is the rattling of the shredder. She must be in her office.
Avoiding the carnage on the floor he makes his way over to the small room you normally occupy since you have retreated to the intel branch. He had approved of it, thinking it safer for you.
At the door he stops, takes a minute to take in the picture.
"What are these?"
You don't look up from your task. And you take your sweet time to answer evenly.
"Old reminders which I don't need anymore."
"Sugar, those are … aren't those … those are our love letters!"
He gazes from where the folded papers disappear into the machine to your face. Finally you look up and his breath catches at the emotionless look you give him.
He remembers the column of smoke and rushes to the terrace. He stares in disbelief. He can make out rags and tatters of the clothing that is burning. The red lingerie he had got you for the year's anniversary. The summer dress you had bought at the end of your last mission.
And the quilt. The handmade quilt which you had made. You had made it as a bring-along present when you had moved in with him. He had been totally flattered. Never had he thought that his small remark about an old and almost forgotten family tradition had been remembered by you.
He stumbles forward and tears it away from the fire, stomps out the flames. Why is she doing this? Her fingers have bled to make this!
He drags the remnant of the quilt with him as he runs back to the office room. He is about to boulder in when you lift a hand. Your palm telling him to stop and Wanja's growl is a warning by itself.
"What is the meaning of all this?"
He can barely control the volume of his voice. But then he sees your eyes again. He sees the hurt and again panic rises in his throat.
"Sugar, why are you doing all this?"
The last pieces of paper are engulfed by the ever-hungry machine.
"You should know better than me. Everyone one knew better than me."
His face falls.
"I was at the office yesterday evening. I thought, after the long trip and with all the paper stuff still waiting for you at the office you would appreciate some homemade food."
He swallows hard and remembers the look on the little blonde's face. He had thought that he had made her look like that when he had thrust up into her.
Your smile is humourless and turns a sarcastic smirk.
"Guess my surprise at what I had to see there. Obviously you were satiating your hunger differently."
"Honey …"
You lift your hand and stop him.
"Don't use any of those words on me anymore, Daniels. I'm done being your fucktoy."
"Sug…, you have never been my fucktoy!"
"Oh yes, I have been fucked and toyed with by you."
Slowly you stand up, your hand on Wanja's head. With a small smile you look down at her. The more I know mankind, the more I adore you.
"I want to pass. I have a passage to catch."
He doesn't want to let you leave like that. He wants to make you understand how meaningless that blonde had been. He wants to reach out to you and lifts his hand.
"If you touch me, I will send Wanja onto you. And if you hurt her, I will kill you."
He swallows and lets his arm fall to his side and he steps aside.
You pick up your travel bag, this and Wanja are the last things you have to put into your car.
As you pass Jack, you look him a last time into his eyes. Those brown eyes you had fallen in love with. An emotion of sadness wants to swell up your throat and pool saline liquid in your eyes, but you bite it back.
"The house is free of reminders. You can invite your new fucktoy to move in."
The pebbles crunch under your boots. You close the doors to your car, they sound loud in your ears. You open the door and force yourself to not look back as you slip into the seat. You know he is standing in the door frame. Not once, you tell yourself, not once I will look back at you.
You drive down the driveway and leave behind what you had thought to be the love of your life, but it had broken, like glass.