Clumsy Card House
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Not even the computer I wrote it on.
Summary: Ray POV. Neela moves out. Oneshot.
Feedback: Reviews are fun. Like a barrel of monkeys. Why anyone would put monkeys in a barrel…I don't know, but it's supposedly a lot of fun.
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Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten.
All diamonds.
She did that. Put the cards in order. Probably during one of those nights spent sitting on the couch in her nicest dress, with nothing better to do than watch the candles melt and dinner get cold, because he – yet again – didn't show up. And I want nothing more than to mix them up just to spite her, but I spent the past three hours looking for them for a reason. I think I'm too drunk to shuffle anyway.
So, instead, I slide the Ace of Diamonds onto the table then lean the King and Queen together above him. It takes a few tries to get them balanced, because my hands aren't exactly steady. And it's probably the large amount of alcohol in my system, but I appreciate the metaphor.
It's been three days. Three days since she left. Three days since I've been outside the apartment. Three days since I've gone to work. And I've got another four to go, because he missed the ER, and she asked me to let him take my shifts for a few days.
They were gone when I got home from work. His idea, I'm sure. Didn't want to bother me, or make me feel like I needed to help. Her key is still taped to the bathroom door, apparently the only place she could be sure I'd find it. There's a still unread letter next to it – my name written across the envelope in her handwriting – full of words that don't matter, because she's not here.
Between the Two of Clubs and the Ace of Hearts, I finally broke down and tore her note off the door. I didn't actually read it until the Three of Hearts. And it isn't until the Eight of Spades that I feel my heart stop. Married. That one word comes through the drunken haze that's settled over me for the last three days. She's getting married. She's marrying him. I stand up, dropping the letter and the last seven cards onto the coffee table, then watch everything I've done crumble to the ground.
And suddenly the game is fifty-two pick up, because it was always just a clumsy card house.