Back with another update :D This one is a lot more angsty than the last few, so I apologize in advance for any feels it might give you! This chapter chronicles how Michael and Amanda's relationship fell apart over the course of a few years…
As always, enjoy!
He was different. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something was wrong. He'd been distant lately, cold and quiet. The rare times he talked to her or the kids, there was a certain anger in his voice and it sounded almost resentful. It scared her.
She looked over at him hesitantly. He stared at the TV (all he'd been doing for weeks now), a faraway look in his eyes. They were only inches away from each other on the couch, but he felt miles away from her.
A small smile crossed her face as she thought of something to lighten the mood. She sat up and moved into his lap, straddling him and trying to ignore the way he tensed up under her touch. "Hey," Amanda said softly, smiling down at him. "I was thinking we could do something tonight. You know, just you and me."
Michael frowned at her dismissively, looking over her shoulder to see the TV. "I'm too tired tonight, 'Mand," he drawled lazily.
She sighed. "Michael, what's wrong?" she whispered suddenly, looking deep into his eyes with desperation and sadness.
"Nothing's fucking wrong," he immediately snapped, annoyed. "Look...I appreciate you trying to do shit with me, but not tonight."
"You've said that for the past three weeks," she said harshly. "I don't know why you're acting like this, but-"
He held his hands up defensively. "I'm not acting like anything! Maybe I just need some fuckin' space right now."
"Fine," she started, getting up from the couch. "Sorry for bothering you, Michael," she said sarcastically.
He opened his mouth to say something, an apology, maybe, but just shook his head as if to convince himself not to.
Amanda stood there for a second, hoping, praying that he'd change his mind, and say anything to her. When he didn't, she just turned on her heel and started walking away. She blinked back the tears forming in her eyes, telling herself that he was fine, that he wasn't any different. He's just in a mood. It won't last...
Side effects may include: headaches, insomnia, anxiety, weight gain, suicidal thoughts…
She read the list off of the bottle of antidepressants in her hand, which their therapist had miraculously convinced her husband into taking, and quickly put them back down after reading the last part. He'd only been taking them for a few weeks, but the side effects were already apparent. He wasn't himself anymore, just a depressed shell of what he used to be, and that scared her more than anything else.
Amanda knocked on their bedroom door, where he'd locked himself in for hours now after taking his usual dose, and called out softly, "Michael? Are you okay in there?" Please answer...
Silence followed for a few moments, making her heart drop into her stomach, before he finally said something. "Yeah, I'm fine…" he replied, before pausing hesitantly and adding, "You can come in if you want…"
The sight that met her when she hesitantly opened the door almost broke her heart. Michael sat on the edge of bed, his shaky hands clutching his head desperately, and a whiskey bottle was in a death grip in one of his hands. She immediately rushed over to his side, gently prying the alcohol away from his fingers. "Michael, you know you shouldn't be drinking after you've taken these..." she tried to scold him, but all of her anger had faded into concern.
"I know...I'm sorry. I can't help it…" he slurred, weakly trying to take the bottle back before she set it down on the nightstand. He sighed in defeat and just kept staring at the ground. "Feels like I'm fuckin' falling apart, Mandy, and I can't stop it…" he muttered, eyes briefly flickering over to the pillow where he hid his gun.
The last side effect she'd read about quickly flashed in her mind and she took his face in her hands and gently turned it towards hers before he could get any ideas. "You're gonna be just fine, okay? This…this depression is just temporary, darling-" she started, but quickly was interrupted by him standing up and shaking his head.
"I dunno...I mean just look at me, 'Mand," he said, gesturing to his appearance, at his mussed hair and red, crazed eyes. "I jus' don't feel like myself anymore. I'm just as good as my father now: a worthless fuckin' drunk. Hell, I'm just as good as this whole town…"
A sudden kiss to his lips cut off any more protests he could make. She held him tightly against her as she kissed him, desperately trying to put all of the reassurance she could into one single kiss. When she finally pulled away and opened her eyes, she was expecting to see happiness or even relief from him. All she saw was pure fear in his now-lucid eyes as he whispered: "I don't wanna become a fuckin' tragedy…"
"You won't," she whispered, holding his face in her hands, trying to comfort him, but she could feel the tears running down her own cheeks. "You're stronger than...than whatever this is, Michael. We're gonna get you through this…"
Michael let out a deep breath and leaned down to bury his face in her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gently stroked his hair for a long few moments until he managed to find the energy to speak again. "Amanda?" he asked, voice cracking.
"Yeah?" she managed to ask shakily.
"I don't like what I'm becoming."
"You don't have to sneak out, you know," she sighed from the bed, eyes desperately meeting his in the dimness of their room. She watched as he shrugged his jacket over his shoulders, as he tucked something that she couldn't see (but she just knew what it was) into the waistband of his jeans.
Michael froze like a deer in headlights for a moment before that familiar mask of anger came up, one that she had been acquainted with for about five years now. What happened to us? Amanda had to wonder as she stared at him.
It had started with that indifference, that uncaring attitude that was so unlike him. She'd brushed it off at first as just another mood that would pass with time, but then the antidepressants started and ended just as quickly as they began, leaving him even more miserable than before. Then he started staying out late, then they started arguing more, then she came home one night and found him with a stripper in their own bed…
His words snapped her out of her brief thoughts. "Like you care what I do anymore," he scoffed, starting for the bedroom door.
"I do care, you ass. I care that you're putting yourself back into that...that life that we tried to escape from for over ten years," she snapped, digging her fingers deep into the bedsheets to try and calm herself down. "But...my feelings aside, how do you think the kids feel about you bringing this lifestyle through the door?"
He laughed at that. "Oh, we wanna talk lifestyle? I got some issues with theirs. Yours too, for that matter."
"They don't kill people, Michael. That's the difference." Venom dripped from her voice and she could tell that she struck a nerve by the way he turned around to face her, eyes lit up with anger. For a moment, she felt a sick sense of satisfaction that she finally got him to care about something, even if it was something as stupid as this.
Michael crossed over to the bed, leaning over her and practically seething. "So them doing drugs and porn and you fucking every guy that you can find are all okay as long as I do what I have to do to survive? Ugh...you know what? I shoulda seen this coming. This is what I get for meeting the mother of my children at a strip club and expecting her to fucking change-"
"Screw you, Michael, you massive fucking hypocrite!" she hissed, trying to keep her voice down so the kids wouldn't hear their latest midnight argument, which had become an almost nightly ritual at this point. "I dropped fucking everything to come here and live out your crazy Vinewood dream, and what did I get after everything we've been through? I got to see my husband of over twenty years fucking some whore in my own bed! And you have a lot of nerve telling me that I never changed while you run around on some nostalgia trip!"
He rolled his eyes at her dismissively before looking over at the clock. "Whatever, I'm gonna be late. I don't have time for fuckin' marriage counseling right now because I gotta go pay for the mess that you got me into somehow…"
"Yes, because I totally made you pull an entire house off of a hill…" she said sarcastically.
"At least it's not what you do: banging some stranger and then weeping," he said, his voice a mocking whimper in imitation of hers. Through the darkness of their-her-room (Michael had stopped sleeping in bed with her a long time ago) she could see the cruel smirk on his face, could see the coldness in his dark blue eyes.
"Of fucking course it would come to this," Amanda scoffed, reaching him up and shoving him back. It wasn't much, just an open palm to his chest, but it was enough to make him stumble back a couple steps in surprise. "I'll have you know that I never looked at any other guy, never even thought about another guy until you cheated on me first, Michael! You know…at least I actually do things besides drinking myself to death and killing people!"
"Yeah, because popping pills and daytime drinking is so much better," he said almost boredly. "It's funny how you act so much better than me, but you and I? We're the same. Same shit childhoods, same fucked up world views, same bad fuckin' habits. But the difference is that I actually show some remorse for my bullshit-"
Her eyes flashed. "I knew this would become about you! It always does!" she yelled, not even caring about keeping her voice down anymore. "Sad Michael is fucking sad again! Well, I'm done with it!"
"Oh, you are?" Michael taunted. "Does that mean you and the kids are finally gonna leave me the hell alone so I can get some peace and fuckin' quiet around here?"
She didn't respond to that, just turned on her side away from him so he wouldn't see the tears forming in her eyes. "Fuck you, Michael. Fuck you," she managed to shakily say. "Leave me alone. Go, do whatever you want. I don't care anymore."
"Happily," he said under his breath, starting for the door before adding, "Don't wait up for me."
Amanda barely registered the sound of the bedroom door slamming, barely registered the sound of the front door close behind. It wasn't until she heard his car peeling out of the driveaway that she buried her face into her pillow and let herself cry as she thought of how broken they'd become.
Maybe I should've just said no, she thought as she downed her fourth-or was it fifth?-drink. Maybe she should've just stayed in North Yankton, left him to his crazy Vinewood dream. She never signed up for this rich life, never signed up to be the walking stereotype of the depressed alcoholic mom. Never signed up to be so angry all the time.
But here she was, drinking and popping pills (how ironic that she always got at Michael for doing the same thing) while her husband was back to his old habits.
Her red, tear-filled eyes flickered over to the TV. "Jewelry store robbed!" the headlines brazenly proclaimed. She'd forced herself to listen to the news report; she'd wanted, no, needed to know. The corny movie line that one of the witnesses recited was all she needed.
She kept drowning her sorrows in Michael's whiskey, but the warmth and familiarity it offered had long since faded away, giving way to the hopelessness growing inside of her. He was back in in that life of death and destruction and nothing she could do would stop him.
The front door opened, but she didn't even notice it until Michael's bitter, half-hearted shout of "Honey, I'm home!" filled her ears.
She angrily turned around to face him, slamming her glass down on the counter with a frustrated thud. He had a stupidly smug grin on his face, and she could smell gunpowder on him from that far away, but most of all he had that look in his eyes. That look filled with adrenaline and excitement and happiness, something that she hadn't been able to get from him for years.
Amanda didn't say anything to him, but the look in her own eyes said everything she needed to. It was filled with hurt, betrayal, and pure sadness. I know what you did, it said. Why would you do this?
The smile on his face faltered, but those eyes stayed the same. Wordlessly, he brushed past her and up the stairs. The dull thud of his footsteps going upstairs was quickly interrupted by his frustrated sigh and him rushing into the bathroom. "Tracey, cut that out. Now," Michael said sternly, worriedly.
Amanda could hear her daughter panting for breath upstairs. "I had a really heavy lunch. It's nothing more than that…" Tracey whimpered. "Go away…"
"I ain't going anywhere until you stop this, okay?" he said gently. The sound of him moving upstairs was muffled through the walls, but she could practically see him kneeling down to their daughter's height and stroking Tracey's hair reassuringly as she expelled her insecurities into the toilet. It had become an all too familiar sight for Amanda throughout the years. "I thought we got you over this, Trace…"
Tracey's sobs went straight through the walls, straight through Amanda's heart. "Nobody wants a fat daughter…" she cried softly.
Amanda had to step outside once she heard that, tears running down her own face. Still, those five words echoed in her mind on a loop, reminding her of all of her failures in life. Her husband, her kids...God, what was next?
"You have to leave him," Tracey told her abruptly.
Amanda looked up from where she had her head in her hands. She looked around the house, empty except for her and her daughter. Michael and Jimmy were off doing God only knew what after their failed yoga session...or latest and greatest argument, more like. "What are you talking about?" she finally managed to mutter.
"Dad is losing it. We both know that he's robbing and… and killing again," Tracey said uncomfortably. "And with Uncle Trevor back...he's gonna get himself killed! You know what a magnet for trouble he is, and what if he brings that home?"
"I...I know, but…" Amanda sighed deeply, staring down at the wedding ring on her finger.
"But what?" Tracey crossed her arms, frowning at her before her voice grew soft and serious. "I heard the fight today, Mom. And I've heard the ones you've been having at night, too. I just think it'll be better for everyone if we have a little time apart, you know?"
Amanda stared at her daughter in shock. The girl who used to worship the ground that her father walked on, the girl who tried so hard to always get his attention, the girl who had been crying to him not even a week ago...the girl who was suggesting that they leave him. Still, she thought of who her and Michael had become, how he'd stared into her eyes with such a hatred and coldness only an hour ago…
"You're right…I don't think it's good for any of us anymore," she finally admitted shakily. "Will...will you go pack your things? I need a little alone time…" she said softly, wiping the tears away from her eyes.
Tracey leaned down and hugged her gently (something that she hadn't done in a long, long time) before wordlessly going upstairs to her bedroom.
Amanda let the tears freely run down her face as soon as she heard her daughter's bedroom door shut. Looking around, she saw the house for what it really was: a place filled with nothing but empty hopes, empty promises…
She got up, feeling numb as she walked around the house for the last time, knowing that she wouldn't be back any time soon. Resentment grew deep inside of her with every picture she saw. The picture of their old dog, Michael with the kids, her and Michael on their wedding day…
She had to resist the uncontrollable urge to throw it against the wall, to watch it break and shatter just like their marriage did.
Still, her hands held back, and she moved into the kitchen before she did anything even more rash before finding herself staring down at his bottle of whiskey in hatred. Always hated the drink, always hated how it made her feel, always hated as she'd watched him down bottle after bottle…
Years of bitterness and regret were coming to the surface and she couldn't stop herself from looking back on them. She wished that she could just leave right now, never tell him anything. Still...even after everything they'd been through, she had to let him know…
Amanda managed to find a piece of paper and her hands were shaking as she picked up a pen and began to write.
Michael, she started. I think you've finally lost your mind...