Regret. (standard:drama, 1440 words)
Author: Raven	Added: Oct 27 2003	Views/Reads: 3195/2042	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A woman deals with the pain of betraying her husband and the consequences.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

funeral." 

"Ma, I'm fine. Ok? I don't need to come up there right now. I have to
plan everything...I...I have too much to do. It's not...possible. Not 
now." Not ever, she thought. 

"Jessica, you need someone there. You shouldn't be alone in that house.
You probably need medical attention. I'm going to come down there and 
help you with everything. I'll be there in a day or so." 

Jess didn't have time to think of a good excuse to keep her mother from
showing up before she hung up. This was all she needed, someone else to 
find out how she had let Kevin down and drove him to kill himself, 
almost taking her with him. 

If only she had stayed home with him. If only she hadn't let herself be
so twisted inside that she had stopped seeing how he cared for her. 
Jess sat down at her table and forced herself to eat one of the stale 
apple newtons she'd bought last week. She ran the events of the past 
day over in her mind, still trying to figure out where everything had 
turned so horrific. 

Over the weekend, she had slept with another man. Jess had so convinced
herself into believing that Kevin   had fell out of love with her, that 
she actually crossed that line. It had been wonderful at the time. 
Someone new, the excitement of touching another man and being 
pursued...wonderful until she had to come home and face her husband. 
Jess shivered when she thought about the look on his face when she had 
told him that their marriage was over yesterday morning. Her muscles 
twitched involuntarily at the memory of his hands, the hands that had 
brought her so much pleasure at one time. Those same hands that 
pummeled her over and over when she spat at him the venomous truth of 
her indiscretion. 

She stood and walked through the house, pausing outside of his studio.
Jess stared inside at all of the unfinished pots and vases. They would 
stay incomplete, just as she herself would. How many times had she 
teased him about his clay, telling him to come to bed and stop molding 
his play dough? Jess saw the shattered sculpture that he had been 
working on and the small drops of her own blood splattered on it. How 
had she gotten away from his fury? The fury of a man that had always 
been so mild...so unemotional? Maybe this was why he hid his feelings, 
afraid of what dropping those walls would unleash. The only way she 
could think that she had avoided dying at his hands was that he had 
thought she was already dead, and then took that fatal drive. 

Kevin had taken his Mustang and drove until he smashed head on with an
eighteen-wheeler. He had put the pedal to the metal without letting up 
for more than ten miles. Jessica couldn't believe the police officers 
when they told her that Kevin hadn't even hit the brake. This is what 
she had driven him to. Her bitterness had seeped into his soul like a 
slowly killing poison. Everyone told her that she was lucky to be 
alive. All Jess could think of was how he would still be alive if she 
had not been so damned self centered. Everything he had ever done, he 
had done for her. 

When she identified him, the only way she recognized Kevin was by his
wedding band. The responding paramedics had found his left hand fifty 
feet from the wreckage. That was one detail she hadn't wanted to know, 
but overheard. Jess had no idea what they did with the car, nor did she 
want to know. Over and over the visions of what had happened played in 
her mind like a bad movie. Her life had turned into a horrible 
nightmare. Jess reminded herself that she had no one else to blame. She 
knew that he had lived with her constantly bitching at him to change 
for years. All of that must have built up inside of him until he burst 
like a hate and hurt filled balloon. It was her fault...all her fault. 

When they laid Kevin to rest, it was raining. Jessica doubted that the
sun would ever shine on her again. 


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