Untamed

Seven years had come and gone since Julia and Aidan had been divorced; seven years had come and gone that Julia spent living her life in such a way that pushed Aidan away into a corner, where she could ignore the past. They never fought and they both lived together wonderfully, for years on end Julia thought the perfect world they built with each other would never come to an end. All of it had happened so suddenly, so fast that it made her head spin and made her world a little more tilted than the natural axis of Earth. There, on the table, under the set of house keys that Aidan owned to their house, was a letter in his handwriting.

“My darling wife, Julia,

I am sorry that I must do this to you, for I could not think of a better way to deal with the things that my heart causes me to feel, the things that my mind tells me not to believe, only to find myself weak. We have spent fourteen happy years together, and I truly did believe that you would be the person whom the remainder of my life would be shared with. Many days passed, with my heart only beating to the sound of you, and yet I find myself unable to understand many things in life. You always did everything that a man could ever want from a lifetime partner, even some of the things that surprised me and found that I loved immensely.

Something cannot fill this void – not even you. I’m sorry.

Love,

Aidan.”

Everything in their home was untouched, nothing was missing, there was no sign of change between them – even his tie was still hanging over the back of the wooden chair in the dining room. Yet, on the table where the letter had sat, were signed divorce papers that awaited her signature. The paper was slightly discoloured, a little different in small patches than it normally would be; those abnormalities were his tears that had fallen onto reality and dried. Feelings ripped at her heart, at her insides like a serrated blade whilst her mind froze, incapacitated from the ability to think, to comprehend.

She lowered herself to the couch, holding one hand over her mouth in attempt to shut her feeling off, to hold back tears that were so ready to overflow the barrier while the other hand clenched the letter with so much emotion, almost crushing it. Soft, slow notes of a piano filled the room, before a voice said mourningly, “Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong and everything you think you had, baby, is gone.” Julia’s eyes scanned the room, with hope and desperation that it may have been Aidan who had turned the stereo on, that the letter, the divorce papers were all her imagination or at least now a change of his mind.

There was no sight of him, no explanation for why the speakers had turned themselves on – that is, until she realised that it was her who turned the music on, when she had accidentally sat on the remote. Still, the sound filled the room, putting Julia’s reality in her face more than she would have liked, “Certain things turn ugly when you think too hard, and nagging little thoughts change into things you can’t turn off. Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong.” Tears spilled from her eyes, causing her perfectly placed eye liner to run down her cheeks, in the path of every salty, wet streak.

It was difficult for her to decide what hurt more – the letter, and the divorce papers or the fact that everything seemed to be pushing those two facts into her face, into her conscience. Anger filled her, as she tossed her wedding and engagement rings across the room; Julia wasn’t Aidan’s first love, and she thought perhaps that was the reason why any of this was happening; she cursed his first love for tainting everything they would ever have. Instantly, a feeling of panic rushed over her as she fell to her knees and scrambled over to the abandoned rings, sliding them back on the finger that felt naked without them.

Seven years had passed, and Aidan never did return to Julia; in fact, she hadn’t even heard from him since. He never called her, never visited their home to collect his belongings and take what was his, and he never messaged her phone. The first few years were difficult for Julia, yet her life was the same as it was before Aidan left – great job, fantastic income, and beautiful home. Nothing felt the same now as it did then, no one else had entered her life since, and she didn’t plan on letting anyone get close enough to her to try.

Julia never thought much about Aidan these days; she simply shut it out of her mind. It wasn’t until she was sitting at a café that her eyes happened to notice that her wedding and engagement rings were sitting on their usual finger. At no point did she ever recall putting them back on, and she remembered removing them shortly after having the divorce finalised. The café’s music felt familiar to her, although she hadn’t been concentrating on it all that much, “If I could I would, I’d change everything ‘cause I can’t forget you though you don’t believe me. Now I can’t walk back, I can’t leave behind. Where does it go, all the light that we had?

Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong and everything you think you had, baby, is gone.” She hadn’t heard those words, that song in seven years and with that, she reached into her bag and felt around until her hands wrapped around cold, hard metal; a pistol was held in her hand, as Julia pulled it out of her bag and shot herself in the head. The truth really was that Julia never removed the rings from her finger at all; instead she convinced herself that she had and she would never wake up from her dream to realise it.