cole/eve + altschmerz 😘
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Altschmerz (Cole + Eve)Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
Caitrin could have been asleep.
Lying, stomach down, on the marble tile, her reddish-blonde hair fanning her shoulders, cheek pressed to the floor. She could have been floating on a surface of water, her thin cotton nightgown rippling slightly in the breeze that stirred through the open bedroom window.
Except there was no steady rise and fall of her chest. Except there was no inhale, and no exhale.
The contents of the counter now littered the bathroom, hairbrush and bobby pins, toothbrushes and toothpastes, soap dish and soap, a broken perfume bottle spreading its cloying scent from a spilled puddle, a capsized pillbox, pills dotted like constellations around her unconscious body.
Their daughter was wailing in her room down the hall.
A tragic accident. Caitrin was so young. So sick.
He never mentioned her after that, unless the topic was forced. Pushed her from his mind. A girl he knew once, twenty something years ago, faded into half-clear and unwanted memories.
The shattered glass skimmed across the kitchen floor, reminding him of that night. The bathroom. Cat, limp and lifeless, her words parroting through his head, I would rather die than stay with you, spoken with such venom and such aversion that he nearly killed her himself.
(Though in a way, he supposed, maybe he had).
“Found someone else, is that it?” his own voice felt foreign, laced with contempt for the implications of his wild accusations. He knew it wasn’t true. He knew that despite his own duplicity, Eve remained faithful. It was a mystery to him why.
He knew what he deserved, and it wasn’t the unyielding, patient look she was armed with now. It wasn’t the tolerance she’s had so far – her attempts to understand what he couldn’t even explain – the mercy she’s treated him with. I’m not a good man, Evelyn – at least he never lied about that. That she was ever capable of forgiving him wound his guilt into self-disdain.
Light glittered off chips of ceramic plates – whatever was left on the table upended with one impetuous swipe, followed by a crash.
He was taking it well.
“Or is this your way of punishing me? With empty fucking threats?” he laughed, a cold laugh, no amusement, no levity. The last thing he expected was to hear the words from her lips, saying the same thing as Cat had, more or less. I think we should get a divorce. What was the difference, really? If he was a monster either way?
“Well you want to know what I think?” he moved towards the door, shoes crunching on broken glass, “I think that’s probably the worst idea you’ve ever bloody had,” in an effort to pinch the conversation off at its nerve, before it could grow another head, become something grotesque. Give her some time to change her mind. Give him some time to cool off. To think.
Morgan’s shrill cries drifted down the hallway, making Cole pause halfway to the door. He turned to glance at Eve over his shoulder, but her blonde curls hid her face – what was she thinking? What was she feeling?
His explosive anger burned through its wick, leaving him spent and empty. If she touched him, she would know, the hurt, the revulsion, but she was too far away.
I love you, he wanted to say, repeat, until it sunk in. No matter what I do, or what I say, that doesn’t change.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
Out. Away. To let his anger breathe. To let the pressure in his chest expand. To rip something to shreds. To not take it out on her, like he so often did.
He knew how to be careful. When he came home, it would be with flowers in his hand, with soft, sad eyes and a voice like gravel, with as many ‘pleases’ and ‘I’m sorries’ as it took, as much obliging required to nudge her conviction. He would be contrite. He would earn his second.. third.. fourth chance.
Cole exhaled, suppressing the worry eating away at him. This wasn’t the end. This was different. He would be different. He would try. Like he said he’d try before.
This time …
( … Until the next time )
“For a smoke.”
Leaving her to Morgan’s bawling, to clean up the mess alone.