Rosemary and Rue | Fall'n into the Sear, the Yellow Leaf

My questions were mostly unanswered, and they just keep piling on.

How can one just turn the other way, as if the question would answer itself and things would just resolve?

And all this hostility from people I don't even know - what is that?

Bringing it up would only trigger another one of his crushing tantrums. That's the last thing I ever need.

Photo by Jonathan Cosens Photography on Unsplash

One day he dashed off for another emergency after receiving a call. For a man who kept his life buttoned up, leaving the office door ajar was a jarring, careless slip.

She nudged the door wider - just enough for her to pass through. She'd never stepped foot in here. Not even once.

He had always kept this room locked but he had rushed out so frantically today that the air still swirled, as if someone had forgotten to turn off the fan when they leave the room.

The chaotic desk caught her attention.

There were the familiar amber prescription bottles she always saw he used but they were unlabeled. Next to the bottles sat a pile of clear zip-locks. Handfuls of pills in every color of the spectrum, looking like candy - except they weren't.

Then there were stacks of cash - some neatly bound in stacks, thicker than the small piles spread around the desk.

What are all these?

A sudden sharp of lightheadedness overwhelmed her, leaving her reeling like the floor beneath her was tilting.

She remembered his eyes. Dilated. Dark. She'd told herself it was passion. Now, the truth was something else entirely. The jitters weren't anxiety. The way he'd reach for those pills like his life depended on it, they probably not even prescribed by the doctor.

Those violent fluctuations of temperament, their tempestuous love, his sudden, relentless urgency were they just the violent oscillations from whatever was in these bags?

"Please," she breathed into the silence, "just tell me those aren't what I think they are. What was he doing with so many of them?"

Her mind scrambled for an excuse, a reason - anything to make sense of this. Tightening her grip on the back of the chair to anchor herself - knuckles white - she fought just to keep from falling.

Her chest tightened. Gasping, her heart thumping against her.

She needed to calm herself down. In, out. She focused on nothing but the mechanics of breathing - back to basics - trying to gaslight her body into believing everything was still okay.

As if it were actually possible to stay calm in the midst of all this.

She backed out of the room as soon as she managed to pull herself together, shutting the door as if the click of the latch could tuck away what she'd just seen.

Maybe she could just pretend he hadn't left the room unlocked. If she played it right, she wouldn't have to admit she saw anything at all.

She raced down the stairs and practically threw herself into her car. She sat there until her hands were shaking a little less - then drove off. She needed to get home this moment.

She sat in the dark of her bedroom, the blue light of her phone illuminating the room every few minutes as his name flashed on the screen again and again.

She just sat there, refusing to answer and watching it ring out until the phone went dead on its own.

The heart's attorney, once the tongue is mute, hath no more plea but death or deep despair.

Those women - the revolving door of nameless faces - and now all this.

The thought of him - the pills, that way he looked at her. Even the affection. It all felt wrong. Tainted.

Like everything was just… ruined.

What if it was all just a drug-induced rush? Was anything even real? She tried to make sense of it, tried to piece it together. But it just intensified the knotted feeling inside her.

Her clothes, her skin - the smell of his place was all over her. They were in her hair too. Like it was everywhere trying to smother her.

She locked the bathroom door, ripped the clothes off. Perhaps she should burn them. She turned the shower on.

She pumped a crazy amount of soap and scrubbed, scouring at her skin until it was raw. She did it twice.

Her legs gave out. Again. She couldn't even stand, so she just slumped onto the wet floor. The steam enveloped her. The shower kept pouring.

Perhaps it could drown out the noise in her head? Her eyes fixed on the drain. She watched the suds spiral until they were gone. If only her mind could empty as quickly.

Unmoored, brittle as a dead leaf crushed, she wept. The hot water drowning out the noise in her head and washing away her tears.

She had lost her husband to the slow rot of indifference; now, the man she thought would save her - Duroy - was slipping away into his own darkness.

What had she gotten herself into?

CONTEST: "The Keyword of the Week" / WETTBEWERB: "Das Schlüsselwort der Woche"

©Britt H.

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