Chapter ONE
CHAPTER ONE
My Cherry Gloss Handle Knife
I hate the sound of my heart. I always have. I can’t understand why I feel this way, but I think it has something to do with the uneven pace in which it beats throughout the day. I can run a mile and barely hear my heart beating, like a slow light tapping sound on an old wooden floor. Then there are times like right now when I sit still and my heart sounds like it’s rushing to get somewhere, like a loud booming drum echoing from out of a school band. I want to stop it from beating because only then will there be no more uncertainty of sounds. No more worries or cares. And more importantly, no more me.
Sitting outside the lake house, I grab the beautiful cherry gloss handle and thrust the knife out of the cracked wooden table. I take the tip and press it firmly against my thin shirt, directly above my heart. I have to admit, I really enjoy this feeling right now.
I can feel the knife slowly penetrating my skin. I apply more pressure and the blade inches deeper and deeper. I have one-fourth of an inch into my chest as blood starts to trickle down my white silk blouse. All I need now is one sharply timed push and this life will be completely over. No more late-night pizza. No more reruns of Cheers, and definitely no more bad and unruly hair days. It will just be blackness––a nothingness––an afterthought of what I have become.
An unexpected teardrop forms on my face, then another and another. Just as I am about to push the knife all the way in, I hear a light whisper in my head urging me to stop. My hand feels numb and I drop the knife through the crack of the wood, beneath the porch. I don’t know the reason for my sudden emotional switch, but for some unknown explanation, I just can’t do it. The taste of suicide has escaped me for the moment, and just like that it is gone, hidden somewhere in my brain, all the way up there in the streams of craziness, I suppose.
What am I doing? I quickly walk away from the table and rush back inside. I am frazzled as I see how much blood I need to clean off my chest. I don’t want Harold to see me like this. I don’t want him to become aware of what has just happened. I don’t want him to discover the fact that I attempted to kill myself without caring whether I left him all alone in this world without me. That alone for him would be worse than my death in itself.
As I walk by our bedroom, a cold shiver runs down my spine. I begin to question myself in fear.
What would he think? What would he say? What would he do if he knew his wife just flirted with killing herself?
I pull my hair and grunt. This sucks.I hate the damn feeling of being so concerned with him and his feelings. It makes me uneasy. It makes me tense. I even feel pale. It sounds weird, I know, but I can feel my face this way. I really can.
I take a deep breath andstand there staring at him through the crack of the door. He is sleeping like a baby. So peaceful. The kind of rest you get after working two long, hard shifts at a steel mill.
It’s funny, just looking at him reminds me of how great a night we had and how horrible I feel this morning. Harold is like alcohol. He goes down so nice and easy, you can have the time of your life, but when it wears off, you’re reminded of your pain. Shit, you might even vomit on yourself, but I love alcohol and I love Harold.
Being with Harold can make an amazing night feel like a mask over a thousand pimples. Having the mask on feels so good because it covers the ugly, but when the mask comes off, like it did this morning, it’s not such a good feeling.
I don’t want to dwell on the moments where Harold can make me feel great because it can make me feel like everything is more than all right. But since Harold brought me to a new high last night, I am still in an utterly vulnerable state, hence my motion to attempt suicide this morning. I figure I have to get rid of the thought somewhere in my head and it is gone for the moment.
The more I look at him, the more I think about last night. So, refreshing, pure, and captivating. Stupid! Stupid Karen!I let my mind take me back there.
I can still smell the cherry candles and red wine that sat at the edge of the white carpet near our bed. I was so entranced while making love, I didn’t even care at the time if any wine spilled on it. He made love to me like it was the first time we had ever touched.
Come to think of it, last night reminded me of the summer evening when he took my virginity. I can’t believe that was over fifteen years ago.
I tell you, it seems like you lose a bit of yourself when you get older. Even though my memory fights these thoughts and is foggy at times, I can say this clearly: a woman will never forget moments of love.
Love has a tendency to stay in the back of your mind forever, no matter how hard you try to forget. It’s up there, lodged in your brain, way beyond the cells, blood, and gunk, but it’s there. When you’re reminded, it’s really nice and it takes you away momentarily from your problems. Sex is addictive, love is something else. Love and sex together can sometimes be troubling.
I don’t blink as I continue to look at him. Even staring at Harold can make me feel content. I needed this; I needed to feel this moment again in some sense, I believe, especially after flirting with the notion of taking my own life.
Push, Karen! Push your brain to remember more.I recall us in high school; our time there had been the beginning of something special. Harold and I danced at the senior prom as if it were our wedding day. We knew we were meant for each other, even back then. We were exploding with this new-found passion and everyone at the dance had known it. Even they felt it.
I remember sneaking off with him and fooling around on the roof of the school that night. We were so scandalous as teenagers. I think to myself now, what the hell were we doing? But then there is a part of me that says, I wish we could hold onto those days now.I miss those days. I don’t know what happened last night, but Harold made me feel like that young girl again. That girl he so eagerly wanted. He brought those feelings back at least for one night.
The way we made love last night was so amazing, but this is not who we are. We are not the same people anymore. In our early thirties, we have become something else. We have become animals in our own right. I guess I can’t think of the good without the bad creeping in.
You see, I’ve been fighting with two personalities in my brain for some time now. One wants me to die while the other wants me to live. They always interfere with each other. One thinks with evil intent while the other has a lot of good in her, even though I think she’s bad as well at times. Let’s say she’s the least of the two evils. Just don’t let her hear you say that. I call the two parts of me Good Karen, and Bad Karen. I wake up every day wondering which personality will win. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s who I am.
I love my husband so much, but I feel like he is slowly fueling the fire. He is feeding the badness in me. I love him dearly, but he is the one ruining my life.
Harold is the type of man who is always so busy with work, and traveling for work, that my time with him is often limited. I know other women would say I shouldn’t complain because I have a husband who loves me, shelters me, cares for me, and treats me like I am some kind of queen when he is home. The problem is, Harold is neverhome. I feel so alone, and if anyone knows what that feels like, it can definitely drive you crazy at times. I feel as if Harold loves work, other people, and even himself more than he actually loves me. This realization leaves me spinning on most days, just like it is on this unsettling, tense, and earth-shattering day.
I walk away from the crack in the door.Frowning, I stroll into the bathroom and wash the blood off my chest. The cut has already dried up, but slight blood smudges appear. I finish cleaning my chest off with a towel, throw my shirt in the garbage, pick a new shirt from my closet, and trot back to bed. Harold grabs me from behind, placing his long arms around me. I can feel him breathing on the back of my neck while he holds me gently. I rub his hands softly and smile. I feel protected and loved at this moment despite what just happened.
Besides the slight pain on my chest, it feels amazing lying in bed with my husband, trying to forget all the other cares in the world, but then reality sets in and it hits me hard like a sledgehammer against a sheetrock wall. When he wakes up and goes to work, he will be gone and I won’t know when I will see him again.
Harold works at this big advertising corporation, called Z & E. It’s a company whose main customer base is the automotive industry, and Harold specifically focuses on car ads. He’s been the vice president for three years now. Sometimes he goes away on business trips for days at a time. On most weekdays, he is gone from seven in the morning to sometimes eleven or twelve at night. Sometimes he just sleeps at work.
I also have not seen my friends and the little family I do have for over three years. He has secluded me here away from them so he can have me all for himself. That doesn’t really bother me. What bothers me is the fact he is never here. I am lonely, and dumb in love, I guess. Through all of this uncertainty and pain, I tell you, I feel a storm brewing. I just wonder if Harold feels it too.
I always get up at least fifteen minutes before he does. Last night I couldn’t sleep much, so I am awake longer than my usual fifteen minutes. The truth is, I have been up for hours, contemplating on ending my life, and I know Bad Karen is behind that!
I don’t want him to leave today. I don’t even want him to get out of bed. I need someone here with me, especially today. I am happy one moment and sad the next.
I want him to stay with me all day and cuddle up, watch movies, and just be. I need to feel loved all day, not just for a moment. I can’t tell him what I tried to do to myself this morning, but I have to make him stay today.
“Honey … honey,” I whisper lowly.
He takes one last breath against the back of my neck and rolls over to the other side of the bed. I can feel his body leave mine and the usual loneliness immediately set in.
“Honey, stay with me today? I mean, stay home.”
“I love you, Karen,” he whispers in his groggy morning voice.
He then leans toward me and kisses the back of my neck. He completely ignores my words.
“Did you hear me?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath and looks at me sharply.
“I can’t, honey. I have to go to work, you know this. But since last night was so awesome, let’s do it again tonight. How’s that sound?”
“Yes!” I say ecstatically. I can’t help but smile and blush. Take that, Bad Karen. I do feel a slight sense of sadness because I am going to miss him all day like every other workday, but to think we can have another night like last night? I am excited! I ponder about what I will wear tonight for him, and how nice it will feel to have him inside me again. Moments like this make me feel alive; moments like this make me feel loved. Silly, I know, but maybe not.
Harold slowly gets up from the bed and walks down the hallway to the bathroom. I watch him every morning take that short and calm walk. I wait for him to enter the bathroom, and once the door closes, I quickly get up with a bounce in my step.
I fetch Harold’s peach-colored button shirt that lay mangled on the carpet. I put it on and head down the stairs. I turn on the coffeemaker and get the ironing board and iron ready so I can prepare his work clothes.
I look down at my wedding ring nicely placed on my finger, and I can say I still admire it to this day. Well, Good Karen does, anyway. Bad Karen thinks the ring is a façade.
After I finish ironing his clothes, Harold walks down the stairs with a towel draped around him, and a golden smile on his face. His smile and promises always make me happy. He has that get-out-of-trouble smile, and on top of that, he always knows what to say. Looking at him is like another sip of alcohol. I must be drunk by now.
“Must you always tease me?” I ask him in a joking manner.
“What do you want me to do? You have my clothes,” he says, smiling widely at me, knowing its lasting effect.
I smile back at him gazing at his face and thinking about tonight. I purposely hold back his clothes as a means to force him into staying in his towel. I grab a muffin from the fridge as well as the pot of coffee already been made. I pour him his cold, tall, dark cup of joe. I never could understand all these years why he loves his coffee that way. I place it on the table as Harold calmly sits down. As I walk toward him, he stares at me like a lion studying his prey. I love that stare. I often miss it. It makes me feel sexy. It lets me know he still yearns for me after all these years. He hasn’t looked at me like that in a while. Did last night change him, make him want me again?
I rest my back for a moment as I lean against the oven directly in front of him. I move my long blonde hair to the side so it won’t get stuck between my back and the stove. I stay here and watch him eat. I love to watch him eat. I am now well in a trance, soaking in the effects of last night, mesmerized at what could happen again tonight. I want to discuss it with him but I’m afraid of us not repeating it tonight. At this point, Good Karen and Bad Karen are going at it in the back of my head. I just ignore them.
Should I, shouldn’t I. I say to hell with it. “I can’t wait for tonight. Can you take me the exact same way you did last night?” I ask as my hands nervously sweat. I cross my legs, anticipating his response.
“Even better than last night,” he says.
I smile broadly, almost laughing in joy. I am hot from his words and trapped by his smile.
A part of me wishes he would just pounce on me now. I’m itching for a replay. He grabs his clothes out my hands and looks me straight in my eyes.
“Karen, where would I be without you?” he says in his sexy voice.
He kisses me lightly on the lips and leaves me standing there as he gives me another deep, sensual glare. He faces the living room while he puts on his clothes. I can’t help but watch his every move like a sad, lost little puppy. I will just have to wait for him to return, like I always do.
After Harold gets dressed, he walks upstairs and grabs his briefcase from his office. He has an office in the apartment. A den in the back room he barely uses, but sometimes he will leave things in there. It seems like a storage room to him more so than a work place. As odd as it seems, I’ve never been in there.
Harold trots back down the stairs, briefcase in hand, looking poised for the world. For the first time, I am ready for him to leave so he can hurry back to me.
“Oh Shit! Shit! Shit!” he blurts out.
“What, Harold?” I eagerly ask.
“Honey, I almost forgot we have to go over a last-minute presentation for a new advertisement, and we have a new employee coming in today. I believe his name is Craig or Greg or something like that. How the hell could I forget? I’m sorry, hun. I will probably be late, or have to stay until tomorrow. Please don’t wait up, Karen. I hate when you do that. Get your rest. You deserve it. We will have our fun night some other night, I promise.”
I nod my head, but inside I am screaming. Such a letdown. He kisses me on my forehead and softly on my lips, and then the smile to bring it home. He seems to always interrupt my thoughts with his charm. Harold makes his way past the kitchen. I feel like vomiting. That’s it. After last night, no more alcohol in the name of Harold for me.
“I love you, hun,” he whispers then dashes out the back door.
The screen door sways back and forth, and just like that, my husband is gone again for the day. I never really know how long with him. I just know he is gone and I am alone.
I hear faint whispers getting louder and louder in my head. It’s Bad Karen. I can hear her deep breathing pressing in the air. There she goes, taunting me. I can hear her clearly now.
What did you expect from a liar? You fall for it all the time. The broken promises. The golden smiles. You have to be fed up. Just grab that knife, Karen, and kill yourself already. He doesn’t love you. You kill yourself and there will be no more disappointment. Just grab that pretty cherry gloss handle knife and end this all today. Just do it already.
