Always In Love
I once heard that hell is a state of being where one is unable to understand or comprehend the world around him.
Life didn’t start out bad for me. After finishing high school with average marks I caught some breaks, as I graduated from business school with a degree in accounting, worked at a few boring jobs, and then went to work for an internet startup which offered antiques online. All twelve employees were rich within a year, but one thing eluded me: that someone special in my life.
When I met Valerie she was working as a cocktail waitress in a downtown nightclub. Her bubbly personality added something new to my life. I started out by taking her to dinner, and the more time we spent together, the more we grew to like each other. Eventually, I was able to admit that I loved her.
I was at the front door of her apartment with a rose in hand. After knocking for a few seconds, another man answered, and I saw Valerie in the background with a little bit of nothing on. I rushed into her apartment and when I reached her, I saw nothing a wicked grin on her face.
“Turn around!” he said.
As I turned around, the man had a gun in his hand. Within seconds, I was on the ground and covered in blood. As I took my last gasp of air, I saw her laughing at me.
Valerie was on easy street, because I had left my love nearly everything I had. But I just wouldn’t go away. In fact, I stayed right in the apartment. When I woke up, I was right by the bed.
Valerie and her guy were in bed talking. They discussed knocking me off and she mentioned they’d been together for three years. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. I attempted to exit through the front door, back door, even through the windows, but there was some invisible force which kept me locked up.
Was it hell? Yes, I was up twenty-four hours a day, as I no longer required sleep. I also had to watch the two lovers as they bought a new car, decorated the apartment and went on numerous shopping sprees.
After a week, things changed. I was in the kitchen and heard him tell Valerie to shut up. I slipped through a crack in the door and found that he had her at gunpoint.
“Goodbye,” he said.
Then he pulled the trigger and she fell to the ground. He watched with glee as she took her last breath. He wrapped up her body and placed it in the closet and then left. I never saw him again.
I turned around and saw her staring at me with a face covered in fright and blood.
“Jacob,” she said. “Where are we?”
“You lied to me.”
She tried to leave the apartment in every possible way but couldn’t. I only laughed. After her failed attempt, Valerie looked at me with a sense of fright on her face.
“I always wanted to be with you forever,” I said.
“I… I never wanted to be with you,” she said. “When will we get out? I want to get out.”
“We all think we have it figured out.”
As the days turned into weeks, she started crawling around on the floor like an infant, trying to escape, and couldn’t, but neither did I.
We were stuck together. There was too much lying and distrust to ever build a relationship. We’d both passed through the world with no one to love and found out it wasn’t a birthright.
We did nothing for the next several years but put up with each other.
“Shut up!” she said.
“You had to make alternate plans on who to spend your life with,” I said. “Now you live with your choice.”
“Shut up!”
