Fire and Ice

“Fine, be a fucking bitch!” He shouted, and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t what he had meant to say at all, but there seemed to be a disconnect between his heart and his mouth. He took a quavering breath, trying to remember the last time he had been this angry: maybe never- he wasn’t sure. A glass vase flew past him, narrowly missing his head, and shattered against the wall. Water splattered everywhere as the blood red roses wilted to the floor. He cursed again.
“I hope you’re happy now!” He watched her march angrily up the stairs, away from him, and his heart cried out in pain. Why couldn’t he just let go of the anger? Why couldn’t he say the words he wanted to say, the words that would make this right? It didn’t seem like such a big thing, but his lips refused to form the words. Instead, he huffed, and scoffed, and went to grab a broom.

. . .

She heard him muttering to himself in the kitchen as she quickly packed her bags. The words were soft, barely audible, but always the same thing: twenty-three years. She probably wouldn’t have heard them if she hadn’t been thinking them, too. Twenty-three years.
It was a long time to be married; most couples they had known didn’t make it this far. Of course, they didn’t have much to show for it. They had no children and no pets, and even their residence was more a house than a home. She had always believed that their uncanny ability to weave their separate lives together so irrevocably would save them: neither lost themselves to their marriage, and they were not one unit, but two. She had thought that their separate, unshared interests would make their relationship stronger, would keep them from the boredom, the monotony, and the neglect that other couples suffered. She had been wrong.

. . .

By the time she had settled her suitcases at the bottom of the stairs, the mess of the vase was still on the floor. He had pushed it around, stewing, but somehow it just hadn’t gotten cleaned up. As she put on her coat, he grabbed her arm.
“Well, where are you going?”
She didn’t answer as her cold eyes froze the muscles in his body, locking his jaw. His hand was warm, almost feverish against her chilled skin. Now she understood why he refused to turn the heat up, even though she was cold. He wasn’t a cheapskate like she had thought; he just hadn’t known that there was a problem. A misunderstanding, she realized, and nothing more.
The chilling gaze of her blue eyes scared him into silence, though there were many things he still needed to say. He remembered when they first met, how her blue eyes had sparkled in the sunlight like the water on the lake. He had fallen right into those eyes, fallen so in love with her and never looked back. Now, looking into those same blue eyes, he felt like he didn’t know her anymore. He wanted to run away, he was so afraid. But he was more afraid to let her go.
“To my sister’s,” she said frostily in a commanding voice. “Now let me go.” She winced once as she watched a flicker of pain terrorize his brown eyes. She hadn’t expected there to be pain.
He hadn’t expected there to be pain as he gently released her arm and lowered his own to his side. He hadn’t expected the ripping, wrenching, knotting of his devastated heart; looking into her bitter eyes, he had expected to feel numb. But then, he hadn’t expected a lot of things over the years. He hadn’t expected to live in a house that he hated, with no one and no thing besides this woman he called a wife. He hadn’t expected her to really mean that she didn’t want to have children, or to spend so much time away from the house without him. He hadn’t expected that, after being married for twenty-three years, he would feel so alone.
The pain seared like fire. It scorched him from every side as he watched her walk out the door; it consumed his heart with small tongues of flames that left his brain untouched. He felt the fire as it consumed him, and the pain was ten times worse. His eyes burned helplessly as he watched her struggle into her car. He couldn’t watch anymore, and so he turned away, heading past the watery mess she had made. He couldn’t watch anymore.

…

She sat in the car and sobbed. Her eyes overflowed with tears as her frosty eyes melted. She couldn’t believe this was happening, after twenty-three years of doing everything right. They had had big plans together, great big plans and a great big world to fulfill them in. She remembered their wedding, and hearing him promise “Until death do us part.” She couldn’t believe those words wouldn’t come true, especially when she so badly wanted them to. Her keys were in the ignition, ready to go, but her hand wouldn’t turn the right way, like she had forgotten how to drive. She tried to remember their first date, to remember why she had devoted herself to him so entirely, but she forgot that too. She couldn’t drive away; she needed him, wanted him to come out. She wanted him to rescue her from the car, to rescue their marriage from such a bitter death, to recue the last twenty-three years from nothing. She couldn’t drive away.

…

He wandered around the house as flames danced before his eyes. His entire world was burning softly and slowly to the ground, and it hurt like hell. He finally found his way to the staircase and began the long climb up to their- his- bedroom. He didn’t know if there would be a “their” anymore. Something on the top step caught his eye, made him freeze, and tremble, as he stared. Carved into the top stair, almost hidden in the knots of the ugly wood that he had long ago wanted to replace, were two small, overlapping hearts. Some previous owners, probably- but there were no initials, no signs of ownership whatsoever.
Those hearts, they could have meant anything, or nothing- he didn’t know. But he suddenly couldn’t bear to look at them, and he couldn’t bear to stand. He sat down, right there on the steps, as the emptiness of his heart froze over like ice and the pain of his loss seared through his veins like the fires of Hell. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was stronger, more noble: a hero in his own right. He knew what he would say.
“I love you. I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”

...

Some say the world will end in fire;

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

[robert frost]