‘I’m going to miss you, Ruth. I really am,’ Ben said, then his expression faltered and hardened, as if he’d immediately realised that he shouldn’t have said that. This was after Bill had slipped in from his mysterious second job, grabbed what sounded like a bag of ice cubes, and gone wordlessly upstairs to bed, leaving us to clear away all evidence of our takeaway crimes before he could notice a thing. Ben didn’t say any more but placed an arm around me and pulled me closer to his chest for an embrace. I had forgotten the smell of him, having not been this close to him for a while. It was bizarre to smell his earthy, natural scent again. I think it was the deodorant he liked that he bought from LIDL.
‘I’m going to miss you too,’ I replied earnestly, the weak part of me – the part I thought I kept under constant suppression – feeling small droplet pangs of deep affection for him again. ‘You’ll come visit, right? Wherever I go?’
That felt bizarre to say. But despite all the terrible things he’d done to me, I still wanted Ben in my life. Did that make me pathetic? I really hoped it didn’t. It wasn’t that I thought we’d rekindle our marriage in any way; it was more that, when you’ve lived through so much with someone, it feels wrong to simply discard them, no matter what they’ve done to you. I still felt like he belonged in my life in some way and also, I needed at least one friend in my life now that Chlo had disowned me. Even if I did walk in on him six months ago pleasuring himself to something in a homewear catalogue.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, visibly confused by what I had said. ‘You planning on going somewhere?’
‘Well, Bill,’ I said, a little confused, ‘asked me to move out yesterday. I thought that’s what you meant?’
I could feel the goosebumps prickle my skin as I witnessed the fury ignite behind Ben’s eyes; I remembered the look well, it was as if you could almost see every single facial and body muscle tightenin sync. I swear, one time I had even seen his rotund ass cheeks clench in unison. What surprised me even more than I could ascertain was the tiny flicker of recognition in Ben’s eyes, as though from my words he recalled a conversation with his beloved I was never meant to hear or know about, and it only seemed to enrage him further.
‘Would you excuse me, Ruth,’ he said as politely as he could, ‘I need to talk to Bill.’ He became the literal visual manifestation of smiling through gritted teeth as he twisted his body around almost robotically and began to stomp up the stairs.
Confused, and unhappily certain I was the cause of Ben’s now booming voice, I decided it was probably best for me to make haste out of there and into the safety of the shed, and see if CerealKillerCornflakes was online.
I couldn’t help but wonder what the police were up to at that very moment. Did they think the bona fide TellTale Killer was finally back? Or were they desperately trying to pin the body mangling and heart gift baskets on me? I had no idea. I wondered if this was how real serial killers felt, a morbid cocktail of anticipation, dread, and excitement. It almost quieted the memory of that voice, the voice that wouldn’t leave me, that echoed through my head whenever I thought back, as I often did, to that night.
FIFTEEN
TWO YEARS AGO
‘How long?’ I demanded, my gaze inadvertently drifting away from him. My eyes landed, rather sadistically, on one of our wedding photos perched on one of the shelves. There we were, twenty-three years old, each flanked by our respective parents, all big, dumb, innocent smiles. I was never going to be able to look at that photo and not feel pure hot-blooded rage again. Greta storming out of the café and into the crowds and now this; this was really turning out to be quite a shitty night in the life of Ruth.
‘We…’ he began to speak, but faltered, unable to finish his sentence. I forced myself to look at him to see what had interrupted him. But all I saw was his whole body shaking with emotion, his eyes bloodshot red as he tried, and failed, to keep the tears at bay. He placed two fingers on the bridge of his nose and squeezed as if he was trying to pinch the plumbing to the tear duct. ‘Nothing has happened. We… I haven’t… done anything.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ I snapped, the rage still piping hot in my chest. ‘Good for you, Ben. Does that make you feel morally superior? That you managed to control yourself not to…’ I couldn’t even finish the sentence; I didn’t even want to breathe those words, that made me feel sick, into existence.
‘No. No, of course not, I’m just trying to say…’ he began.
‘God, I… I can’t even look at you, Ben,’ I interrupted, cutting him off before he could string another stupid, whimpering sentence together. Just because I didn’t want to speak, didn’t mean I wanted to hear his voice.
I averted my eyes from him again, my chest twisting with an unfamiliar, excruciating pain. So, this was what heartbreak felt like I guess, I had never really experienced it before. To me, it was a stinging, relentless tearing that left me feeling equal parts numb, hollow, but also overflowing with anger.
Suddenly, all the strange interactions over the past six months made sense: his vague excuses, the friends he was hanging out with that he couldn’t quite name, the signs I had ignored because I trusted him. I imagined that people in the future would tell me it wasn’t my fault, that he was completely to blame. But I still felt stupid. Stupid for not confronting him sooner, for brushing it all aside and burying that suspicion deep down in my gut because I didn’t want to argue with him.
‘So,’ I said, summoning the courage to ask the question I dreaded. ‘What is this conversation?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his voice still raspy as he paced slow circuits around our living room.
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ I said, staring at him as he faced away from me to glance out the window. ‘Is this an “I’m leaving you” conversation or a “please, please forgive me, take me back” sort of conversation?’
Despite everything I had just learned, part of me still hoped it was the latter; I prayed and begged it was the latter.
Ben sighed and pivoted his body slowly to face me again, the same moronic expression still fixed onto his stupid face. That was all it took for me to understand what he was failing miserably to say.
All I could think to do now was leave. So, I turned away from him and grabbed my handbag, stuffing anythingI could think of into it – clothes, pants, deodorant, phone chargers – good luck messaging your boyfriend without any phone battery, Ben – whatever was within reach of my hand was being furiously tossed and squashed into it. The more crap I crammed in, the more my knock-off designer bag looked moments away from complete structural collapse.
‘Ruth, please,’ he said, his voice almost strengthening a little now as if he was trying to exude some authority to stop me. ‘Please, don’t go. I’ll go. I should be the one to go.’
‘You really think I want to stay in this house now? The house we built our lives together in, after what you’ve just told me!’ I grabbed the framed photo of our wedding I had been looking at earlier, hurled it to the ground and thrusted my socked foot down on it. The glass cracked instantly and I’m sure some of the shattered edges went up and pierced into the sole of my foot, but frankly I was still too angry to care.
‘Ruth, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself!’ Ben exclaimed, walking towards me, faking some kind of concern for me. He didn’t care for me, though, he would never have done this if he actually did.
‘I’m going to Greta’s,’ I spat at him, my voice hoarse from all the screaming and shouting I had just done. ‘She can talk to you about picking my stuff up.’
‘Ruth, come on,’ he pleaded, the desperation and exhaustion he was feeling clear from every word he spoke. ‘Please don’t leave by yourself. Not right now. Go if you want but let me drive you or call a cab or something first. It’s not safe with the TellTale Killer!’
‘No,’ I shouted, grabbing the TV remote and throwing it into my overstuffed bag, along with the hardwood penis ornament we got in Greece that I hated. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with that, so I flung it in his direction.
