Page 1 of F*ck You

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Glass rained down around me as I threw objects in my frustration. They shattered against the walls, and the shards embedded themselves into the carpet for unknowing feet to find. I knew something was wrong all this time, but I turned a blind eye, and now here I was, home alone, seeing pictures on social media of my fiancé getting a little too close for comfort in the arms of someone who wasn’t me.

A loud beeping cut through the veil of shattering glass, and I turned my reddening vision to my phone. It was still sitting calmly on the coffee table ready to fuck up my life some more with another notification.

Being the masochist I sometimes was, I walked over and opened the alert. This time the picture that came through showed his lips pressed firmly against the cherry red lips of yet another girl. How many girls did he play around with on his so-called business trips?

My eyes zeroed in on the sign above his head. It said “Wiley’s,” and there was only one in existence—and it was in the next town over. When he kissed me goodbye three days ago, he said he would be across the country for the next few days.

I focused on my labored breaths as my mind worked out a proper Lee reaction. I began mentally kicking myself for not coming to this conclusion much sooner.

My fingers turned white as I gripped the phone so hard the case threatened to crack under the pressure. Taking a deep breath and then exhaling, I set the phone down gently after grabbing a screenshot and emailing it to myself. It would be used as leverage, because I had no doubt Todd would have it removed the moment he found out. With a blinding calmness, I sat down at the computer, opened up the email, hit print, and then stood up and got to work.

I emptied the closet of all the clothes I could fit in the large suitcase, being forced to choose between several of my favorite outfits. There was only one suitcase in this house since he had the other one on his “business trip,” so I would have to make do. I packed up everything else I couldn’t bear to part with. Once my things were thrown into the bed of my truck, I got to work on his things with the care of a pissed off ex-fiancée.

Judging by the progression of the posts online, he was only getting started, so I had plenty of time before he came home. I could do some real damage in that time, and if he was lucky, the house might even remain intact.

Ifhe was lucky.

Standing in the doorway with my arms folded over my chest, fingers tapping on my upper arm, I looked around at the new furniture, floral paintings, and sheer curtains. I’d spent a lot of time decorating this place, making it the perfect home for us to build our life in. But I should’ve known better. In a way, I guess I did. All the pieces were now fitting together.

All those evenings supposedly spent at work, all those female “coworkers,” “business meetings,” and late-night “business chats”—the signs were all there. The red smudges on the collars of his white shirts, and the notes he left in his lunchbox that were snatched away before I could read them, claiming they were nothing but work ideas on sticky notes. It took everything in me to not rip my hair out at all the signs I’d ignored, but damaging myself wouldn’t do much to hurt him right now, and man, did I want the bastard to hurt. I had full confidence that if he was here at this moment, he’d be lying in a pool of blood with a knife in his chest. Luckily for him, he was away, and I was left alone with my thoughts to paint my emotions all over this damned house, and what a hell of a mosaic it was about to become.

This was going to take a little something extra.

Crossing the room, I went into the kitchen and boxed up the entire alcohol cabinet. I was going to need all of it a hell of a lot more than he would. After depositing the full box into the bed of the truck, I got to work undoing everything I’d done in this house.

I grabbed his favorite bottled iced coffee drinks—really, though, this wasn’t real coffee, another run away sign I missed—and threw them against the wall, coating the area in a sticky liquid and chipping the soft gray paint upon impact. I began to wonder how he would start his day out tomorrow without them, but then I stopped myself. I didn’t care now, and I never would again.

Not about him.

With the largest kitchen knife we—I—owned, I slashed up the couch we used to sit on together when we watched our favorite shows. I cut strips in the fabric of the chair he would nap in after a long day. I approached the mattress we used to make love on, which had barely seen action in months—until now, when I used it as target practice for my stabbing skills until the only thing he had left to sleep on tonight was a broken box spring.

I threw the emptied plastic containers across the room once I was done with them and carefully backed up into the living room. Cooking oil now coated the kitchen floor, and he wouldn’t see it until he walked in and fell. Every article of clothing he had was now deposited into all of the metal bins we had. Every single article of clothing.

He always took great pride in his appearance, more than what would normally be socially acceptable. He took greater care of his suits than he did me. I mocked the words out loud that he’d said to me countless times. “Appearance is everything, Lee.” I grinned at the thought of his face falling when he saw them, and I lit the match on the little box in my hand before throwing it on top of the gasoline I’d spilled into each trash can.

Flames roared to life, and my grin widened. I was a little psychopath wrapped up in a ball of fucking sunshine.

The instant heat warmed my skin and fueled my ire, I was practically brimming with energy and eager to do more.

He would be doing the walk of shame as he went clothes shopping. I could see him now, strolling into the store with ruffled hair and smelling like smoke while he searched for new clothes to be able to change out of the ones that would undoubtedly be covered in touches from Miss Cherry Lips.

With a large brush, I painted the words “Fuck You” on every wall I could until the paint ran out. With a small, handheld lighter, I burned the same words in large letters in the carpet across the length of the living room floor. I left my mark in every way I could until the printer stopped printing, and I no longer had any more paper to refill it with.

Taking large stacks of the printed pictures, I deposited them all over the house, threw a bunch outside for the wind to spread, and set the rest of the stack on top of my truck.

I took a moment to send off the last message I would type for a while, letting my boss know I wasn’t going to be coming back to work. Sure, it was undeniably the worst way to quit your job, but I could explain it later as a moment of insanity. Standing there in the darkened driveway while flames roared to life through the windows, I didn’t give a shit how this could affect my future job prospects. It wasn’t as though I expected to work in retail for the rest of my life anyway. They’d find someone to replace me on day one, most likely.

I racked my brain to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, but there wasn’t anyone else I needed to alert right this moment. It was only my mom and me, and all she would be worried about was if she should try and get her money back for the dress she’d bought for the wedding. I was never good at keeping long-term friends since I’d moved a lot and apparently had worrying anger issues that didn’t go over so well with the pearl clutchers, and anyone else in my life was shared with Todd. There was no doubt they’d happily choose his side since they’d known him longer. Only a small handful would be worth responding to later on.

Why the hell did I let myself get dragged into this situation in the first place? Oh yeah, that was right. I was blinded by the fake sunshine and rainbows, thinking I could finally have a normal life. I should’ve known normal was never for me. I was nothing but chaos, and it was time to set it free.

After gathering every piece of material he’d always loved more than me and then tossing them into the burning bins, I set my phone on silent and placed it into my pocket, opened all the doors and windows to welcome every wandering animal that would hopefully run in once the fire died down, and stepped out of the house for the final time.

Without even looking into the rearview mirror, I drove away with papers flying off the truck as I left my old life behind.

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