17. Homewrecking Skank

HOMEWRECKING SKANK

I put the last bottle in the bag and sighed with relief. I looked around the almost abandoned parking lot just to be sure that I was indeed alone before pulling out and heading back to the office. I was so sure of myself that I no longer had sweaty palms or a racing heart.

Just a few short weeks ago, maybe a month and a half at most, when I first started plotting this, I thought I would die from a heart attack because I was so damn scared of being caught. I've been running all around our town and a few others on my lunch break so as not to be found out.

Now, I had finished the last of it, and there was no more fear, just a staunch determination to do what I needed to do for me. Doug had grown progressively worse over this time, and I came to the realization that if I didn't get out, he was going to kill me.

The beatings had grown in frequency, and every bit of his discontent was laid squarely at my door. He blamed me for everything that had gone wrong in his life. As if I, too hadn't lost friends and family when I got with him.

I have no one to turn to now because he sold me a dream that I thought was going to be all worth it. I've lost my parents, who never agreed with the affair, and most of my friends, not that I had many to begin with. The people who were so much fun when he introduced me to them as a friend had all turned their backs on him and me as well.

So now I'm isolated from everyone and everything. My days are spent between home and work, with a few trips to the supermarket when needed, but that's about it. At the time I came up with a plan, it was after another one of his rages.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, taking stock of the damage he'd done to my face and neck when he choked me and slapped me around, trying to navigate how I was going to cover them up the next day.

That's when I realized he knew exactly what he was doing. I didn't need to cover them up because it was Friday, and there was no work the next day. I thought back over the last few months and realized that the worst of the beatings always happened on a Friday.

Monday to Thursday, it's punches to the gut or a belt across my back and ass before the forced sex that is somehow the worst of the abuse. But every Friday, he goes for the face. Saturday, we're back to more unwanted sex and punches to the ribs.

If I hated him before there are no words for what I felt when I finally saw the pattern. As if the physical abuse wasn't enough, the things he said to break me down had done their job, and I felt like less than a shell of myself. Having people constantly reminding me that I was getting what I deserved doesn't help.

It was his sisters who so callously said that to me. I thought that as women, they would have some empathy, but his mother refused to talk to me ever, and his sisters only hadn't blocked me because they enjoyed knowing that I would see their updates on Rachel's life and how it would make me feel.

So, it's no surprise that when I called them pleading for help because of what their brother was doing, they laughed in my face and told me I was getting what I deserved and not to call them again. I think that's the moment when I realized I had hit rock bottom.

As I stood in the mirror that night, something inside me broke. I let silent tears fall and burn the cuts on my face and my split lip as I told myself over and over again that I deserved better. That nothing I had done was deserving of this hell.

Doug was the one to blame. He's the one who cheated on his wife, not me, so why should I be the one to suffer? They blame me; he blames me, but I refuse to continue blaming myself. So, I decided there and then that I was going to take my life into my own hands and rely only on myself.

I needed out of this marriage, but I'd be damned if I was going to support his whiskey habit on my dime. I have no doubt the slime would go after alimony since he hasn't worked in a very long time, and I am the only breadwinner.

So, the answer was obvious. He needed to die. I knew from watching ID shows that I had to cover my ass if I didn't want to get caught because I wasn't about to give up one prison for another. I felt my first real excitement that night, to the point that I actually enjoyed sex that night.

I hit the ground running the next day, but first, I had to lay the groundwork. I needed a new email address and online identity that could not be traced back to me. For that, I visited the next town over for a few days, going to the library to use one of their computers to do the research I needed.

I then had to dive into the bowels of the dark web to get what I wanted, open a PO Box with a new name and the list goes on. I wasn't doing anything suspicious in anyone's eyes. I'd made up the story at the job about not feeling well and having to go for tests on my lunch break. Doug didn't notice anything because he didn't care.

My only issue was how I was going to get the thallium into his whisky. I'd gone with that particular poison because it was slow-acting according to dosage and could not be detected. It's no longer sold in this country, but you can find what you need if you're willing to pay the price.

Once the hard stuff was out of the way, I turned my attention to getting it into the bottle without being detected. I was going to add it to his food as well, but he drinks more than he eats, and I especially liked the idea of him drinking it while I was away at work, slowly killing himself. My hands are clean.

The problem about resealing the bottles was easily solved with a little research and a ten-dollar purchase from one of those low-end online stores that sell everything from sketchy home décor for two dollars a pop to; I'm sure, human organs. They've got to make money somewhere, and I'm sure it's not hawking that trash they sell as clothes.

Then again, since I'd gained so much weight and could no longer afford my nifty suits, I'd taken to ordering clothes from those places, so I guess I shouldn't knock it.

Anyway, once I got that little detail out of the way, I removed the six bottles of whiskey I'd bought and hidden in my trunk and sat in my car and the empty parking lot of a dry cleaner's to add the thallium to the bottles before resealing them like new.

Once back at work behind my desk, I was able to breathe because everything had gone off without a hitch. I was so excited I could barely sit still in my seat. I spent the last half of the workday mapping out a plan for my future.

First things first, I need to join the gym. Doug refused to let me because he had blown up to almost twice his size with a gut and no neck, so he didn't want me working on myself. I'd let myself go right along with him even though I didn't pick up his drinking habit.

But once he's out of my life, there's nothing stopping me. I've already got my eye on someone here at the office who doesn't know I'm alive because I look nothing like myself, but once I get my act together, that will change, I have no doubt.

The buzz around the office is that he's in a dead bedroom, and the wife is a sour hag. Their kids are teens, and almost out of the house for college, so that's even better. So far, the only move I've made is to make myself seen as helpful and personable around the office.

I've been building my reputation by keeping my head down, doing the work, and going home. I don't hang out after work or get involved in office drama, so most here think highly of me. All of that will come in handy once I lose the weight and get back to the way I'm supposed to be.

I'd had the sense to check on Doug's life insurance policy, which he had forgotten to change after we got married. Rachel and his kids are still the beneficiaries, and since he was worth much more when he took out the policy, it was for a lot.

I made sure it was up to date and started the steps to having it changed along with all the other finances that he hadn't even looked at since we got married. She'd sold the old house and put the money in a trust for their kids together. Of course, she can afford to do that; her husband is worth more than most people alive.

She and her kids do not need our pittance, and besides, for the hell he's put me through these last few months, I deserve to get paid. Things were finally looking up for me, thankfully, after falling into that deep dark hole.

All I have to do is keep myself grounded so as not to give my plans away. The thallium should do its thing in a month and a half to two months, according to how I have parceled it out. Between the doses I'd added to his whisky, which I plan to gift him as soon as I get home this evening and the dosage I've been adding bit by bit to his meals, it shouldn't be much longer than that.

I'd even made him some freezer meals under the guise that I didn't want him to be hungry during the day while I was gone. He actually bought it, as if I could care about a monster like him. So, all in all, I've got everything covered, and I can look forward to my new life after he's dead and gone. Good riddance.

BASTARD

She had the babies. Three instead of two. Even in this, that bastard had to show me up. Their bastards are all anyone would talk about, but I can't get any more information other than she'd had them.

I was going crazy, wanting to know more. Somehow, this made things seem more real, more permanent. I don't know when I got it into my head that there could be a chance for us. That because she was the mother of my kids and someone who once loved me, she might take me back.

I know the kind of person Rachel is, and she's more about family than looks and wealth. She wouldn't just choose to stay with him over me because he had more to offer than I did. I'd prayed for her to slip and fall every day throughout this pregnancy, but obviously, that didn't happen.

And now there was no reason for her to come back to me. She had our kids and theirs; she won't choose to leave him with babies involved. It all came crashing down on me at once, the loss that I had endured.

I got my phone and went through my photos for the images of my wife and kids that that bitch had made me erase when we first moved in together. It cost me a pretty penny to retrieve them, but they were all back.

Today was the first day I felt the strong need to look at them. I had refrained all this time because those images only brought me pain. I wanted them back mostly so that when I won them back, I could show them, Rachel, and the kids that I never once stopped thinking about them.

Rachel is the type to fall for that stupid shit. But now, I'm not going to get the chance to show them how much I care. I ran, as well as I could anyway, to the bathroom and threw up. I would cry if I knew how, but all I felt was empty.

That emptiness turned to rage when I recalled how I got here, and I went back to drinking to soothe my inner pain, boiling beneath the surface with anger and hate. That bitch had destroyed my life in every way.

I wish I had never met her, had never answered her slutty call. What the hell was I thinking? I must've been out of my mind to do this to myself for that slob who wasn't half the woman my wife was. Maybe I had some sort of psychotic break, and that's why I had taken the road I had.

But even if I could convince Rachel of that now, she had already moved on. Moved on with him, the bastard who always wanted my life. Now he'd given her three children to my two. Does that mean that she's more his now than she was mine, even though she and I had been together longer? How does that work?

I tipped the bottle to my head and stared at the phone again through blurry eyes. It doesn't seem possible that life could go on like this as if nothing had happened. How are people living and enjoying their lives when I was stuck in this hell?

Why was I the one chosen for this to happen to? Why couldn't Wendy have gone after someone else? Why was my life destroyed for no reason at all? I'm not that bad of a person, obviously. Hadn't Rachel fallen in love with me? That must mean something.

The longer I looked at those pictures of the four of us together, looking happy, a family, the more irate I became at the present situation. If I could kill Jacob, I would, but how can I do that when I can't even get close enough?

They were at the hospital now because one or all of their brats were in the NICU; now would be a good time to strike. But I know for a fact that he has an insane amount of security, and I'm also sure that each one of them knows what I look like.

At least I'd made him go into hiding. He can't be having a very good life if they have to live behind high walls surrounded by strangers just to keep me away from my family.

I bet they're really happy right now, especially him. I know now that the reason he never got married and never got serious about anyone was because of her. If I had stayed with her, he would never have gotten his happily ever after

And none of this would have happened if that bitch hadn't walked into my life.