John didn’t listen. He didn’t listen to his best friends, he didn’t listen to his mother, he didn’t listen to his brother nor his sister. He didn’t listen to anyone, even when they were all telling him not to marry Donna. They met in college, and had been dating ever since. He really wanted to marry her, but they all told him that it was a bad idea. ‘Unstable’, they called her. Mental. Crazy. John just laughed. It was impossible for his Donna to be like that. She was a sweet, beautiful girl, with soft, almost pastel green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. She was everything a man could want in a woman… She was sweet and kind and always paid in full, too. But she was crazy. John, his eyes clouded by love, couldn’t see that at all. So, despite the protests of everyone around them, they were wed. It was the happiest day of either of their lives. But such happiness can only last for a short while…61Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkMqBep2lIi
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When you look at someone for the first time, you only see their outside. You can see if they’re ugly or pretty, if they’re tall or short and what colour their eyes are. When you spend little time with someone, you can scratch the surface of their personality. You can tell how they are with their parents, with your parents, with children, with adults, peers, colleagues, friends, enemies… But, like I said, that’s just the surface. You never truly get to the bottom of one’s soul until you spend a certain amount of time with them. And I’m not saying two weeks, or three months. I mean three years, or maybe even five, depending on how loud their personalities are. For John and Donna, it took about two and a half years. John found out that she was a short-tempered control freak, who needed John to do everything that she wanted him to. As if she was playing with dolls. He was her doll to play around with and control. John felt trapped. He felt like his mind wasn’t his own, anymore. He internally shook his head and told himself to overlook this tiny fault of hers. After all, everyone has their faults… John always left the seat up. He was very much willing to overlook her little quirk, if it meant that they could keep their marriage afloat. No matter how she acted or what motivated her, he knew that she was definitely still the young college girl that he fell in love with. Nobody could change that much in two and a half years.
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But what John didn’t know, was that she didn't change. She had always been like that, and John couldn’t see it, since he was only scratching the surface of her personality. Of her soul.
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Donna’s behaviour never got better. When he told this to his mother, she told him to leave her, but John said no. He still loved her. So, to save their marriage, they got a kid, Nick. For a while it helped, but that was because Donna took care of Nick more than she did John. Less interactions leads to less toxic energy pointed at John. But after a while, as soon as Nick could walk, Donna was back on John’s case, nagging, yelling and sometimes even hitting. It got worse. She got jealous and said that John was spending too much time with Nick, and not enough time with her.
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And then came the guilt-tripping. She would say things like ‘oh, you just don’t love me anymore… Don’t worry, John, I understand…’ or ‘what have I done to upset you so much that you’d avoid me like this? Please, I can change… just tell me what I did wrong.’. John couldn’t stand it. Of course, he never told her that he couldn’t stand it. In fact, he fell right into the trap that Donna had built just for him. If he went to work for too long, she’d slap him in the face and accuse him of sleeping with someone else. She’d always say; ‘who is it? Is it a man or a woman? Is it that Lillian girl? Who is it?!’. John would try to calm her down, his hand against his own cheek, caressing it from the bruise that Donna had given him. Nick would watch in terror, thinking he was next. She’d beat him too. This ritual happened almost every day. Sometimes, when she came home drunk, she’d claim that he didn’t love her and that she was going to kill herself if he left her.
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That was the only reason he stayed.
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But after years, poor John just couldn’t take it anymore. He divorced her and took custody of Nick. John was very proud of himself. He had succeeded in getting rid of that chip on his shoulder and getting out in the world. Alone. Without the constant, nagging, degrading company of Donna. Sadly, he couldn’t exactly be completely free… He thought about Donna, every waking moment. Not in a good way, though. He’d get flashes to when she used to yell at him, to hit him. Back at that house, it was like he was walking on eggshells around her. He made sure not to upset her, but he never really knew when she was going to snap. He’d have to pinch his forearm and remind himself; he was out of there. For good. He didn’t have to see her ever again.
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One day, when coming home from work, he noticed a familiar face. It was Donna. She looked at him with wide eyes. He ran to his car, but she followed him anyway. She knocked on the window of his car, as he tried desperately to start it and drive away. Drive away from her, the relationship and the life he led with her long ago. But it didn’t stop there. No, she continued to follow him everywhere, always saying things like, ‘if you don’t come back to me, I’ll kill myself. I will kill myself,’. John would try and block out her words. He wanted to sleep at night.
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Finally, John had enough. He filed a restraining order against her. But that didn’t stop her at all. The worst part in all of this, was Nick. Every day, John was terrified that Donna would approach Nick. So he never left his son’s side. He’d pick him up from school, drop him off, and he’d never let him leave the house without permission. On this particular day, John had to stay late at work to do some extra expense reports that his boss had asked him to do. That meant that he couldn’t pick Nick up from school. He’d have to cross his fingers and let the universe take care of the rest. Little Nick was walking home from school, when Donna grabbed his wrist. Nick knew what to do in situations like this; ‘stranger danger’, or ‘help! help! This is not a drill!’. But when has that ever worked? He did all those things, he tried to wiggle loose from Donna’s grasp, but there was no use. He was probably going to be killed, and there was no point trying to avoid it. Donna, on the other hand, had a very different idea in mind. She threw him onto the pavement and bashed his head onto the ground over and over, until he was knocked out and his blood splattered all over the cement. She then stepped in his stomach, breaking multiple ribs and yelling ‘you did this to me! It’s all your fault!’. Eventually, someone finally saw this and called the police. They pried her away from the child, as she continued yelling ‘it’s all his fault!’.
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At last, John was safe.
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It had been a few years since then. The three-year-anniversary. John had just dropped Nick off at his friend’s house. Nick was fine. No long term or permanent injuries. Because of the anniversary of the divorce, John wanted to take the day off. He wasn’t feeling well and he needed some time off to try and calm himself, rather than overwork himself. He sat down on his couch (he had moved out of his and Donna’s old house… It became triggering) and picked up a book. It wasn’t that good; an airport book, as his father would call such mediocreness, but it kept his attention and his mind off of…everything. That was until a huge uneasy feeling overcame him. There was a certain stirring in the pit of his stomach, making him fidget. He moved from his spot, put his legs down, went to the other side of the couch, but then he realized that it had nothing to do with physical discomfort. He felt unsafe. He felt like he should get up and go somewhere else, but it was his house… where was he supposed to go? He pushed the feeling down. He thought that it was probably just some flashbacks to when he was with Donna. He turned on the Action News at Three, since the book wasn’t doing the trick anymore and made himself some tea, while the TV played as background noise. The brunette news reporter on screen stopped talking about the car crash on the freeway, and started walking about a prison break.
“Breaking news,” she said, “At the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre, three prisoners escaped, two women and a man, about a couple of hours ago. These people supposedly killed a guard as they left. Luckily, two of the criminals were caught, as the third one is still loose. Not to worry, though, teams are already out on a search for the missing criminal. They say that-”
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John turned off the TV. It was making him nervous. That’s when he smelled the unmistakable scent of Donna’s pineapple-flavoured perfume. ‘No, it can’t be,’ he thought to himself. But isn’t that what they all say? Isn’t that what the young girl says about the imprisoned criminal as she thinks she sees him or hears him nearby? People always talk about ‘famous last words’, but ‘no, it can’t be’ has to be the winner. He stayed on the couch, finding it more difficult to breathe by the second. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t move. That’s when he heard footsteps. Someone was coming down the stairs. Donna’s perfume scent kept getting more and more pronounced. As John’s hands became clammy, as his heartbeat quickened, as he lost the ability to move a single muscle, it hit him. He was having a panic attack. Of course his body would pick the worst moment to have a panic attack. His brain was completely out of reach from planet earth, as he tried to cry, but only air came out of his mouth.
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It’s funny.
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It’s funny the things you think about seconds before a terminal situation.
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John felt regret. Regret for not having listened to everyone around him. They all warned him about Donna, but he just had to go and marry her anyway. He felt regret for having fallen in love with her in the first place. He felt regret for not having left her sooner, before they had Nick. He felt regret for bringing poor little Nick into this. Nick was his first thought. If Donna killed him, Nick would be next. He couldn’t let that happen, but he just couldn’t move. That was until he heard a noise coming from the closet near the door. As he walked toward it, random memories came into his brain, the kind that are supposed to calm you down, but just make you feel incredibly uneasy. A picture of Marylin Monroe in a friend's bathroom. A knick-knack M&M themed jukebox the size of a napkin dispenser. A shriveled old hockey poster with an eagle on it for a reason he couldn't quite remember. He lifted his fingers and placed them gently on the closet door. But he knew it was empty. If someone was here, they were someone else. She was somewhere else. And as he turned the knob anyways, just in case, he knew he wasn't alone.
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