A Lasting Storm: Chapter 4

His first few months of wedded bliss were behind him, as was their first fight as a married couple. Jim forgave her, and they moved on. That was how it was supposed to be. At least, that was what he told himself.

Jim was happy and hopeful. He'd put in the work, and now he was ready to push things to the next step in his future. Two years of college were behind him, and Jim learned everything he could about law enforcement. Now, he was testing and applying to different agencies.

Months ago, after one of his classes, Jim spoke with an instructor about becoming a volunteer officer. It was a way to get his foot in the door, show his work ethic and dependability, and network with the local departments. Now, after a chance meeting with the head of a local department, Jim was just days away from having his foot in the door.

Jayla was tense to be around as of late. Nothing Jim did pleased her. To make things worse, she was struggling to deal with Sonny.

Jim knew that most girlfriends or wives would be happy for their men and might be proud of them when they hit a goal. Jayla was as disinterested in his success as she could be. Even when she was with Jim, Jim knew she was somewhere else.

Two days from his big day, Jayla was nowhere to be found. She went to work but didn't come home Thursday morning. Jim wasn't a paranoid person, at least not as much as people led him to believe. Jim had an almost sixth sense that warned him of bad things on the horizon. That "spidey" sense was telling him to follow his gut.

Checking up on his wife of only five months might have seemed odd to other people. He nevertheless called the nursing home where she took her first job as a nurse. When he asked for her by name, the girl at the desk told him she hadn't been to work for two days.

What the hell, wondered Jim. He sat the phone beside him and held his head in his hands, rubbing his temples and trying to stay calm. Two days. That meant that she hadn't gone to work Tuesday either. Where could she have been?

Her disappearance made the next twenty-four hours harder to navigate. Jim still had to work, had a class that night, and an appointment the following day he could not miss. Part of him wanted to play the worried husband and go out to find Jayla, but he knew he had to be there with Sonny and make good on his commitments.

When he had time, Jim called around, hoping to find someone that had seen her recently. He left dozens of messages. Jim knew that if someone intentionally disappeared, they wouldn't be found easily. What he didn't know was why Jayla would disappear.

That night, Jim talked to Jayla's sister. He wouldn't put Trisha in a position to betray Jayla. He just hoped that she could tell him Jayla was alright. Officially, she hadn't been gone long enough for the police to get involved. He knew she wasn't in any of the hospitals. She wasn't in any of her old haunts. She was nowhere to be found.

Even her sister didn't know where she was and claimed she hadn't heard from her in days. Trisha was a good kid, and she felt for Jim. She promised to call him if she did hear anything.

"That's after I beat her ass for putting you and my nephew through this," she laughed.

"Thanks, hun. I appreciate it," he told her before crawling into bed.

At a little after three the next afternoon, Jim was in line at the Rawlings Guns and Ammo shop. He was in a range class all weekend. He had to pass state gun training to carry a weapon.

Guns were to become one more responsibility in an already heavy list of things for which Jim was responsible. While he had shot pistols before this, he recognized he knew relatively little about handling weapons, gun safety, or mechanics. He had the afternoon and evening to familiarize himself with the authorized duty weapon, a Glock.

Jim sat on the side of his bed and read through the owner's manual. Only when he was done did he begin to practice handling the weapon. This was nothing like the revolver he secretly carried. Jim loaded and unloaded the magazines. He practiced putting one round into the chamber. In Jim's mind, he was halfway to a goal he set years ago.

When the front door opened, Jim called out to see who it was. He sat there, hoping to show his new gun to his family. Instead, it was Jayla that entered the room. Sometimes, it's a simple matter of timing that presents us with life's terrifying moments.

"Hey."

Jim had a lot on his mind. He had questions he didn't know how to ask her, partly out of fear. Part of him was relieved to see she was alright. Yet, another part of him was angry that she'd been lying to him about going to work and hadn't done him the courtesy of a phone call.

"Where've you been?" he asked her. "And please, don't tell me you were at work. I already know you haven't been at work this week."

Jayla didn't waste time, she didn't mince words, and she didn't take the time to read the room. Some would say that she was a very lucky young woman, considering what came next, what she was about to do to a man holding a loaded gun.

"We need to talk," she told him.

Jim was hearing the most dangerous four words uttered by a woman in a relationship. True or not, those words instantly struck fear in his heart as they do every man who ever hears them spoken. Jim agreed, however, that they should talk. There was news he planned on sharing with her, but something told him to hear her out first.

"I'm listening," he nervously replied.

Jayla leaned against the wall as Jim sat there on their bed, neither of them at the moment remembering what he was still holding in his hand.

"I want a divorce," she announced.

Emotions come crashing down on a man at times. This was a moment of shock, heartache, fear, anxiety, confusion, and a thousand thoughts racing through his mind. At that moment, Jim froze in time, hearing the screams inside him erupt violently.

"W...what?" he stuttered.

"I want a divorce," she repeated.

Jim stared at her, unsure of what to say. How, he wondered, could this be happening to him after just a few months of being married? Why? Why was this happening now as they were on the edge of their biggest accomplishments?

"Do you want to tell me why? Did I do something?" he questioned, his body starting to nervously tremble from building anxiety.

"Do you want the truth?"

Jim's voice raised. His anger leaked into the room, throwing fuel on the tense fire of emotions that thickened the air.

"I shouldn't have married you," she told him.

"Then why in the bloody hell did you want to get married so badly?" he demanded.

"You were a way to escape from my parents, a means to an end. Marrying you was a miscalculation in the plan," she admitted.

Jim looked up at her, his expression changing on the word plan. What, he wondered, did she mean by "plan?"

"How could you be doing this? I love you," he told her.

Jim stuck his free hand into his pocket, clutching the key he planned to show her this week. After weathering the storms of the past year two years, he had taken Sonny and gone looking at houses. He found a place that was big enough for them to have plenty of space, for Sonny to play, and for them to have birthdays, Christmases, and holidays. He clutched the key in his pocket so hard that it cut into his flesh.

"I'm sorry, Jim. But, I never loved you. I've been using you the entire time," she announced.

Rage lives in all men, and at that moment, his rage was beginning to blind every conceivable part of him that separated him from the rest of his kind. He stared at her in anger and disbelief. Many times in that moment he mumbled the words you used me as if he was trying to comprehend what it meant. As his muscles tightened, his blood boiled, and his heart fell to a million shattered pieces, he stared down into his right hand.

Jim looked at the weapon in his hand, then, at Jayla. He stared at the woman he loved, and the mother of his child, through the eyes of a man struggling with his thoughts. Jim was fighting an internal war, a war between the part of him that was a good man, and the part of him that was capable of hurting someone. As his dark side was beating the better side of him, he looked at his wife.

"You should leave," he told her.

"Why, that don't mean anything to me," she cockily responded.

"Neither did I, apparently," Jim sighed, the gun turning in his hand. "You used me the entire time. I was your friend. You've ruined my life, and for what?"

Jayla sneered at her husband, angrily reminding him of what it was she used against him.

"That's right, I used you. I used you to get what I wanted, to get free of that house and the shit that went on there. And it was easy. All I had to do was show you a good time and you were mine."

Jim's head snapped upward, the look on his face now different than anything she'd seen before. She stood in front of him, expecting his anger to finally fill in the piece of the puzzle that she needed to complete her picture of how this would end. Jayla knew he was capable, smart, and driven. He would be the kind of man that would provide for his son and the kind of man that would work himself to death if he had to pay alimony. She needed him to react.

Suddenly, she realized that he wasn't standing up to beat the hell out of her. She'd pushed him too far. The man in front of her, the man that sacrificed his world for her, was now the man some claimed James McAlister to be. As his shoulder moved, Jayla turned and ran out of the house.

Hours later, Jim was with Francois. He called his best friend to talk. Under the circumstances, Francois suggested they go somewhere so he could get his mind off of what happened. They left town, to escape from the places that might remind Jim of his wife.

"What the hell are you going to do?" asked Fracois, sipping a beer.

"I don't know, yet," replied Jim.

Francois put a hand on Jim's shoulder. He told the bartender to bring them two more beers. As the two stood there, talking about the future, Jim could barely feel anything past the pit in his stomach and the nagging pain in his chest. He missed Francois nudging him completely as the doors opened to let more people in and he saw Jayla, and she wasn't alone.

The guy she was with was someone Jim was familiar with from past encounters. They'd butted heads before. Jim was due on the range at eight in the morning. He couldn't risk an encounter with anyone getting him into trouble, not tonight.

"I think I better take a piss, and then maybe I should head home," he told Francois, who was due in the class the next day with Jim.

"Yep," sighed Francois, motioning for the bartender, still hoping to get her phone number.

Jim went into the men's room, grabbing a paper towel as he passed them, wiping the tears he barely hid from the world from his eyes. He walked over to the trough, and after fishing himself out of his pants, began to relieve himself.

"I'm not afraid of you," said a man behind him.

Jim looked over his shoulder, and there stood Ricardo. Jim wasn't surprised. The guy always struck him as stupid.

"Good for you," Jim told him.

"I'll beat your ass right now," Ricardo threatened.

With my dick in my hand, thought Jim. The most awkward moment of my life number two, he told himself. Jim kept his attention on peeing, hoping to avoid a messier situation than things were already turning out to be.

"I'm a little busy, in case you didn't notice. Mind if I finish, I'd hate to get any on my shoes."

When Jim was done he calmly turned around and faced Ricardo, more or less. Ricardo stood a whopping 5'5" tall to Jim. Jim looked down at the pint-sized challenger.

"Did she put you up to this?"

"What's it matter?" asked Ricardo.

With that, Jim grabbed Ricardo by the throat and wrapped him in a headlock. Turning quickly, he flipped Ricardo over his shoulder, landing him in the massive urinal.

"At least you'll know who to blame for your stupidity," sighed Jim. "Next time, I put you in face first you little shit."

With that, Jim went home a beaten man. Hurt, dejected, and for some reason a target of her new goon of a boyfriend, Jim got in his car unable to withhold the tears any longer. The part of him that didn't want to believe Jayla was the person she'd shown herself to be was the part of him that felt like he was dying inside. He silently prayed that god would let the rest of him die with it.