Rat

The digital clock on the microwave struck 01:07. Three hours now, she had been waiting for him to come home. Three hours now, she was overthinking and filling up more and more with rage. Three hours now, she had gone back and forth with herself, the angel and demon on her shoulders bickering and bickering.

She struggled to keep her cool as she sat on the sofa, watching and waiting for those two neon lights to fill up her driveway. Her honey brown hair curled over her eyes, just like her thin pink lips curled on her face. She knew where he was. This wasn't the first time, or the second. But she knew for a fact this would be the last. She took all of her built up anger out on her fingernails. She tapped her teeth and gnawed on her hands for the entirety of those three hours, waiting for her oh-so-beloved mister to finally come home. Her silky black nightgown brushed lightly against her buttery soft legs as a gentle breeze blew through the open windows of their living room. She didn't bother closing the windows or the door, despite the air conditioner running. It wasn't her who paid the electricity bill. Just another small jab to him before the end.

Him. Oh, how she couldn't stop thinking of him.

Who was he with this time? The barista at the coffee shop? Oh no, not her again. She was a red head. She chuckled at the memory of him telling her that he despised red-heads. "Only your sweet brown hair is perfect to me", he would tell her.

Oh, but what if it was the receptionist at the bank downtown. No, couldn't be her either. She always wore too much make-up, and he had mentioned before how that was repulsive to him. "Natural beauty" was his forte. She was never allowed to wear make-up around him. He didn't like the idea of being two-faced. Isn't that hypocritical.

It must have been the thin little Barbie doll clerk that checked him out at the grocery store last Wednesday. The way she smiled at him and sent him butterfly kisses just seemed all too suspicious. The way her hand lightly caressed his when she handed him her change. He did not pull away from her sudden touch. If anything, it looked as if he moved into it. That was not the first time those two had felt each other's skin before.

A million other possibilities ran through her mind of dirty little females who got off on ruining marriages. It was not entirely their fault, though, and she knew that. He carried most all of the blame. Regardless of who her husband picked, she knew that the act of adulatory was one that she could just no longer bare to suffer through. Loyalty was in her vows to him, but she never thought until now why he never mentioned it in his vows to her. She glanced at the dusty old wedding photo sitting on the mantle across from her. They looked to happy then. So young, so full of hope and no worries. It had only been six years since the marriage, yet her love for him died many moons before even then.

She stood and walked up to the picture, and traced the cool, metal frame with her fingertips. The image of them six years ago, hugging each other tightly with wedding cake smeared all over their faces and all of their friends laughing and dancing in the background, was nothing more than a lost memory to her now. The feelings that can be seen in that image are now foreign to her. She sneered and pushed the frame down, forcing the image towards the mantle and out of her sight. The last thing she wanted was to keep living in the past, and lying to herself that the love and passion of those two in that image six years ago still existed. She wondered if it ever really even existed at all.

The digital clock on the microwave now struck 01:16. She wondered how much longer she would have to wait for his arrival home.

He was a rat, and she was a barn owl waiting patiently and silently in the middle of the night for him to come through and reveal himself to her. All feelings of love and forgiveness had been stripped away from her entire being, and now she was hungry. The fire in her hissed, and the only thing she could focus on was that rat she used to love. That rat needed to learn a lesson, and she was more than willing to teach it to him.

She returned to the sofa and continued to think about her plan. A few different ideas frolicked through her mind, all with very similar outcomes. Would she let him beg? Would she let him explain? Give him a second chance, or the benefit of the doubt? What would she say? Would she say anything at all? She played the different outcomes back like a movie in her mind, all the while smiling to herself.

Right as an approaching yawn tickled the back of her throat, the two neon lights she was so eagerly anticipating pulled into the driveway. She felt sick to her stomach. She could almost smell the other woman's perfume from here. No more late nights cleaning lipstick stains out of his shirt collars that didn't belong to her. No more picking red hair out of the backseat of his car. No more wondering why she was never the perfect wife for him, and why he had to always bring new women into the equation to fulfill his own selfish desires.

Tonight, she is going to take out that rat. Tonight, she is going to finish this.

The digital clock on the microwave struck 01:22.