“I wish you’d talk to me, Mandy.”
Mandy picked up a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. She’d been crying since she walked in the door from work. Even when he sat beside her and tried to kiss her lips, she continued sobbing.
“It’s been days like this. Days of me trying to understand what the problem is between us.”
Instead of answering, she stood up and moved into the kitchen. He pulled at his hair, frustrated at this cycle they’d been in for the last few days.
She’d come home, cry on the couch for what felt like hours, snack without really eating dinner, and then go to bed. All this while ignoring him as if he wasn’t there at all.
At night, when he tried to touch her, his cock aching from watching her body move around the room, she simply turned over in the bed.
It was like he wasn’t even there.
He followed her into the kitchen now, his anger brewing.
“Why are you ignoring me, Mandy? I apologized for what happened with Sue, what more do you want me to say?”
She sniffed and reached into the pantry for some chips, just like she had yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.
“Goddamnit. What more do I have to say? She meant nothing. It was a one-off. I’m not invisible.”
He picked up the same dirty plate that had been sitting in the counter and throw it to the ground. Stark satisfaction hit him as it shattered into a million pieces on the floor. She couldn’t ignore that.
Mandy didn’t move a muscle, her blotched face almost frozen. She stared off as if lost in thought.
At his wits end with her, he lunged forward to grab her and his hand passed through her shoulder.
“What the fuck?”
He tried to grab for her again as she went to leave the kitchen, but his hand passed through her arm.
Something was seriously wrong.
Touching the counter, he reassured himself he wasn’t crazy. Everything felt real and touchable. Except Mandy.
Was she a ghost?
“I’m losing my mind.”
He glanced at the clock on his cellphone. Time had changed since he’d come in from work himself.
Following her at a distance, he watched her enter their room and get ready for bed. The layers of clothing seemed to melt off before his eyes. She was beautiful, his gaze anxiously following the long line of her naked body.
She moved in front of the full length mirror, her puffy eyes scanning her body.
“Why did he do it? Am I not good enough?”
He started to reach for her, but stopped when she met his eyes in the mirror. The first time she’d acknowledged him in nearly a week. Except her eyes were dead.
“Why did you do it, Richard?”
“Mandy…”
When he reached out to touch her, his fingers brushing her bare back, he felt cold skin. He removed his hand as if burned and a large crack appeared on her back.
“What’s happening?”
His voice trembled as more and more cracks appeared on her body. When they covered her face, she sneered at him.
“You’re a cheat and a murderer, Richard.”
Her face shattered into a million pieces and what happened hit him between the eyes. In a fit of rage, he’d killed her and then himself after she refused to talk to him.
This was his punishment. To be ignored over and over.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed at his reflection in the mirror before it too shattered.
He blinked once, twice, a third time…
Opening his eyes, he glanced over to find her crying on the couch again. He sighed in frustration.
“I wish you’d talk to me, Mandy.”
