That Time Ted Attempted Murder

The rage was building up in his face, his skin reddening. He ran his hand through his hair over and over, picking up speed every time. Why didn’t she seem to care? Did she really not care that he had found out or that she may have hurt him? What, his feelings didn’t count know? She was always taken care of in this relationship, wasn’t she? He had paid for her frivolous beauty treatments, for all those stupid, wildly expensive clothes, not to mention the annual tickets to Comic Con which she never appreciated.

“So, what you’re telling me is that you slept with someone?” he asked.
            “You can ask me as many times as you want. The answer is always going to be the same,” she said.
            “But what you’re saying is you two… you were together… the two of you…”
            “Yes!” she yelled. “The two of us. That’s usually the minimum of what you need in that kind of situation.”

He looked around the room and paced excessively. He couldn’t believe this was happening.
            “Look, I can see you’re getting all bent out of shape over this, so I’m just going to leave,” she said as she started to pack her things.

He soon realized she thought she was going to get away with it. Who did she think she was? She thinks she can just sleep around with whomever she chooses? I’m not good enough? He got angrier and angrier as he watched her pack and nonchalantly check her phone as she went. He watched her shove blouses and jeans into her duffle bag, not bothering to fold any of it. What happened to this woman? She’s going to ruin the integrity of the denim. She opened the top drawer of their dresser and emptied it, taking all of those thong things she loved to collect and throwing them in the bag as well.

“Mel, you’re taking all of your clothes?” he asked when he realized she wasn’t emptying just one drawer but all of them.

“Why wouldn’t I take them all, Ted? I’m not coming back.”

He sat down on the bed, defeated. He couldn’t stop watching her pack up the life they’d built together. She added mismatched socks to the bag. She’s truly a woman on the edge. Those aren’t even in pairs.

“Do you have to sit there watching me like that?” she asked. “It’s depressing. I mean, you’re really embarrassing yourself. You know that, don’t you?”

He could only mumble, “Your socks don’t match” in response.

“Jesus, Ted, speak up. You know no one can hear you when you mumble like that.”

He felt her watching him, waiting for him to speak. She quickly grew impatient and sauntered off into the bathroom. He heard the clinking of glass bottles as she gathered them in her arms. I paid for those perfumes. He watched her carry them into the room and lay them gently on the bed before going back for more. He picked up a round bottle with an emerald jeweled top. Inside, liquid gold rocked back and forth, coating the walls of the bottle with shimmer.

“This one always smells the best on you,” he said to her as he held the bottle up in front of him. She looked down at him in total confusion.

“Ted, what the hell is the matter with you? I just told you, not even fifteen minutes ago, that I slept with someone else, and you’re sitting here complimenting my perfume? Get a grip on yourself!”

She stormed back into the bathroom and he heard the opening and closing of doors and drawers sliding in and out. He heard her taking inventory out loud, making sure she had her brushes and lotions and all 473 bottles of nail polish. Who needs all those colors? Only a real mental case has that many bottles of polish. He held it up so the light from the window seemed to pass right through the glass. He twisted the top off and smelled the lingering scent clinging to the metal sprayer. He started to shake the bottle. Slow at first but then increased his pace bordering on violent until he let it drop limply from his hand and roll onto the carpet.

Before he could bend over to pick up the bottle he had dropped she swooped in quickly and grabbed it first. They stared at each other awkwardly before she turned to finish packing. He heard her phone vibrate on the dresser where it was sitting. She giggled as she read the text message she had received.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“No one, Ted.” she answered.

He thought of all the people it could be. Her mother? Her mother, it was definitely her mother. But when he looked over at her she was biting her lip while she typing her response. Maybe it wasn’t her mother. He grew increasingly angry. She was actually going to leave him. Why hadn’t it hit him until just now? Hadn’t he done enough? And what’s he left with? An empty house and comic books to come home to. Well, not for nothing. Suddenly he couldn’t contain his rage. This was worse than when his brother stole his Wolverine Halloween costume last year. He glanced around the room until his eyes landed on the sterling silver candle stick, a wedding gift they had received.  He walked quietly behind her, and when he got close enough to smell her hair… the candle stick met her head. He had swung with all the energy he had left, and after she had settled on the floor, her head landing in a pool of her own blood, he sat down beside her and traced his finger over her lip.

He sat there thinking about their relationship and then their marriage. Where had it gone wrong? What could have happened to make her want to cheat? He wondered if he could have been home more often. Maybe listened to her more. Looking down at his wife, her hair matted with blood, he felt some remorse. Then, he heard that ding again. He crawled over to where her phone had landed when she dropped it and picked it up. The screen was blinking with a new message.
            It said: Can’t wait to see you later ;)

The feeling of remorse was quickly chased away by the familiar rage. He wrote back, asking if they could meet at a local, late-night coffee shop later that evening. When he received an “absolutely” in response he was thrilled to imagine this jackass’ face when he showed up instead of his wife. He’d need something bigger than a candle stick, though.

The evening dragged on as his anticipation grew stronger and more unmanageable. He wrapped her in cellophane and shoved her limp body into several black trash bags, getting rid of his wife’s body like he saw them do on TV. He dragged her out into the garage and lifted her into his open trunk, and decided that’s where she would remain until he found a proper place to bury her. He thought himself a regular Tony Soprano. With her out of the way he was able to devise his plan. He decided to go simple and shoot the asshole in the head, but he decided to bring his bladed Wolverine claws just in case. He got in the car and made it to the coffee shop a half hour before closing as planned. The only person there was the twenty-something barista who watched him closely through the window, presumably hoping he wouldn’t order anything. He turned away from the window to monitor the parking lot. With his hands in his pocket (he vetoed the claws when he realized they wouldn’t fit) he surveyed the parking lot and only saw one other car besides his. He couldn’t see very well from his angle, but the driver looked too small to be who he was waiting for. He stood there for another ten minutes, still eyeing the car, until the driver’s side door opened and a woman stepped out. A thin, blonde wearing a navy coat was walking toward him. He looked behind him before she reached him, thinking she must be walking to someone else. She walked with her head down and didn’t raise it until she reached him.

“I take it she told you,” she said.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“You’re Mel’s husband, right? I told her you were going to catch on but she didn’t believe me. Obviously she was wrong, because here you are!”

He stared at her blankly not processing what she was saying to him.

“Listen, I’m very sorry you had to find out this way. I told her to wait and we would tell you together, but you know how she is…” she said chuckling, as she playfully nudged his shoulder.

He stared at his shoulder in disbelief. This can’t be.

“So where is she? Is she getting some coffee? We can all sit down and…”

“Let me see if I understand this,” he interrupted her. “It’s you. It was you all this time?”

“Yes…” she answered.

“You’re not here trying to bust your husband or boyfriend or something?”

Her face shifted from confusion to worn out aggravation. “No… never had a boyfriend, pal.”

“So let me see if I’m getting this correctly.” He paused, collecting the tantalizing thoughts racing through his head in every direction. “My wife and you. Together. It was you. You and my wife.”

“Jesus, now I see why I’m so appealing,” she answered as she shifted in her coat.

“So what you’re saying is my wife was sleeping with a woman this whole time?” he asked.

“Tough loss, man,” she said with a little too much condescension for his liking. “So, should I follow you back to your house because the plan was for me to see her…”

Shit. If I would have cooled it I could have maybe gotten something out of this.

“Well, normally I would absolutely have you follow me but my wife is currently unable to receive visitors but I have a question for you if you have a minute.”

“Listen… Ted, it is Ted right? I don’t really have time to explain to you all the unresolved issues of your marriage so…”

“Yeah, no, I get that. I’m actually uninterested in whatever I did wrong in the relationship although now it’s clear one of those things wrong was having a penis…” he interrupted, “but do you think, hypothetically speaking of course, if I had asked her do you think she would have let me get in on this?”

“Are you serious?” she asked, looking at her watch.

“Completely. We could have had a menage a trios of sorts. Tried on a few of my costumes. I mean if I had known she was into chicks this could have gone an entirely different way!”

“Oh yeah, totally. That would have solved everything. Listen I have to go… why don’t you ask her the next time you see her,” she said.

He started running his hand through his hair again, annoyed.

“You see, that may be a problem…”

She interrupted him when she heard a sound coming from the parking lot behind them. A continuous thumping.

“Is that your car over there?”

He looked over in the direction she was staring at and shook his head.

“Why is your trunk thumping?” she asked as she started to back away slowly.

“Oh, great! There’s still time to ask her!”