The Night She Died

             

The Night She Died

By Michael Cannata

                    She couldn’t bear it any longer. The beating he had given her the other night had left her praying that he would finally kill her. Death could only be an improvement. The pain, the fear, the abuse, it all had come to a point where living with it was no longer possible. Tonight she would end her life for good.

                Ever since she could remember, life was just a long, endless series of heartbreak and pain. Her parents had been cruel alcoholics who never failed to take the opportunity to let her know what a disappointing failure she was. Her father had abused her in ways that were both too shameful and fearful to ever reveal. She ran away and never looked back.

                Sleeping with friends she worked as many hours as she could to save money. She put herself through nursing school, studying into the early morning hours and doing her best to stay awake in class. She had grown accustomed to being alone, but still she yearned for love.

                She hoped that someday her hero would come and take her away; someone who would care for her as much as she deserved. When she finally got a job at a local hospital she imagined that she would meet someone special, maybe a doctor.

                But she always managed to meet the kind of men that never appreciated her accomplishments. It was her looks that attracted them. Sadly, once they found that she wasn't the sexpot they took her for, or wanted her to be, things always went downhill. One relationship after another had ended in pain.

                She always seemed to wind up with a younger version of her father; a cruel man that would make her feel worthless. Her latest relationship had been the worst. He was always threatening to leave her, yet, rather than leave her; he decided to do his best to beat her into becoming the woman he expected her to be.

                Maybe it was all her fault. Finally she realized the truth. If it was her that got her into this predicament, it was her that would have to end it. She was determined to end her pain once and for all. She had learned a lot about death. Surely dying had to be easier than living with him. Now she stood in her kitchen with the knife in her hands. She quickly drew the blade across her arm and watched as the blood flowed out of her wrist. The contents of her purse were scattered atop the counter.

                She walked around the kitchen letting the blood splash on the floor. It created a trail that lead to the back door that she had left ajar and unlocked. She smeared the blood along the doorjamb. He was the only other person that had a key. She used her keys to his car to plant evidence in his garage along with strands of her bloody hair in the trunk. Using strands of his hair from his brush she was sure to leave some in the trunk as well. Using a pair of his soiled underwear she had been sure to leave his DNA in all the right spots. Using his computer she had researched how to dispose of a body on Google.

                When she was sure she had done all she could to incriminate him in her "disappearance" she closed the kitchen door and walked away into the night wearing the new wig she had bought.

                With her new ID’s tucked into a new purse and a fresh bandage on her wound, she climbed aboard the bus that would take her far away from it all. She didn’t know what kind of life was ahead of her, but she knew what she was leaving behind.

                If her plans went right everyone would believe that she had died and that he had killed her. To her, dying felt like being born again.