Broken Promises: Letters From An Ex-Wife

Jonathan winced as he woke up, the cream curtains of the window were wide open and sun rays were directly shining on him, blinding him for a moment before his eyes adjusted to the light as he blinked. He looked around the room, the antique vase that his wife no ‘ex-wife’ he reminded himself had adored so much was now lying broken on the floor. The bookshelf which was once filled with her favorite books was now nearly empty with one or two books lying here and there, rest of the books were either torn in half and were lying on the floor or they were burned and were now nothing but ashes.

The photo frame holding a picture of him and Liza gazing at each other was now broken and shards of glass were strewn across the floor and the picture itself was now ripped just like his heart. He wondered where the love which was filled in the eyes of the man and woman gazing at each other in the picture had faded away leaving nothing but a blank look. The pain of betrayal had crushed his soul; it had cut him deeper than any knife could. Along with the agony, his soul was feeling, came throbbing ache of his head.

He winced once again as his head ached and he remembered exactly why Liza hated alcohol as he took in the sight of broken beer bottles lying on the floor. He put on his slippers and managed to go to the medical cupboard in the bathroom, dodging the pieces of glass, to save himself from more pain. He took out an Advil and swallowed it with tap water, not caring whether it was clean enough for drinking or not. He splashed some water on his face and stared at the man in the mirror. He had dark circles, his skin was pale in color and there were some bruises on his face from the fight at the bar, his clothes were crumpled, in short, he was a mess.

Last night had been hell for him, after throwing Liza out of his house he had drunk himself to oblivion, he had gone to the dimly lit bar and had drunk enough tequila to surpass the amount of blood in his body. When the owner of the bar had thrown him out because it was past the closing time, he had emptied his stash of liquor too. It was a miracle that he had not suffered from alcohol poisoning. When he had entered the bedroom the previous night all the memories of his beautiful Liza and all the moments they had shared in that room came crashing down on him but along with them came the betrayal. He wanted to forget her, but all he could see was how she looked when he told her that he wanted a divorce, her deep chocolate eyes were rimmed from red, her brown hair was tangled, her usually smiling face was expressionless and although he knew that she cheated he still felt guilty that he was the one who put Liza in that state, ‘How do you know for sure that she cheated on you?’ asked a small voice in his head.

He believed what he saw, he had heard her talk in hushed whispers to someone late in the night, he had seen her sneak out of the house, he had witnessed her nervous behavior whenever he asked her about who she was talking to, he had seen her hug someone else and had seen that someone kiss her forehead and yet the small voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that ‘maybe Liza is innocent, maybe she never cheated’ but the larger part of his mind shut that voice. He believed what he saw, and even though he wished he never saw it, he couldn’t ignore it.

He had seen these signs long ago and yet he had ignored them. What frustrated him the most was the blank look in Liza’s eyes when he had confronted her. She hadn’t even looked guilty, she just stared at him with her red-rimmed eyes. She wasn’t begging him not to sign divorce papers but instead with a calm face and yet shaky hands she had signed the papers as if she was expecting it. He knew that he hadn’t been the most faithful husband but at least he had felt guilty after what he had done. He hadn’t even seen a speck of guilt in her eyes, instead, she had a shattered look in her eyes. How could she feel broken after cheating on him? He had made sure that Liza never knew of his betrayal because he didn’t want her to feel the pain of betrayal but he had never guessed that he would have to be the one to go through it. He had hated himself the moment he had signed those divorce papers because he knew that he had signed away the love he held for her. But he couldn’t live with the woman who had betrayed him. ‘A bit hypocritical don’t you think?’ his conscience questioned. And for that moment he felt that he had made the greatest mistake of his life but the very next moment he was filled with blinding rage and jealousy towards the man who had dared to touch Liza.

Frustrated by the constant battle inside him he let out a shout which would have surely startled his neighbors and sent all the birds in the nearby area flying. He looked around the mauve room, broken bottles were lying everywhere, and yet among the stench of all the liquor, Liza’s sweet scent lingered. In a fit of rage, he began destroying everything that held memories of her, in destroying all the evidence that she even existed he knew that he was destroying himself but he didn’t care. There wasn’t much of him left anyways.

Jonathan sighed as wrapped the gauze around his knuckles, wincing at the pain. As he for the second tie that day took in the view in front of him, the first thought that came to his mind was that ‘Liza will kill me’ and once again it hit him there will be no Liza in the house to get angry at him because he had already kicked her out of the house yesterday.

Shaking his head and suppressing the wave of pain that threatened to drown him again and making him seek sweet reposition of intoxication, he began clearing the broken bottles and pieces of the freshly broken mirror, and he picked up the half-torn books and threw them in the trash bag along with dark broken pieces of glass. A cloud of pain and depression was looming over him, threatening to pour with a vengeance. He wanted to remove every single trace of Liza from his presence, so he began the task of removing every single thing that reminded him of her from the room.

Within an hour he had managed to empty her closet and put all her stuff in a box ready to be sent wherever she was living. After that, he began to empty the side drawers and the dresser. While he was emptying one of the shelf’s which once contained Liza’s old stuff but now mostly contained the ripped-up photos, the remnants of their time together. He found an antique metal box and he wondered how it had managed to survive the storm of rage last night. There were beautiful ornate flower patterns engraved on the black metal, covering every visible surface of the box, and in the middle of the beautifully crafted network of these flowers sat a big green gem. He had never seen the box before, so out of curiosity he opened the lid of the box, and as soon as he did that dozens of letters came tumbling out. They were in every imaginable color. He wondered who had written these letters, maybe Liza’s lover with whom she had cheated on him, thinking about it made his blood boil, and once again the smaller part of his mind began whispering that ‘ maybe Liza was never at fault’. He grabbed a random pink-colored letter and opened it. That letter was dated six months back and in his Liza’s beautiful handwriting there was written

‘To,

Dear Jonathan’.

He closed it and grabbed another letter it was dated 2 years back and was again written to him, he opened many letters one after another hoping to find the proof that he desperately needed to justify that his Liza had cheated but each of the letter he had opened no matter when it was dated it was written to him and was signed as

‘Eternally in love with you,

Yours and only yours

Liza.’