Rehab/The End
When you’re so close to a person, you can’t see their dark spots,
their weaknesses, the things about them that aren’t as okay as you thought they
were. I don’t know when I started to see
that she wasn’t all that I imagined, that my mind made her out to be better,
more brilliant than she really was.
She would shoplift often and shot heroin into her veins. She smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and
nearly always had alcohol at hand. She
loved to boost cars from the rich and famous and go for joyrides. There were times, I am ashamed to admit, that
I went with her. She nearly stole Nick’s
car once before I realized whose home we were outside of, and I stopped
her. I think she was amused by my
loyalty to those I loved.
She would call my affections for my friends and loved ones silly
and childish. Pointing out to me all the
ways that having a wife and child were holding me back from what I could be or
do, she convinced me that I was better off without them. I believed her.
Where once I had taken joy in all the little things that Baylee
did as he grew, I quickly stopped caring.
When he took his first steps, I shrugged at Leighanne’s joy and walked
away. I would snap at both of them, even
my beautiful baby boy, when they did anything that bothered me. At that time in my life, everything they did
bothered me.
Baylee stopped wanting to go near me and screamed whenever I held
him, which became increasingly less often.
Because he became so upset, I stopped wanting to even be near him. Leighanne moved out of our bedroom and began
to sleep in Baylee’s nursery with him.
One night, I heard her weeping and begging God to bring the Brian she
loved back to her. I just shook my head
at her idiocy and went out to find the woman I needed. The woman whose very presence had become the
sole object of worth in my world.
***
As the months passed and the other guys began talking about
recording again, I didn’t want to participate in the talks. What did I care for that useless occupation?
I’d already made all the money I needed to keep me well-fed and provided for
the rest of my life. I didn’t want to go
out on the road again and be away from the woman I’d become addicted to. The guys noticed my reluctance and quit
calling.
It seemed that everyone in my life distanced themselves from me
then. Except her. And, right then, I didn’t care who I was left
with as long as she was beside me.
It wasn’t long before Leighanne decided to take matters into her
own hands. She is far more intelligent
than anyone gives her credit for, and she put those brains to use. She would give me forms to sign and say that
they were just bills, and the companies needed the original signer’s signature
for something or other. So caught up in
my addiction, I didn’t notice nor did I care what I signed.
All of my mistakes quickly began to catch up to me.
The first time I watched the object of my addiction take another
life, I was dumbfounded. Horrified. How could such a beautiful woman do something
like that to another person? The poor
teenager had only asked for an extension on his back payments, and she’d slit
his throat. When she noticed my jaw hit
the floor, she smiled and kicked the lifeless body aside.
“Don’t worry, babe. He’s in
a better place now where he won’t need the drugs anymore. He’s better off now.”
Though I brushed it off at the time, my mind would often wander
back to what I’d witnessed, and a part of me refused to let it go. I heard her kill three others after that
incident, and, by that time, the seeds of doubt had planted themselves in my
mind. Who was this woman that I’d been
dallying with for the last several years?
When I realized I couldn’t come up with any information about her,
except what I saw on the surface, I panicked.
She sensed it and, with those seductively calming words, she soothed my
fears. My misgivings were quickly forgotten.
The first time she threatened me with a giant butcher knife was
when she needed money, and I had none to give her. Usually, I didn’t care how much I was handing
over to her because I had more than enough to spread around. We stood next to the ATM machine and, when
the machine told me I had nothing, she went wild. Her eyes were full of unspeakable furor, and
the knife nicked my throat. Though I
eventually managed to calm her down, it was the first time that I honest-to-God
feared for my life.
I never put two and two together to realize that Leighanne had
effectively transferred our funds into another account where they would be safe
from my free hands. I don’t think I
would ever forgive myself if I had squandered away my family’s future on dangerous
games.
***
I knew things had to end the day she threatened Baylee. Leighanne had enough trust left in me to take
care of our son while she ran errands, but she hadn’t realized that I would
open our home up for a woman more lethal than the deadliest of poisons.
I had left Baylee playing in his playpen in order to get her
something to drink. When I came back,
she held my son in her arms, one hand clamped over his mouth. Her other hand held an army knife up to his
innocent throat. She wanted the money
that I could get for her, and she wanted it now,
she screamed at me. Even as I pleaded
with her to let Baylee go, every feeling that I’d ever had for her withered up
and died inside me.
Leighanne came home in the midst of the incident, and she nearly
had a heart attack. Instead of joining
me in begging for our son’s safety, she slid a .45 out of her purse. The oddity of the fact that Leigh had a
weapon at all never occurred to me at the time.
I watched, my mouth moving in silent prayer, as Leighanne calmly
demanded that Baylee be let go. Leigh
was incredible and had the other woman scared down to her toes. Even as she let Bay go safely and walked out
of the house, followed closely by my wife, who still had the gun trained on
her, she shouted at us.
“This isn’t over! You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. I know you, Brian. You’ll come back to me, crawling this
time. Then we’ll see who the winner is.”
After she’d left, Leighanne walked back into the house, ignoring
me, and took care of Baylee. As she put
away the groceries, she explained to me how things were going to be. I had two options, Leigh explained. One, I could file for divorce and let
Leighanne have custody of Baylee as she was obviously a more fit parent than I
was. Or, two, I had to rid myself of my
addiction and the woman who was at the center of it. Obviously, Leigh continued, she wasn’t going
to be easy to get rid of, but she was sure I’d think of something.
Faced with the idea of losing my family, I was suddenly struck by
how stupid I’d been. For the first time,
I realized that I really didn’t want to lose Leighanne and Baylee. I loved
them, had always loved them, even when I’d been fooled into thinking I loved
another. Standing there, in my kitchen,
I knew what I had to do.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the only way I could
protect the ones I loved.
***
I did go back to her, but I refused to crawl.
When I walked through her door, I saw the knowing smirk light her
face. Looking at her sitting in her
beloved armchair, I finally saw what I’d been blinded to all those years.
“I’m not here for what you think.
I’m here because I finally see you for what you are. You’re a dangerous, attention-seeking,
psychopathic, thieving whore with delusions of grandeur and far too many
addictions to count. It makes me sick to
think that I betrayed God and my family to follow you around like a
love-starved animal, but I’m done with that.
I’m done with you.”
She just smiled, and then she laughed. She laughed and laughed. She laughed the laughter that I’d once
thought so seductive but now thought of as maniacal.
“You’ll never be rid of me, Brian.
You can think all you want of me, but you’ll never be rid of me.”
“She’s right.”
I spun around to see Leighanne standing in the doorway. In her hand, she held that Colt that she’d
brandished just days before. What was
she doing here? Why had she come?
“Because I knew you wouldn’t do what was necessary to make sure
that we’d never have to deal with her again.
Brian,” she continued, her eyes and gun aimed at our archnemesis. “You
know what you have to do.”
I did, but I didn’t think I could do it. How could I? I became queasy at the sight of
blood, was terrified of heights, and hated needles despite having been poked by
them too many times to count.
It was when I looked away from my wife and over at her, that I saw
her expression. She knew I wouldn’t have
the guts to do anything. She knew, and
it galled me that this parasitic creature could understand me so well.
“Brian,” Leighanne called me again. “You know you have to do this. You have to end all of this. You brought her into our lives, and we’ll
never be free of her if you don’t end this right now.”
Leigh was right. I did
know.
Though my hands were shaking and my palms sweaty, I took my wife’s
gun and turned it on the woman I’d followed everywhere. The woman who I’d believed was the only one
for me. The woman I now knew was a
danger to my life and the lives of those I loved.
Even as she smirked at me, thinking me too weak, I pulled the
trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.
***
Jodi Rose
Blackwood.
I brushed my fingers lightly over the engravings in the slab of
marble that adorned the grave. I’d given
the woman who lay beneath far too much power in my life, and she’d nearly
destroyed me.
Once upon a time, I thought I wanted freedom, passion, and the
ability to do as I pleased. Jodi
fulfilled all of my desires and left me wanting more. She preyed on my thoughts, beliefs, and
loves. She came to know more of me than
I realized, while I knew nothing of her.
I stand before her grave, now, and thank God that I’d had the
strength to do what was right. While
taking another’s life had seemed an abomination to me before, I realized that
Jodi must have influenced me somehow.
Ironically, it had caused her demise.
Leighanne, my beautiful, strong, smart wife, had never registered
the gun I’d used to kill Jodi. She’d
paid for it in cash and had done everything possible to protect her family—what
I should’ve been doing.
No one will ever know of our crime nor do we ever speak of it with
each other. Baylee is nearly five now,
and I thank God everyday for the fact that he will grow up not wondering if his
father loves him. That he will never
have to wonder and worry where Daddy disappeared to this time and if he’s with
that woman again.
Jodi once told me that tomorrow was never a guarantee. At the time, I’d been afraid of dying in
surgery. Funny how, seven years later,
her words came true. Only this time, she
was the one six feet under.
The
End
***