The Final Score: When The Wife Walks Away

line

s a blur of streetlig

glass, heavy and impossibly awkward. My shoulder bu

s dark when I ke

tale air and ex

ogic dictated that I should h

eeded t

f my crutches squeaking obnoxiously against

o the stud

pilled onto the floor, cu

d the d

was

g the next takeover for the Outfit,

, his tie undone, his shirt unbuttoned at t

allan 25 lay on its si

as a

asse

my tibia shooting up my th

he lines of cruelty that usually b

remembered the man who used to bring me coffee in bed

he sh

urrowed in

." he

fr

the cushion, seeking com

d, his voice slurred and th

balancing precario

e," I wh

A stupid, mas

t open h

e?" he m

," I

vy sigh. It sounded li

nto the silence of the roo

er than the ceiling b

pt

hat I wa

n't a wife. I was a vacan

turning his br

s shoulders, watching the slo

ther s

t wasn't an explosion lik

a balloon string being cut, letting the

feel angr

't fee

t not

d to th

er and pulled out the

to the l

hake. My handwri

five p

our lif

re:

ed the

hone I had taped under the bott

ed the

, my voice steady as steel. "Ini