I Like My Stuff
A short story based on a prompt by Wendy Cockcroft
This is a short story, inspired by Wendy Cockcroft’s March Madness, Day 6 Writing Prompt!
It started like a sea foam wave upon the shore. Covering my skin in soft salt, washing me clean of the past. Or so I thought.
He did everything right. Rides to work when my car got repossessed. He’d wait for me after, in the parking lot with coffee. Late nights, long walks, and shared dreams.
Then the truth came. One night he’d been drinking, “Yeah, Joe and I agree you’re not really my type…,” he said.
Why the fuck did I stay?
Because he begged me to, because he said he loved me, would do anything for me.
And at first, he did. He got a good job, for me, he said. We got the apartment I wanted, for me, he said. We built the house, for me, he said.
10 years and a bag full of fucks he’d never actually given later…
I lie in bed, drowning in an autoimmune disease sea of crushed dreams and empty promises I’d made my body to love it. A marriage, a job, and a life where I was just an installment. A laborer. Not really mine.
I said, “I need help. I think we need to buy something smaller so I can cut my hours, so I can be free.”
He said, “But I like things the way they are. I like my stuff.”
Three years. I’d been having this conversation with Jim for three years.
“You don’t listen. You just stare at my eyes until I’m done speaking, and then you repeat the same behavior not 10 minutes after our ‘conversation’. What am I supposed to do? Wait for you to change?”
Jim blinks twice. He looks away from me and starts clicking a fucking pen.
“No, I’m not. I’m not waiting for you anymore. I’m done. I want a divorce.”
Relationships have their own kind of horror. Nice!
It hits on what it’s like to feel trapped in a relationship that looks good on the outside but drains you on the inside. At first, you think it’s love, but in the end, it’s about realizing you need your own life and standing up for yourself...