4The rain fell, kissing her tears, washing them away. The girl stood there, staring in shock, as her life drove away. She had loved him, sacrificed some of her wants for him, and married him. She had tried not to be the nagging wife; she had been a good wife. He left her. Said there was another woman. That he had never truly loved her in the first place. That she was too boring. He loved the other woman. So she stood out in the rain, crying, because she no longer held his affection, crying of a broken heart.
The years pass. She goes through life as an emotional mess, obsessing over him, wondering where he is, where the other woman is. None of her thoughts or feelings show on her face, she keeps them bottled inside. She works at a grocery store sometimes as a cashier, sometimes as the person who put the goods where they belong, always being polite to the customers, but never making eye contact. She changes: she dyes her hair, buys colored contacts, renovates her wardrobe, and finally clears up her acne.
One day, he comes to her register. He does not recognize her, but she remembers him. It is near the end of her shift, so she cuts out and follows him as he leaves. He gets into a silver Beemer and pulls out of the lot. She follows on her bicycle, losing him a few times, but always managing to find him again. He turns into a driveway. It goes on and on, almost for forever. She follows, peddling her bicycle, her calves burning. They come to the end of the driveway. He pulls into the garage; she hides herself behind the superlative shrubbery that surrounds the mansion. Once she's certain that he has entered the house, she creeps up to the windows, determined to have a look. She is pulled like a magnet, unable to resist. Peeking through the pane, she sees him kissing his wife, the other woman, and hugging his son. She is filled with rage. That could have been her, she could have had the family, had him. It should have been her, not this other woman who stole him while they were still married. But that isn't her; instead, she lives in an apartment with rats in the walls and no hot water.
She goes up to the door, determined to see him, to speak to him, to meet this woman who he likes more than her. She rings the bell and waits, fingering the box cutter she carries. It is sharp, more than sharp enough to do the job. The other woman answers, she is tall, a brunette, sexy. She sees why he left her for the other woman. She cannot compare herself to the other woman in any way; the other woman is way out of her league. She asks the other woman if she may speak to her husband. The other woman says certainly and moves aside, letting her into their dwelling.
The other woman leads her to him. He looks older, with grey hairs beginning to show and more maturity in his face. She looks at him, studying his features, committing them to memory, then whips out her box cutter and slashes his throat, his blood splattering over her face. He falls to the floor: lifeless eyes open in a state of shock, body and face contorted in pain. The other woman screams, hugging her son close. She turns to the other woman, and does the same to her. The other woman collapses, losing her grip on her son, her fluid of life pooling underneath her.
She turns on his son. The boy cowers, then looks up at her, his fear showing through his eyes. "Why?" he asks. "Why do this?"
She hesitates, not prepared for the question, then answers. "This should have been mine, you should have been mine. He should have been mine. But he dropped me and gave it all to her, your mother." The boy glances at the floor, not understanding, and she feels her heart quail, it doesn't want to kill his child. Then her head takes over, the boy must die. She moves then, striking with lighting speed, though it seems to her like slow motion, cutting across his throat, destroying his life. He too falls to the floor, joining his parents in their eternal sleep.
She pivots, not looking at the bodies on the floor, and glides out of the mansion. It is raining outside. She takes her box cutter and holds it up to the rain, letting it cleanse the blade of blood. Looking at the grey edge, she makes a final decision. With two quick strikes, she slits her writs. As her blood drains out, she spins in a circle and laughs, the first truly happy sound she has made since he left her. The world tilts around her and she lands on the concrete, still laughing hysterically. Taking some of her blood, she draws teardrops under her eyes, and the rain falls, kissing her tears of blood, washing them away.