Chapter 2
Seth


  One of those guys.
I promised myself I would never be one of those guys.  But I am.  I’ll tell you now that it’s a dehumanizing feeling.  Knowing that you are everything you hate and having to live with that.  I’m such a screw up.  Fuck, am I ever a screw up.
I never meant for it to be this way – I swear to God I never meant for it to be this way.  I’d never hurt her – I mean, I mean I never wanted to hurt her.  I just didn’t know what I was doing, I was stupid and careless and, and I know it shouldn’t have happened but it did.  
My hands are shaking and I feel sick.  I’m sweating like a pig.  I wring my hands.  My palms are cold and clammy but drenched in sweat.  I look around my totaled apartment.
After she went running I still had all this anger left I didn’t know what to do with.  It started with tearing down a poster, but I needed to destroy something and watch it smash, ripping paper wouldn’t cut it.  I threw my lamp at the wall, savoring the shattering glass and bent metal.  It wasn’t enough though – I needed more.  As I went about throwing picture frames at the floor and crushing them with my boots, I thought it was because it was still all about Angie, but once I moved on to flipping tables and kicking the shit out of furniture, I knew it was about me.  What I’d done was sinking in.  
Her blood was still on the dulled silver door handle.  
Before I knew it I was sitting here surrounded by broken glass and crushed clocks with sprawled gears.  I’d torn up my couch and my bed with a pair of desk scissors, demolished my glass coffee table and all my plates and coffee mugs, ripped the drawers from all their sockets, and torn up any paper I could find.  
I’m in a warzone of strips of paper, chipped wood, shattered glass and pottery.  
I deserve this.  I deserve to be destroyed.  I want my head to be in shards like all of this glass.  I’m the scum of the earth – an honest to God a repugnant human being.  The kind of pig your mother warned you about.  The kind of guy other guys all offer to rough up and gladly would.  I’m one of those guys.
There is a loaded gun in front of me.
I can’t stop seeing her face.  That horrified, surprised, indignant expression the first time I hit her.  The red on her cheek.  I don’t know why I didn’t back down right then – it was bad enough I laid a hand on her.  But I was in one of those moods – its like I’m not even me when I get so down.  I just couldn’t stand her harping voice and I wanted her to be quiet and leave me alone so when she spoke again I hit her again.  And again.  And when she tried to get away, I pulled her back and I hit her again.  I wanted to teach her a lesson about respect and authority and I only really realized what I was doing when I saw blood on my knuckles.
I let go of her right away and she slumped over the couch and just lay there for a minute.  I could smell the blood and suddenly I felt sick.  She didn’t move for an eon of a moment, and then she looked up at me.
Her nose was twisted and broken, bleeding heavily down into her mouth and mixing with the blood of her split lip. There was a big pink forming bruise on her cheek and her left eye was swollen but I’ll never fucking forget the look in her eyes.  She had this terrified pleading expression.  The worst part about it was it was the same look I saw time and time again on all those hunting trips with my Dad.  We’d shoot a doe, and then if she hadn’t died yet he’d let me shoot her or cut her throat up close.  But they used to look at me with that same victimized helpless expression.  
Oh God, I fucked up. I fucked up so badly, I can’t believe I fucked it up this bad.  I can’t believe I could do that.  I’m not a violent person, I can’t believe I did that to someone, let alone to the woman I love.  And I do love Angie.  With my heart and soul I adore her.  I don’t know how this happened.  I don’t know what made me do that.  I know she can never forgive me.  Even if she did I wouldn’t want her to.  That look in her eyes – that doe look – that is something I know I’ll see every time I close my eyes until the day I die.  I don’t fucking deserve to live, I’ve done something unforgiveable.  
I’m going to eat a bullet for dinner.
The world sure as fuck doesn’t need more of those guys.
I hope Angie comes to the funeral.
I hope Angie is okay.
I’m so sorry Angie.
I’m so fucking sorry.
Oh my God.
I’m so sorry.
I pick up the gun with clammy hands.
Close my eyes.
Open my mouth.
Click.