Jonathan winced as he woke up, the cream curtains of the window were wide open and sunrays were directly shining on him, blinding him for a moment before his eyes adjusted to the light as he blinked. He looked around room, the antique vase that his wife no ‘ex-wife’ he reminded himself had adored so much was now lying broken on the floor.
The book shelf which was once filled with her favorite books was now nearly empty with one or two books lying here and there, rest of the books were either torn in half and were lying on the floor or they were burned and were now nothing but ashes. The photo frame holding a picture of him and Liza gazing at each other was now broken and shards of glass were strewn across the floor and the picture itself was now ripped just like his heart.
He wondered where the love which was filled in the eyes of the man and woman gazing at each other in the picture had faded away leaving nothing but a blank look. The pain of betrayal had crushed his soul; it had cut him deeper than any knife could. Along with agony his soul was feeling, came throbbing ache of his head. He winced once again as his head ached and he remembered exactly why Liza hated alcohol as he took in the sight of broken beer bottles lying on the floor .
He put on his slippers and managed to go to the medical cupboard in the bathroom, dodging the pieces of glass, to save himself from more pain. He took out an Advil and swallowed it with tap water, not caring whether it was clean enough for drinking or not. He splashed some water on his face and stared at man in the mirror. He had dark circles, his skin was pale in color and there were some bruises on his face from the fight at bar, his clothes were crumpled, in short he was a mess.
Last night had been hell for him, after throwing Liza out of his house he had drunk himself to oblivion, he had gone to the dimly lit bar and had drunk enough tequila to surpass the amount of blood in his body. When the owner of the bar had thrown him out because it was past the closing time, he had emptied his stash of liquor too. It was a miracle that he had not suffered from alcohol poisoning. When he had entered the bedroom the previous night all the memories of his beautiful Liza and all the moments they had shared in that room came crashing down on him but along with them came the betrayal.
He wanted to forget her, but all he could see was how she looked when he told her that he wanted divorce, her deep chocolate eyes were rimmed from red, her brown hair were tangled, her usually smiling face was expressionless and although he knew that she cheated he still felt guilty that he was the one who put Liza in that state, ‘How do you know for sure that she cheated on you?’ asked a small voice in his head.
He believed what he saw, he had heard her talk in hushed whispers to someone late in night, he had seen her sneak out of the house, he had witnessed her nervous behavior whenever he asked her about who she was talking to, he had seen her hug someone else and had seen that someone kiss her forehead and yet the small voice in the back of his mind kept telling him that ‘maybe Liza is innocent, maybe she never cheated’ but the larger part of his mind shut that voice. He believed what he saw, and even though he wished he never saw it, he couldn’t ignore it.