Reconciling at the End of the World

TW: Mentions of suicidal thoughts

  A light breeze ruffled Mike’s shirt as he passed the cigarette to Jessica, who tapped out the ash before taking a long drag. For a few moments he thought she’d stopped breathing until the smoke slowly flowed from her lips.

They sat on the hood of his beat up 1994 Jaguar in a deserted shopping center’s parking lot. The only company they had besides each other were the stars above and everything beyond.

“You know I always hated this car?” Jess brought the cigarette back to her red lips, letting the smoke billow from her nose like those dragons she used to be obsessed with drawing. She passed it back to Mike.

“I had a slight feeling.” The corner of Mike’s mouth twitched up. “But I could never put my finger on why.” As he inhaled the smoke, he remembered why he had been addicted for so long. Even now, somehow, it took some of the edge off. Cleaved the stress trying to blanket him right down the middle.

“Really?” She turned her head to look at him, eyebrow raised. Sometimes Mike used to ask stupid questions just to see her do it because he thought the ‘are you serious right now’ face was cute. “No clue?”

“I might have one. I’d rather just hear you say it though.” Mike added the last part quietly. He didn’t know why. He knew that now of all times in his life was not the time for mincing words. For mincing his true feelings. Their relationship had been on the ropes for years at this point, but these past few months had been so bad. He was happy, but surprised they were sitting here together.

Whether Jess heard him or not, she didn’t react. Instead, plucking the dying cigarette from Mike’s hand. “Well for starters, it’s ugly.”

“Oh, come on.” Mike rubbed the hood in a slow circle. “It’s okay. She doesn’t mean it.”

Jess leaned over until her face was inches from the hood. “I meant every word.”

“She’s not ugly! Jackie is just an… acquired taste.”

“People who say that just don’t want to outright admit that something’s ugly.”

Mike would never outright admit it. Jackie the Jaguar was his baby. The result of washing what had felt like a million cars for money to buy her when he decided he wanted to try and restore the beat-up car. So, a thousand dollars and a twenty-four case of beer later, he went home with Jackie, who actually needed a lot more work than he thought. He had decided not to work on the outside until everything inside had been fixed. So that left Jackie with faded, splotchy red coloring, rusted rims, a cracked windshield, a dent in the back, and a severely scratched corner of the hood. He ended up replacing the rims, but that was about it.

“It's loud, unnecessarily loud.” She chuckled. “Cramped in the front because you can’t adjust the passenger seat. It breaks down. Like, a lot.” She laughed a little harder. It made her shoulders bump into her hair. “And to top it all off, you wouldn’t let me drive it.” Jess rubbed the cigarette out on the hood, then tossed its remains to the ground below.

“So did you just forget about that incident with your mother’s SUV?”

Jess turned half her body this time, bare leg sliding across the hood. Even though the breeze swept a chill through the air, Jess had insisted on wearing her favorite dress. It was something close to burgundy, but not quite, and went down a little above her mid-thigh. The first time Mike had seen her in it he lost all rational thought and couldn’t speak because of how dry his mouth had gone. He still thought she looked gorgeous in it, but since their end was soon to be, he wanted to talk with her as much as possible.

“It was one time! One!” She held up her pointer finger to emphasize the fact that she only wrecked her mom’s only mode of transportation once.

“You also gave Jackie her second dent the day before.” Mike grinned, but at the time he’d been upset. Even though Jess had a track record, it was a short one. Mike couldn’t tell if that made it better or worse in her case.

“How did I end up the one under scrutiny here? Last I checked I was bad mouthing your car.”

“And you can bad mouth her all you want, even though I’d prefer you didn’t… but you have to admit, we had some good times in this car.”

Mike’s heart jumped when she raised her eyebrow again. “Oh really?”

“Well.” Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. One specific time comes to mind.” He flashed a devilish grin. He could see the wheels spinning in Jess’ head and the final click as the gears locked into place. Her mouth formed a giant O, and she playfully slapped him on the arm.

“You are such a child, Mike.” Laughter sat at the edge of her voice.

“Are you saying it wasn’t a good time?”

“There’s like no room in the back.” Jess turned around, holding her hand out to it as if she was showing off the car. “I’m sure I still have a few kinks in my neck because it was impossible to get into a comfortable position.”

“I’d like to believe we somehow had fun though.”

Jess’ eyes lingered on Mike before she faced forward again. Mike watched her for a moment, wondering what she was looking out at. What new details in their surroundings her eyes could pick out. He wondered what she would miss about their last moments together.

“Yeah. We did.”

“We used to have a lot of fun.”

“It’s easier to have fun when you’re young and have little responsibility. When the world isn’t hanging over your head.”

Mike winced. The feeling was all too familiar for them. Now, in the past, it didn’t matter. After they’d been married for a couple years every day felt like it could be their last. Like they were always one straw away from breaking the camel's back. One crack away from crumbling.

“Can you believe that we were the fun couple?” Mike laughed to himself. “People used to tell us we were perfect for each other just off that alone. The two brightest people in the room.”

Jess picked at the hem of her dress. “I guess it's only right that we eventually burned out then.”

“I don’t think anyone expected us to. At least now they’ll never have to know right?” Mike offered a sad smile.

“What happened to us, Mike?” 

Mike turned his head to give her his full attention, but she kept her eyes ahead. Mike followed suit even though he didn’t want to. He wanted to spend these last moments taking in Jessica Hamlin, the love of his life, even if he hadn’t always seen her that way. He felt foolish now, sitting next to her, having a more intimate discussion than they’d had in what felt like a lifetime, and not interrupting Jess to let her know about these feelings enveloping his body, clouding his mind, squeezing his heart. But he wouldn’t. Even at the end, some things just didn’t change.

“Everybody looked at us and saw the perfect couple they could only dream of getting close to,” Jess continued. “And for a while they were right. We were that couple. Sometimes I wonder if the pressure got to us.” Jess lightly swung her bare feet back and forth. “I think it got to me. I always felt so exhausted when we were in public or if we had company over or if just anyone else who knew us was around. I only really felt like myself when we were alone.”

“When we were alone was the only time we would argue,” Mike said.

Jess finally faced him again, using the side of her fist to wipe away a tear. “I know.” Her voice wavered. “I hate admitting it, but sometimes I got a thrill from it. Like I was arguing for the sake of not wanting to be deemed perfect. Not wanting to be this pinnacle for relationship success. This person on a pedestal for one half of the most perfect couple in town.”

There were times Mike had felt the same way. When he’d come home after work or from a get together he and Jess had both attended and just unload. It didn’t matter if nothing worth arguing over had happened. He had felt so sick of her that he would make anything worth arguing about. The style of her hair, how close she’d been to him throughout the event, whether she smiled too much or too little at him while people were watching, whether or not she had been eyeing anyone else. It had been his insecurities and the pressure in his chest finally erupting that fueled those shouting matches. That fueled the petty arguments that slowly wedged them further and further apart.

“I hate admitting it,” Mike said, “but a lot of those fights I started, I was hoping to push you just enough that you’d want to leave. I was so tired of the act. There was a time when I thought I could do it forever. Felt proud that I could do it forever. And because of that I didn’t want to be the one to end it. End us. I needed you to do it, but you just wouldn’t.” He laughed softly. “You just wouldn’t get rid of me.”

“You can partially thank my mom for that.” Jess started to play with her fingers. A ghost of a smile brightened Mike’s face. He found it cute that she still had these nervous habits. The leg swinging, the finger playing. He hadn’t seen her nervous in a long time. Just angry. “That night we talked on the phone before she passed, she made me promise to stay with you forever since you were the last person I’d have in my life. I agreed without thinking, but even if I had taken the time to think it over, I still would have promised her. Was I supposed to tell my dying mother no? Tell my favorite person that after she was gone, I wanted you to be too?”

“I had no idea…”

“But it ended up getting broken anyway, as you can see.” Jess chuckled, but there was no humor in it. Her and her mom were two peas in a pod. Best friends. All each other had after her dad left. Had Jess inherited her brown hair, she would have been the spitting image of her. Jess had inherited a lot of good from her, but some bad as well. 

Her mom had developed breast cancer and died from it. After the too late diagnosis, Jess had spiraled in the privacy of their home and the doctor’s office, imagining lumps that weren’t there, not believing doctors when they told her there weren’t any there. It was not a good time for her or them as a couple. Mike was sure his presence had only made it worse, more difficult to go through. He was either pitying her or arguing with her about not listening to the doctors. He’d even told her she was obsessed and that it was almost like she wanted to find something there. He’d felt the world shift at that moment. That was when the biggest crack to that date had formed in their relationship.

“I grew depressed from it,” Jess said. “And you probably think it’s a stupid thing to let depression swallow me over, but it was my mom. You knew how close we were. I’d always done everything she asked. And to not be able to do the thing I’m sure was most important in her eyes broke me.”

“Jess-”

“I almost ended it that night," she blurted, bringing her legs to her chest and resting her chin on her knees. “I had the pills cupped in my hand.”

Mike didn’t know what to do. What to say. Was there anything he could do? He wanted to hold her, something he hadn’t done in private in years, but his body wouldn't move. The shock from her statement had frozen him in place. He had to remind himself to keep breathing.

“I remember bargaining with them as they slid back and forth in my hand." Jess recreated the motion, tilting her left hand. "Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. As far as I was concerned, I had lost everything. No father. My mother had died and the man I once thought I’d spend the rest of my life with had finally left. What else did I have?”

Mike didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he rested them on his lap and stared at them as he slowly curled his fingertips to his palms. They almost didn’t feel like his own.

Their final fight had been particularly nasty. Jess had been laid off and was struggling to find another job. Bills had started to pile up. And right when there seemed like no way out from under them, Mike had been contacted by a collector who wanted his car. He wanted to take it and fix it up, the same thing Mike had said he would do.

After turning down his first offer of two thousand, he immediately upped it to ten. It was more than enough. Way more than enough. He knew that and so did Jess. But he’d had it for so long. For just as long as he’d known Jess. It was a part of him, and he didn’t want to let it go.

So, they shouted and yelled and screamed and raged at each other for a week before Mike finally hit his limit.

“If this is something you’re willing to take from me, something that you know I hold dear. Then fuck you,” he’d shouted, aiming a stiff finger at her tender form on the couch.

“No, fuck you, Mike. Sacrifices are a part of life, and you hate when anything doesn’t go your way. I’ve sacrificed for this marriage. For our life. I sacrificed my fucking sanity all these years trying to make this work. And I’m fucking sick of it! I’m so sick of it,” she’d said the last part just above a whisper. She’d met his eyes, and the realization in them mirrored his own, but he wasn’t going to let her say it first.

“Then we’re done,” he’d said.

“We’re done,” she’d said.

“Then get out of my house.”

Jess rose from the couch like a marionette, her movements jerky and unsure. She grabbed her wallet, a jacket, and slipped on her shoes by the door, never looking at Mike once.

When the door slammed and she was gone, Mike had crumpled.

Mike released a shaky breath and pulled his knees up to his chest, draping his arms across them, and resting his chin on his forearms. “I shouldn’t have done that.” His voice quivered. “I realized that as soon as you were gone. But I felt like I’d finally won. Like I’d finally done something right, and even though it was eating me up inside, it was feeding me at the same time.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I was going to tell you to leave but you beat me to it.” Jess looked over, eyes glistening, grin widening.

“I’m happy you’re still here.”

“When we first got the announcement, I wasn’t.” Jess craned her neck toward the stars. “Deciding in that moment to live had felt pointless. It felt like I’d made the wrong decision. My way would have been a lot simpler.” Jess sighed and moved some hair behind her ear. “But then you called and showed up in this stupid car.” She laughed through her last few words. “God I’d never been happier to see her.”

“You’re lucky I won’t be able to hold that over your head for much longer.”

Jess laughed harder, to the point where Mike couldn’t exactly tell if she was laughing, crying, or doing both. “It always comes back to this stupid car.”

“What do you mean?”

“That fundraiser we met at? Washing cars in the school parking lot to get money for new school supplies?”

Mike dove back in his memory but couldn’t pull anything out. “I’m not following.”

“It’s what gave you the idea to wash cars so you could buy this piece of junk.” Jess tapped her foot. “And you roped me into helping you.”

“Well, I wanted to spend more time with you. I just can't believe you actually said yes.” Mike laughed. “I would not have chosen to wash cars with some guy I only saw in the halls who kind of talked to me at a random school fundraiser.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t going to accept at first either, but something was pulling me to.” Jess chuckled dryly. “It sounds crazy, I know.”

“No. I get you. Maybe whatever it was brought me, you, and this stupid car together so that none of us would be alone at the end of the world.”

“Yeah.” Jess scooted next to Mike and rested her head on his shoulder. “I guess you’re right.”

Their phones dinged, but only Mike grabbed his. A pit opened in his stomach. It was their final warning.

“Time’s up?” Jess asked, surprisingly calm. Mike on the other hand had started to shake.

“Times up.” Mike wrapped an arm around Jess as they waited in silence, taking everything in one last time. Then the ground shook impossibly hard, and their world vanished in a wave of smoke.