May 9th, 2022: Dean

Dean: 21

That stupid velvet box sits right below my monitor, mocking me as Scarlette’s shrill voice echoes through the barren apartment. No pictures on the walls, no blanket casually over the back of the couch. No cheesy throw pillows. Everything is back to how it was before her and yet it feels emptier than it ever had. Scarlette tried, the first time she came over, she tried to bring life back into this little shell. She brought our old bed here; I moved the one I built for her out before Scarlette came in here. She tried taking pictures of us to get printed and hung, she complained I looked miserable and half dead in those pictures. She left all the pictures that had me in them, the nails still sat in the wall from when I took them down. I didn’t look dead in those pictures. 

Scarlette’s voice rings through the apartment again, calling my name and making me glad my gaming headset blocks out most of the noise. It took a while to get used to fully wearing the headset again after spending so long with only one ear covered so that she could talk to me while I was playing. How could I have thought I wasn’t happy? How did I think that the shrill over the top cheater in the other room would make me happier than she had. Scarlette comes around the corner from the kitchen, smoke following her out making me groan and leave the game after letting Jack and Ben know that I have to deal with something. 

“What did you do?” I growl at her while brushing past her, into the disaster of a kitchen. That one stupid pan she had whined and complained that she needed sits on the stove, smoke snaking around it, the once pale blue pan blackened. I twist the knobs to turn off the stove harshly, before turning to Scarlette who is already trying to force pathetic tears down her face, her bottom lip shaking. I shake my head and growl out “Get out before I’m back.” 

The door slammed hard behind me; the window built into it rattling. There are memories of her everywhere in that damn apartment, even that stupid door window. Her face on the other side of it was teasing me and sticking out her tongue when I got home from work, and she kept locking it before I could open it. Those soft brown eyes, her two-toned hair pulled into a big bun, that beautiful perfect smile that made her glow just for me. The way she kissed me when she opened the door, the way she loved me. Loved because I destroyed it, and her. 

Even this old truck holds memories of her. Scarlette might’ve gone with me to buy it, but she isn’t the one that spent hours with me while I fixed it, she isn’t the one that fell asleep laying across the bench seat on the way back from North Carolina. She isn’t the one that went mudding with me after helping install the lift kit, she isn’t the one that sprayed me with mud when we got stuck. She isn’t the one that has my initials tattooed along the sensitive skin on her panty line. 

Scarlette isn’t my moon, and she never will be. My moon is two hours away at her brother’s house, probably hating me and miserable today. I get out at the old run-down bar in town and give the bartender a fake smile before ordering a double, it’s Scarlette’s money anyway I shrug to myself while handing over the credit card to open a tab. I’m on my third drink when a girl with obviously dyed firetruck red hair comes up to me, giggling and casually touching my arm. 

“Do you work out a lot?” She yells over the music, getting far too close to my face while her hand stays on my arm. She had bright red hair like that when we got back together. I slowly shake my head to answer the girl’s question. I did for a while, my girl likes arms and scratching up my back and being thrown around in bed. 

“I can go if you want, I just thought you were cute and now that I’m here I think your eyes are gorgeous!” She yells again but backs up slightly, more sober than I am. I’ve been drunk for the last week straight, for the most part. 

“You don’t have to.” I tell her slowly while half turning towards her. She is gone, why not have fun at least. The girl continues to touch my arms, chatting away while I only half listen. Her lips are too big for her face, and her nose isn’t the dainty little one I miss watching scrunch so much. This girl has plain brown eyes with no glow or green speckling through them, and her muddy brown roots don’t have the natural highlights that her hair used to. 

I barely get the question out before the petite girl is agreeing to get into my truck, letting her rub my thigh, touch my arms, rub along my shoulders. She finally shuts up when the bass from a Five Finger Death Punch song shakes her seat, the volume high enough I couldn't have heard her if she didn’t shut up anyway. I lead the girl up the stairs, not looking at the window as I unlock the door, my hands shaking slightly as I do. Scarlette is curled up in the corner of the couch when I come in with the petite redhead holding my arm tightly. Did she tell me her name? Do I care if she did? No. The redhead stops giggling when she catches sight of Scarlette and steps away from me. 

“I told you to leave.” I force out, my voice low and slow. “Was I not clear enough?” 

“It was a pan, Dean. Are you really going to break up with me and kick me out over a pan after you bought me an engagement ring?” her voice is so high pitched and whiny, how did i ever deal with the self centered bitch sitting there? Break up with her? I never asked to be with her- engagement ring? 

“You touched the fucking ring?” Deadly calm swirls around me and Scarlette nods while rolling her eyes. I turn to the redhead I brought here and demand she leave. She wisely doesn’t protest and scurries back out the door I just brought her through. 

“It doesn’t fit me anyway, you got it too small.” Scarlette huffs while standing and coming to stand nearly toe to toe with me. She keeps ranting, but my eyes focus on that small velvet box back on my desk but over by my mouse now. Scarlette pushes against my chest trying to get my attention, my hand lashes out quickly wrapping around her throat. 

“It doesn’t fit you because it will never be yours.” I whisper, dragging her closer to me with that hand tight on her throat. “You are scum, and I would never buy you a ring, let alone marry you.” 

She claws at my hand, and I squeeze tighter before dropping her to the ground and squatting beside her. “You are nothing but a wet hole Scarlette, I suggest you remember that and stop acting like I give a fuck about you. You ruined my life, you pushed and pushed until I gave up the woman I love, the only woman I have ever loved. You are nothing Scarlette, nothing but a whore that I only allowed to be here for my own wants. You touch that ring again I will snap your useless neck, you touch anything of hers and I will fucking bury you.” 

The words are quiet and Scarlette whimpers while nodding, not able to meet my eyes. I loop my fingers through the hair on the back of her head gently curling my fingers through it and pulling her head to look at me. “Why are you here Scarlette?” 

“Because I love you.” she whimpers the words, tears streaming over her cheeks. I let out a smile at that, not the soft genuine smile that I had given to her but a deadly sinister smile. 

“Make yourself useful or I will make myself your worst nightmare.” I tighten my grip on her hair forcing her to look at me. “Understood?” She quickly nods, wincing with the movement. I let go of her, standing and grabbing that velvet box before going into the bedroom making it clear she isn't welcome to join me by slamming it harshly behind me. 

“This isn't me, Lor. I hate this person, I hate her, I hate what I turned us into.” I whisper barely audible after opening that safe still beside the bed. Pulling out the stack of frames sitting there and sitting with my back against the side of the bed. Everything I have left of her is in this safe, every letter she had written to me, the pictures of us she had left on the walls, the stack of photos she had printed to start a scrapbook for us. My favorite photo on the bottom of the pile, I hold that one longer staring at her smile and the way she was looking at me. Ben took the photo on new years, we went over to his house together and right at new years everyone else kissed, but she went red like she is in the photo and scrunched up that little nose even as she smiled. Ben got the photo right before I kissed her, that smile still stretching across her face, the dark green stone glittering on the hand she had put on my face. “I love you princess.” 

I sat there a while looking through the small photos too, pausing on a photo of us on her birthday last year. I choked while whispering, as tears started down my face. “Happy birthday baby.”