Dear Mickey, That's Me!

An old, run down house in the city of Boston. There are missing shingles on the roof, broken shutters on the windows, and a crooked burn red door, barely hanging on its hinges for dear life. Megan lies in solitude in her bed for another night without her fiancé, James. She lies in the wake of destruction after yet another monumental fight with him. The two have been engaged for roughly three years with not set date to be wed in the foreseeable future, for their relationship has taken a turn for the worse.

Megan and James have always been rather violent with each other however they have always been there for each other and are irrevocably in love. The magnitude of the fights have greatly escalated this past year after James’ life has began to spiral out of control. After being fired from his job at the factory, he started to drink heavily, and since he is cash poor, he has turned to a life of thievery and crime. James has stolen countless bottles of vodka and rum from the downtown liquor store, and has been on probation for the past eight months due to several other misdemeanors.

Megan is distraught with James’ recent behavior and this has caused the couple to clash. One day the two are screaming until blood vessels break in their faces, the next neither of the two speaks a word. James will push her, Megan will slap him, and neither will admit they’re wrong. The relationship is clearly unhealthy for the both of them. However, even through all of the silence and all of the violence, all the loudness and all the proudness, neither of the two will ever leave the other.

The sunrise is just breaking over the horizon as James stumbles up to the front door. Absolutely reeking of jagermeister and tequila, he fumbles through his keys for roughly five minutes before finally finding the correct one for the door. Trying to remain quiet, he slowly enters through the foyer and heads up stairs to the bedroom. Unbeknownst to the other, both Megan and James had the preconceived notion that they would continue on this week by simply pretending last night’s fight never occurred. Unfortunately for them, this day would forever live in infamy in their lives.

James walks into the bedroom, strips off his T-shirt, and gets right into bed with Megan. He lies down and puts his arm over her. Megan wakes up for a quick second and feels James’ warmth on the body. Although she can clearly smell the alcohol on him, she is just glad he’s home safely. Not facing him, she smiles, grabs his hand and goes right back to sleep. All is right in Megan’s world.

They sleep soundly in the same bed together for the first time in a week. Several hours pass and the alarm clock on Megan’s side of the bed goes off.

“Beeep, beep beep. Beep, beep, beep.” She wakes up and reaches over to shut it off. She presses the button marked snoozed to stop the beeping noise, then lies awake in the same position she had for the past few hours. Minutes later, she decides to make James some breakfast. She heads to the kitchen and turns on the stove in order to prepare his favorite thing to eat. Scrambled eggs and bacon. She goes back to the bedroom to wake up James. As she reaches over the bed to nudge Jams, she catches a mark on James’ hand out of the corner of her eye. She takes the hand and flips it over to the backside. There appears to be words written in marker but slightly smudged due to water.  Megan squints her eyes as she tries to make out the words. After some time of deliberation, she finally realizes what the message says.

“Call me whenever. Love Rachel. 857-935-6797.” Megan reads that message over in her head a thousand times. Her heart sinks. Her anger accumulates. And she is more enraged with James than ever before. She throws his arm off of her and screams. Startled by the scream, James is abruptly woken.

“You son of a bitch!” Megan screams at the top of her lungs. She jumps on top of him and starts swinging at his face. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! How could you do this to me?” She starts uncontrollably crying as she yells and attempts to strike James in the face.

“What the-“ He is cut off by a swift blow to the jaw. “Shit! Ow! What are you talking about?”

“Asshole! I hate you!” She continues to yell in pure anger, ignoring every word he tries to say to her. James confused and frustrated, throws Megan off of him and consequently off the bed with all his might. She hits the floor with tremendous force. She bounces right up and lunges at him once more.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He shouts at her as he continues to dodge her punches. Finally he is able to grab her arms and swing her down onto the bed. “Are you ready to calm down now?” Again, ignoring his comments she spits right into his face. He gets off and whips his face as Megan savagely walks towards the door. “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!” he demands.

“ I’m done. I’m leaving you,” she says.

“Oh no you don’t,” he yells as he grabs her wrist. She turns and swings at him once more. “Where is this coming from? What’s going on?”

Finally she answers him. “Check your hand.”

He looks down and realizes what is going on. Unfortunately for James, he does not recall any of the events from the previous night aside from a small forty-minute window of time at the bar. “Who is that slut?” Megan shouts.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh Really? Than what is it?” James is incapable of. “That’s what I thought,“ she turns and attempts to walk out the door. Now fully enraged, James grabs Megan and throws her up against the wall.

“I didn’t fucking do anything!”

“How could you lie to me like that? I trusted you! I-“

“Shut up!” He screams at her. Remarkably, she slips out of his tight grip and pushes him back into the end table. He jumps up at her and throws a punch. Megan ducks under his fist as it bursts through the wall. Now petrified of him, Megan runs down the stairs to the front door but quickly behind her is James. Once again, he stops her and puts his hands on her neck. Struggling to find air, she instinctively knees him in the stomach. She retreats from him once more and heads to the bathroom and locks the door. James begins screaming and throwing everything in the kitchen. Plates, chairs, pots, and pans. As Megan sits locked in the bathroom hysterically crying, James throws the chair she ritualistically sits in for dinner through the gas oven to spite her.

“I’ve never done anything to you, alright!” he yells. “Why can’t you trust me? I am good to you, I take care of you, I love you, Megan!” Just as he finishes his sentence, a grease fire breaks out from the stove Megan left on and it catches the broken gas line from James’ angry rage.

“Oh shit!” He immediately starts rifling through drawers and cabinets trying to find the fire extinguisher. Nowhere to be found. At this point the fire is raging and spreading through the entire kitchen. James realizes his only hope of survival is to get out of the house before the fire causes it to collapse.

As he heads to the front door, he remembers Megan is still locked in the bathroom. Without thinking, he runs back to the bathroom.

At this point, Megan is aware of the situation due to the smoke coming through. The windowless bathroom causes it to become a hot box and she is drifting in and out of consciousness. James rams into the door several times to get Megan out. Finally he musters up enough strength to ram down the door. He scoops her up and runs out the door. He sets her down on the front lawn. She is disoriented, but awake and okay. The couple stand up and watch their house burn in chilling silence. Without diverting their attention from the house, they reached for the other’s hands, filling the space between each other’s fingers with their own…