After Prudence Jenner tore up our marriage certificate for the eighth time over that male assistant of hers,
I didn't go with her to file for a replacement.
Instead, I posted the chat logs between her and the assistant online.
Then I turned around and checked myself into the cancer center.
Prudence came racing to the hospital, clutching my stomach cancer diagnosis.
"If you die, I'll die with you."
I took it for a joke.
But afterward, she really didn't leave my side.
She even sold her company, dragging my three-month prognosis out to three whole years.
The day I learned there was no saving me,
I meant to go and talk her into letting go.
Instead I overheard her talking with a girlfriend:
"Ms. Jenner, there was a doctor who could actually treat his condition. Why did you turn him down eight times in a row?"
"The biopsies every day keep him alive, sure, but they're agony for him."
Prudence gave a cold laugh.
"Agony is good. Otherwise how do we make up for the three years of online abuse Will went through?
"Will has depression. Because of those chat logs, he nearly killed himself.
"And Vincent Delgado had nothing worse than a few minor ailments, yet he faked stomach cancer to drive Will to his death. If that's how it is, then let him feel what it means to wish you were dead."
Her friend nodded.
"That's fair. Will grew up with no one to love him, no one to care, and Vincent had everything and still had to go head-to-head with him.
"All because Ms. Jenner tore up one piece of paper, he dragged Will's name through the mud all over the internet.
"It's not like it can't be reissued. Who knows what he was making such a fuss about."
Prudence smiled.
"If he were really sick, I'd have followed him into the grave without a second thought.
"But using a fake illness to back me into a corner? I'm not that easy to fool."
I stood outside the door.
The corner of my mouth lifted.
Prudence.
You'd better mean what you say.
...
I didn't let Prudence know I was there.
I just turned and went back to the hospital.
Signed my discharge papers.
The young nurse who'd cared for me all this time saw me out with red-rimmed eyes.
"Vincent, Ms. Jenner sold the marital home. Where are you going to stay?"
I gave a faint smile.
"Probably still the marital home, I'd say."
The nurse blinked, thrown.
My smile deepened.
"These three years. Thank you."
Standing at the door of our home,
I gripped the old key tight in my hand.
Prudence had sold this place two years ago to pay for my treatment.
By now the locks should have been changed long ago.
And yet I had a feeling.
The door would open.
I slid the key in.
Sure enough.
The door opened.
The layout was exactly as it used to be.
Spotless.
Which meant someone had been living here these past two years.
On the shoe cabinet in the entryway sat two pairs of matching rabbit slippers, his-and-hers.
Custom-printed with the names of the man and woman of the house.
Will, Pru.
Hubby, wifey.
The sappy little names had William Simmons written all over them.
I paced through the living room.
Every trace of me was long gone from this place.
The water cups, blue.
The bedsheets, blue.
Even Prudence's desk
had been draped in a blue cloth.
Prudence hated blue more than anything.
Sure enough.
She had never sold the place.
She just hadn't wanted me coming back.
Coming back to disturb the love nest she shared with another man.
On the storage rack sat the baseball bat she used to play with.
I picked it up.
And with every ounce of strength I had,
I swung it hard into the glass display case in front of me.
The Pop Mart figures William collected shattered all over the floor.
The blue water cups.
The blue desk.
Everything blue.
Glass cut open my arm.
This dying body had reached its limit.
I leaned on the bat, breathing hard.
"Vincent Delgado!"
The door swung open.
Prudence stared at the wreckage covering the floor.
