Tears (Flash Fiction)

Smoke stings her eyes and her cheeks pop several times as air fills her mouth and she coughs. A single droplet rolls across her left cheek; she shudders lightly as the salty tear hits her lips. Bryan smudges the tear from her cheek with his thumb.

“Sorry love”

“That’s okay,” she says unconvincingly.

“Karen, you know I love you, right?” She nods and forces a half-smile at the same time as he leans over to kiss her and paws at her love handles. Is this really what it has come to? A fuck and a fag. Pretending that she doesn’t find his nicotine breath and sweaty rolls repellent. Maybe she even finds him repellent. But hey, ‘We are in love. The dream couple. Karen and Bryan.’

She looks down at his arm across her paunch. “I have to go away this weekend.”

“Oh? You didn’t say.”

She retorted quickly, “It was very last minute. Honestly, I didn’t think you would mind.”

“It’s fine”

Saying nothing, after a momentary pause, he flung the cover off his lower body, flipped his legs around and stood up. He swung his right arm down towards the floor and grabbed his dressing gown in one fell swoop. In the blink of an eye, the dressing gown appeared to magically wrap itself around his body and the belt be secured in a decisive knot around his rippled waist.

“Where are you going?”

“Out!”

As the door slammed, Karen’s body sunk deflated into the bed. She turned her body away from the bedroom door, wrapped the duvet around her chest tightly, scrunched up like she was hugging a baby. She lay there wondering how she had found herself in this predicament. The warm trickle of tears tumbled down her face. She could feel her nose congesting with snot. How could a girl feel so in love and yet so alone? As she sobbed, she heard the click of the front door shutting behind him.