The Tens, Vanessa Jones [i like reading books .TXT] 📗

Well beyond home time, Sophia did not spot Alex making his way towards his designated car park. Which she realised now, was empty and had been the entire afternoon that she sat cramped up in the driver's seat, breathing her own fetid breath, staring at his office window.

She gives Maria, the receptionist, one last call.

‘Hello, IT Associates, how may we help?’

‘Hi Maria, it’s Sophie. Is Alex in yet?’ Her voice sounds foreign to her.

‘Sophie, he hasn’t been in for a few days and definitely not all day. Please stop calling.’ Maria hung up on her and she felt the coldness of the phone click off. There wasn’t an ounce of worry in Maria’s voice. She clearly knew something about Alex’s decision that Sophie didn’t.

Could Alex be in danger? She couldn’t think why.

The thought of going to the police made her stomach churn. The last time she was at a police station was as a child, wrapped in a stiff grey blanket. That’s all she can remember of the time she lost her parents. The blanket was as unyielding as a side of a cardboard box and wrapped around her just as awkwardly.

No, she thought to herself, the police can wait. Besides, he left a note. He wouldn’t have left a note, if he was in any kind of trouble. How embarrassing it would be to go to the police when really, her husband had just not wanted to be married to her anymore. The humiliation flicked at her like a snake’s tongue.

Sophie’s legs felt like cement as she mindlessly pumped them, alternating between the brake and accelerator and headed back to her empty cave all whilst coming to the realisation that he wasn’t at work and he wasn’t at home. The life they had weaved together started to unpick in her mind as she faced that he clearly just didn’t want her anymore. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left her with such a pathetic half-assed note.

Driving home was a sort of exhilaration, the shock creating an adrenalin bomb that made Sophie ill and excitable and she giggled with the absurdity that her love was no longer her love. She deliriously giggled all the way into the shower, where she tried to strip a layer of her skin off with the hottest the shower water could get. And just as quickly as the hysteria had started, it stopped. She screamed his name into the cold, glossy teeth of tiles. The wail bounced back at her from the reflective surface and reflected back her pain. This was just the beginning of, what she assumed would be, unbearable heartache. And she was scared.

CHAPTER SIX

It didn’t take long for Sophie to begin to plummet. It wasn't living alone that saw her change. Sometimes she doubted it was even the fact that the love of her life had abandoned her. It was as if something greater was happening to her. Something that had been threatening to break the banks her entire life, undulating underneath the surface of her skin and she had been clever and strong enough to keep it at bay, really well in fact, until now. Emotional distress had taken off a layer of her armour and now she was exposed without an inner barricade to keep back that torrent of emotional sludge. Whatever it was, it was confusing and unrelenting and she did not know where to put it.

Sophie’s senses started to shut down, one by one. Not shut down as such, just... dissolve. What they could once easily and unnoticeably tolerate, they now revolted against. An olfactory alteration first. Always a lover of scents, the mysticism and romanticism of smells transfixed Sophie. She could smell when something was cooked to its best through a deep inhale, could identify the components of anyone’s favourite perfume and her life was incomplete without a scented candle burning. Although it had started before Alex had left, it came at her with full force in his absence. Petrol, perfume and certain foods were the enemies. The tang of the creamy, yet artificial, coconut shampoo that she’d used for more than a decade was too pungent and she was forced to rinse her hair in benign liquid that could only be bought at weekend sunrise markets. Even the sting of toothpaste became too much. Which threw her because somehow, as if they sensed her inner decay, her gums became tight and began retracting as fast and as far away from where they normally sat. The rate at which she was grinding her teeth down served only to exacerbate the problem. If she pushed her tongue— had it always taken up this much room in her mouth?— into the cushions of gum that filled the space between her teeth, a foul taste would emit, like a citronella collar on a barking dog.

Her behaviour became obsessive to curb the daily peeling back of her identity. Seven minutes exactly in the shower; she timed it. One slice of cheese, one slice of tomato, one slice of pineapple from a tin and two leaves of iceberg lettuce, all salted with a violent shake of the salt shaker. This constituted her midday and evening meal. Introducing any new items of food made her stomach curl over itself.

Her nights were filled with splotchy sleep: she took half a pill after dinner, to assure herself she'd be okay, at least until midnight when she would routinely wake up, flick on the TV and watch harmless reruns, often the same episodes so there were no surprises, no nasty little hidden plots that she couldn't handle. The sound of her TV friends would lull her into a half-sleep for a few hours, when she would wake up startled from the nightmare and repeat the process until light broke through the curtains. Morning break was the worst part of her day. At least sleep