This is the seventeenth part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX, Part X, Part XI, Part XII, Part XIII, Part XIV, Part XV, and Part XVI before continuing.
I was glad I had work to distract me from thinking about the two traitors, because when I wasn’t at work, it was pretty much all I could think about.
I practiced the grounding techniques my therapist had given me to avoid spinning out of control, but I couldn’t avoid the negative feelings altogether.
The two most important people in my life had stabbed me in the back. Not only was it impossible for me to just ignore that fact, but I needed to process this before I could move forward.
My mind kept going back to all the moments I had shared with them, separately and together.
All the intimate moments Randy and I had shared together. The times when I saw a version of him I assumed no one else had gotten to see. Had he been sharing all that with Nikki the whole time?
The times when Nikki had stood up for me, had encouraged me to put myself forward for that promotion. The movies and TV shows we had laughed and cried over together. The impromptu dance parties she would force me to partake in when she saw me stressing out over work or family drama. She always knew just how to lift me up when I was down.
Who was I supposed to go to now that Nikki was the one who had brought me down?
Then I would think of that fucking Instagram post and how long she must have been lying to me for her to be that far along already!
I had never felt so much rage.
It was all consuming.
I wanted to hit her.
I wanted to tear her to shreds with my bare hands.
I wanted to watch the light leave her eyes.
But fantasizing about hitting her only stoked the flames of my rage. I punched the air in front of me while imagining her face too many times to count, but that only made me angrier.
The relief came when I stopped imagining the process and went straight to visualizing the result.
Nikki with a knife sticking out of her chest, falling backwards over a cliff as she looks down at the knife handle sprouting from her rib cage, mouth hanging open in shock.
Nikki convulsing as blood pours from a gaping wound in her throat.
Nikki lying on her right side because there’s a knife sticking out of the left side of her skull (I am right handed after all). Her lifeless eyes are still open, staring past me as I survey my work with satisfaction.
That last one is the one that finally does it. Any time I feel the rage building and my pulse starts racing, I just bring up that image in my mind and it would calm me right down. Then I got the knock on my door.
To be continued…