Kevin Strange's Blog: Strange Sayings - Posts Tagged "breakups"

I, and many authors before me have chosen, after enough time and reflection have taken place, to roll the events and personalities of extremely traumatic experiences, such as a bad breakup, into their fiction. Giving your work that little bit of spice, or oomph by using difficult and emotionally challenging truths can sometimes mean the difference between writing a cool story, and writing a story that just connects perfectly with your audience.

The last time I went through a bad split, I wrote what I still consider to be my most emotionally profound piece. When people read this story, a lot of times they come back to me and tell me they've dated a girl JUST like Jessica, or know someone who has. The character has the life and the vividness she does because I took dialogue straight out of real conversations and situations between myself and my ex girlfriend, and transplanted them into the story. Jessica is the fictional version of a very real girl that I loved very much.
It was extremely cathartic for me to get these emotions down on paper—to use allegory and create monsters out of my fears and insecurities for my main character to do physical battle with. The satisfaction I felt after finishing this story is something I'm still chasing to this day.

Here are the first few pages of “I Killed Jessica Again” for you to enjoy. It's the cover story for my upcoming short story collection “Murder Stories for your Face Meat”. I'll include a link to the entire story as a downloadable PDF. If you like the excerpt, please download the story. If you like the story, please leave me some comments here or on my FB or Twitter. It's a powerful piece. I'd like to know how it affects you.



I killed Jessica Again
by Kevin Strange

I didn't mean to kill Jessica that night, not the first time, anyway. It just sort of happened. I know that sounds like bullshit, but it's the truth. Let me explain how it all went down.

Jessica and I dated for over a year. She was quite a score, let me tell you. I'm not what most people would consider an attractive man. I'm about 5'9", heavyset, bald, and pushing 30.

Jessica, on the other hand, was a platinum blonde, 5'0", hundred pound beauty. She had sky blue eyes and the kind of voice that would melt any man's heart. Toss in a killer bubble butt and a wicked smile, and you have yourself a recipe for disaster, my friend.
What she saw in me, I'll never know. My friends, her friends, they all flipped out when we hooked up, but not nearly as much as I did. I couldn't believe I was fucking that woman.

I wouldn't say that things went downhill quickly. I mean, we had some great times. Jessica was always up for an adventure. Our favorite thing was to pick a random campground from the internet and just drive to it to spend the weekend fucking, sucking, canoeing, hiking, cooking meals over the camp fire, swimming in lakes...you get the idea. Man, those were good times. Too bad good times don't last forever.

Things started going bad for us when I began to talk about marriage and kids. I was ready to settle down, but Jessica was still right in the middle of her twenties, still wanting to party, flirt, and raise hell. She started lying to me about where she was going and who she was going with. I got jealous. Really jealous. We fought all the time. I caught her cheating on me. Twice. But was I going to do? Leave her? I'll never land another piece of ass like that. Not with my glory days behind me. So instead, she left me.

I'd be foolish to say I wasn't devastated. One day she was there, cooking dinner, talking about bills, and the next she was gone. She had all of her stuff moved out while I was at work one day. Just like that. Within a week, I heard she was hooked up with some hot shit bartender from the city who was 6 years younger than me. I, on the other hand, was hooked up with a fifth of Jack in each fist and a stack of pictures of Jess and me.

I don't think I came out of the apartment for a month. I lost my job, 20 pounds, and most of my friends, who got sick of my near-hysterical drunken phone calls at 3am begging them to call Jessica for me and talk some sense into her.
My life sucked for about 6 months, for real. But, like most heartbroken losers, I eventually picked myself back up, burned all those pictures, and started to put my life back together again.
That's when Jessica came back. It started as a phone call. She wanted to tell me that the bartender had hit her and that she'd left him, but he wouldn't leave her alone. She asked me if she could crash at my place for a few days until it blew over. Like the chump I am, I agreed. I, of course, thought she missed me, missed us, wanted me back, wanted to come back to my place to make up...I was wrong.

The first night, I tried to talk about what went wrong with our relationship, but she told me she just wanted to take a hot bath and relax after the fight she'd had with Mark (that's the bartender). The second night, before I could even get a word in edgewise, she asked if she could borrow some money from me, then went out all night. She didn't come back 'til the next morning. The third night, I killed her.

I had no intention of doing it, I want to be clear on that point. By now you should understand that I loved Jessica. I was captivated by her. Under her spell. That morning, when she came in, I was angry. I started yelling at her, but she ignored me and went to bed in my room. In my bed. She looked like she'd been rode hard and put away wet. She probably had. Sometime after dark, she got up and took a shower. After that, I guess, is where it all started to go to shit.

Jessica came out of the bathroom looking ravishing. Rare is a woman who can look that stunning with no makeup whatsoever. But that's Jess. The smell of her cherry shampoo reminded me of better times. My heart ached for her as much as my cock did. She stood in the doorway, letting me stare at her, with that half-smirk, half-grin on her face that she always had when she was getting what she wanted (in this case, my lustful, heartbroken gaze). She was eating this up.

She got dressed and, a short time later, joined me on the couch. She flopped down next to me, tossing her thick, juicy thighs up over mine.

"I'm bored!" She whined in that sing-song little voice she always used when she was in a playful mood.

I resisted the urge to ask her what "Mark" would do to entertain her. Instead I said, "Uh, well, there's a new zombie flick playing right now down at the Drive-In. You wanna check it out?"

She rolled her eyes. "Zombies are fucking boring." Then she smiled. "There's supposed to be some super rare lunar eclipse tonight. I guess there hasn't been an eclipse on the summer solstice in hundreds of years or something. The Drive-In would be the perfect place to watch it! Let's get some booze on the way and trip out on that shit while we get hammered!"

It was a fight, instantly. I said, "Jessica, you know damn well I don't drink. I'm seven years sober."
She didn't buy it. "Then what are all those empty bottles of Jack under the kitchen counter, Chris?"

She'd gone through my shit. Typical Jessica, probably looking for something to get fucked up on while I was asleep. "I just don't think it's a good idea, Jess. I just want a relaxing night out, just the two of us, OK?"

She made her annoyed face. "Ugh! You're no fun, Chris. That's why I dumped-" She stopped, looking at me to see if I'd react. I didn't. "That's why we broke up." She finished.

I looked at her for a few moments before responding. "Fine, Jess. Let's get fucked up and go to the Drive-In. Maybe if I'm lucky, you'll get a car full of college girls to flash you again."
She grinned at me. "That sounds fucking fun!"

We never made it to the Drive-In.

********
If you liked that, read the rest at http://www.strangehousebooks.com/file... Again, if you enjoy the story, please return here and post some comments about it. I'd love to know what you think.