Unmissing

by Minka Kent

It’s only when he turns back that I’m met with a twisted sneer and a chilling gaze so dark it sucks my soul from my marrow.

I’d add trustworthy, but in my experience, the only people who verbally label themselves as trustworthy to others are anything but. It’s one of those things that needs to be earned, proven, and shown.

I miss my husband, but I must admit the house stays tidier when he’s gone. No wayward socks to pick up. No toothpaste to scrub off the sink. No clock to watch while I time dinner with his arrival home in the evenings.

I check to ensure it doesn’t etch the stone.

am i supposed to hate you

Someone once told me that I’d only be my husband’s favorite until we had our first child, and that I’d only be my daughter’s favorite until she becomes a teenager and decides she hates everything about me. But I don’t think it has to be that way. I intend to be everyone’s favorite until my dying breath.

bish puhlease

I’m nearly taken out by an olive-green BMW SUV that

Dang, the author really wants us to hate her

I’m pretty sure my mom did enough in her thirty-six years to cover us both for this lifetime.

Aww....she passed away so young

I’ve always divided them into two groups: those who aspire to be like me and those who find themselves triggered, as if everything I have somehow prevents them from having everything they want.

Did she miss anything? What kind of question is that? This isn’t a made-for-TV movie—this is my life.

Turning, I pull the right side higher, until she can read the name my captor carved into me with an X-Acto knife, which was surprisingly less painful than the hot lighters he’d pressed against my inner thighs the week before.

I was right!!!!

“Yes,” I say. “Turns out the man I married . . . was nothing more than a monster.”

the progeny of two unstable people, and I was the vessel for his rebellion—as were his messy mane, unkemptness, and penchant for torturing the helpless.

Before I respond, he rises and moves for the bassinet, sweeping our newborn son into his arms, his back toward me. The sunlight filtering through the parking-lot-view window engulfs them in a picture-perfect veil of light. But still, I can’t help but wonder—does he want this day? Or does he want more time to figure out what he’s going to tell me?

Damn. She manipulates just like him. She isn’t fooled by his glassy eyes.

The Luca I knew was never this jumpy. He’d have never rolled over and taken any of this. There’s a definite possibility I’m being played like a goddamned fiddle, that the joke is on me. Again.

I ask the million-dollar question: “Why is she still alive?”

Oooooh damn girl! Bish was in on it!!!?!????

Perhaps he’s trying to gauge my madness. Or maybe he’s wrapping his head around a version of his wife he hasn’t seen in years. Years ago, I retired my ball-busting side in favor of a peaceful marriage, one built for the long haul. In retrospect, that appears to have been a mistake. Never give a horse too much rein lest he think he’s the one leading the excursion.

He’s always been docile, agreeable . . . compliant. He knew how to give me what I wanted. And in return, I gave him what he wanted—a pretty little unopinionated housewife with a healthy sex drive and a promise to be loyal, faithful, and true come what may. We were playing roles, he and I. A well-oiled marital machine.

He didn’t look like this when we first met. He was my next-door neighbor—a greasy, unkempt diner busboy. A wallflower of a man with no friends, lacking a thread of charisma or social skills. But I saw something in him no one else did—untapped potential.

He could have his drowned-rat plaything if it meant I got the best parts of him.

She could buy hundreds of canvas shoes with that kind of money . . .

You are so clueless lady.