Ruined

She always had a book with her. Tucked under an arm, firmly in a hand, or nestled under a thigh, if she was seated. It wasn't that she disliked the world, on the contrary. The worlds she found in books served to highlight and define the beauty and tangible goodness of the real world. The fantasies and faraway adventures she embarked upon in her mind made the mundane existence she lived seem like a backstory chapter, a preface to a grand adventure for which she knew she was destined.

All her life, the drudgery of day to day, she knew it was build up, preparing her for the climax, and all the tragedies and inexplicable heartbreak would be explained in the denouement. The husband that hit, the babies lost, the years of scraping by and making do, they'd all be fixed, made better, and turned into a blissful end.

Her final thought, as she looked from the shotgun in her husbands hand to the blood spattered book beside her, was to wonder who would return her books to the library, or if they'd be left to rot, with her.