Mine Truly

She shuffled slowly, dragging her IV around like a broken tail. I watched her longingly. I wished I could just shove her aside and take the tap out and have it once again. Have her once again. She noticed and looked at me stoically. My ears were becoming hot with anger. She was such a tease. I am Jack’s hand, itching to punch her right in the stomach. she finally passed my doorway and I looked at the ceiling. The remnants of my latest “tantrum” as the nurses loved to call it were painted on my ceiling. Browning stains and deep slash marks ran down the ceiling towards my head like daggers.

I was close. The doctors even said so, scratching their heads as they stood over my hospital bed recounting how they’d barely saved my life like they wanted a damn medal or something. I didn’t ask to be saved. We all knew that if they had been off already when I tried to get back to her, I would be with her. The light from my dirty window turned the stains maroon and I could hear the scraping, sticking wheels of her IV again as she walked past, giving me that dead stare. She was such a whore. I made sure she could see my ring. The thought of another superior woman always made her little ego shrink back into her loose fitting night gown.

My ring was the last thing I had to remember her by. That cheeky dimpled smile, those beautiful green eyes, those perfect golden-brown curls... it’s all gone. Now all I had left was this cold metal weight that I couldn’t get rid of. I saw her shuffling past again and reached fo rmy ring. My arm struggled against the handcuffs they placed on me, pressing painfully against my blood-soaked bandages. I winced, illiciting a small smirk from her a she wandered past.

I glared at the ceiling, trying not to say all of the angry words I was thinking. They’d only see me lashing out. Not her sauntering past my room, mouthing that she loved me. Not how she tortured me for her whole exercise time while they encouraged her. They didn’t hear those dreadful wheels or that look in her eyes when she hazed at me as she walked. It drove me crazy. Before her jaw was wired shut, we had group together. She had been clingy before but hearing that I was a widower only attracted her closer. Our chairs would touch during group and I could’ve sworn she always wrote her writes about her “imaginary boyfriend” about me.

I looked at my door to see her standing in my doorway, holding her IV in her hand. My eyes widened as she came closer, looking at me with her intense black eyes. She came to the foot of my bed, then to my bedside, staring me in the eye. She grabbed my hand and pressed it to her body. I could feel my body reacting and tried to shift to hide my shame. I was unsuccessful, which got another smirk out of her. She took the IV and stabbed it into my hand. I was going to scream but the surge of morphine swelled in my veins. A stupid smile filled my face as my body warmed. She watched me longingly. I could hear her murmur something as she groped my leg. The euphoria made it hard for me to pull away. She pressed her mouth against my forehad and then my lips before slinking back out.

I watched the door long after she was gone. This changed nothing. I would still flash her my-- I held my hand up and looked at it for a long time. Something was wrong. the IV was in place and I still had all five finger but something was off. I stared until the sun had moved from my ceiling to my fingers before i realized my ring finger no longer gleamed. I wanted to sit up and scream for her but I as immobilized by the needle in my hand. My other hand was no use, and my whole body was too limp to care.

She took my ring. She took my ring. I decided then that I was going to kill that bitch. She took my ring and replaced it with something better.