Videotape

It was exactly ten years ago, on a seemingly regular day like this, that I fell apart. I don't think she realizes just how big a part of me she took when she left. But I still possess one thing that she isn't even aware I have; a simple thing, but worth so much. A videotape.

I insert this one thing I have left of her in the VCR, turn on the TV, and feel the blood rushing through my body, the way I used to feel every time I saw her. I sit down on my leather couch, which seems to get bigger and colder each year, and manage to press the play button on the controller with my trembling fingers. There I am. Cheerful and excited, young me with short dark hair smoothly gelled into place and might I add, looking quite handsome in that tux. How long has it been since someone's seen me like this? Not handsome I mean (God knows what I did with my looks), but I can't recall any real feeling of joy or liveliness since then.

I get an unexpected chill and goosebumps all over as the image of her walking down the aisle comes on. Just look at her. She was mine. That fragile, beautiful figure in white was supposed to be mine. Her gorgeous smile flashes and I feel the whole room light up. I know at that moment all my nerves were gone. Everything was perfectly laid out and I was the happiest man alive. How I wish she would come back to me.

I see him now. His face, much more attractive than mine ever was, fixed upon my wife. I feel the urge to throw the controller at the TV, in hope that smashing the screen will crush everything there ever was of him. He walks up to us, pats me on the shoulder, and embraces her. I clearly recall him being the one person who didn't congratulate us. She has a tense look on her face as she pulls away from his arms, something I just now notice. It must have started from before we married. I can't help it this time, I throw the controller at the screen and miss, hitting the VCR. The image on the TV disappears and I feel my whole body shaking with rage.

I don't know why I do this to myself, but the memories of us have become my drug. They remind me of what we could have been, of everything we had before she chose him over me. She had to have loved me before, I know she did. That videotape has been my only source of hope that maybe one day she'll see me and smile the same way she did when she was walking down that aisle. But it seems like the more I hold on to her, the further she slips away. I can hardly recall the sound of her voice anymore... I see now, there was never hope. She always loved him more than she ever loved me, and that's that.

Getting up from the couch, I feel myself calming down and head toward the broken VCR. Eject. With much clinking and whirring, the machine manages to get the videotape out. If it was that easy for her to walk away from me, I will try to to get rid of this thing just as easily. No regrets, no more misery. I dig my fingers into the tape and start pulling out the film. I grab what's left of the tape and take that along with the destroyed film to the garbage. I grab my car keys, get into my beat up truck, and head out. Not anywhere in particular, but out to live life once again.