My December

Hole

Hole
Tired
Of everything around me
I smile
But I don’t feel a thing no

I’m so far from where I need to be
I’ve given up on faith, on everything
All I want, all I need
Is some peace

There’s a hole
Inside of me
It’s so cold
Slowly killing me

Secrets
Eating at the core of me
Shut off
Trusting all the lies I breathe

I’m so far from where I need to be
I’ve given up on faith, on everything
All I wanted, all I needed
Was some peace

There’s a hole
Inside of me

It’s so damn cold
Slowly killing me

Sinking ever so slowly
So far from where I should be
No hands reaching out for me
Help me, help me

Something’s gone
I can feel it
It’s all wrong
I’m so sick of this

There’s a hole
Inside of me
It’s so cold
Slowly killing me
There’s a hole
Inside of me
It’s so damn cold
Slowly killing me
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Word Count: 1184

Tera watched Prudence drift around the kitchen, fixing breakfast for the two of them. She'd been a zombie all week, ever since telling her parents that she and her husband split up. Tera worried for her. She'd never seen her friend like that.

"Prudence."

Prudence didn't make any notice that she had heard Tera call her, just continued to bustle around her small apartment kitchen.

"Prudence," Tera said louder.

Prudence tripped over her own feet and looked at Tera as if she had forgotten she was there. "Yeah?"

Tera's gaze strayed to the divorce papers on the kitchen table where she sat. "Prudence, when are you going to sign those?"

Prudence glanced at the papers and turned in haste to grab their omelets off the counter and carry them to the table. "I don't know." She looked so lost, so empty to Tera. An emptiness lingered in her eyes that had never been there before. "I just need some time, you know? A little peace."

Tera nodded. She understood what her friend needed just fine, but it wasn't time; it was freedom.



~*~



Prudence lay in bed later that night, the light from the full moon flooding into her room and lighting up the empty space in her bed and the tears that were running down her pillowcase.

She knew that Tera was worried about her. If it were the other way around, she would be worried too, but not for the same reason. Tera was worried that the way Prudence reacted to the whole situation was unhealthy. Prudence would have worried that Tera would dehydrate from all the crying, just as she felt she might.

Tera couldn't understand how she felt. It was like losing an arm, or maybe a leg, something that it seemed was always a part of you. She had heard of phantom pains before. Maybe that's what she was going through.

But those didn't feel like phantom pains, it felt like a knife in the heart.

She turned over so that she wouldn't have to face Jeremy's cold side of the bed anymore, but almost cried harder at the way she missed feeling his arms curl around her the way they did every time she turned her back to him in bed.

It seemed that a part of her was missing, a whole different extremity.

I can't stay in this bed any longer, she thought to herself.

She pushed the covers away, the ones Jeremy had picked out, and put her bare feet on the cold floor. She followed the light of the moon to the window, where she stood and looked out at the city shrouded in blue shadow.

As she looked up into the sky, searching it for the few constellations she remembered learning in high school, a shooting star flew by. She felt a pulling deep in her gut as she remembered the last time she'd seen a falling star. It was the first time Jeremy kissed her. They had been sitting in his front yard, looking through his grandfather's telescope after working most of the night on a big project for class the next day.

He had pointed out the star to her and told her to make a wish. She'd wished that they would be together forever, and he had kissed her.

She looked up at the black sky and thought about what a load of crap shooting stars were, along with birthday candles and stray eyelashes.

Those things were made up by people whose last hope were inadamant objects falling from the sky. She used to believe it all. Now, she didn't believe any of it.



~*~



The divorce papers sat on the desk in front of Prudence, screaming, "Sign me!"

But once again, she turned them down, refusing to add her name to the government's list of divorced women. She stuffed the papers in her desk drawer and buried her face in her hands.

How did people go through this? Her brain felt scrambled, along with her heart. She could no longer tell which of them controlled her actions.

She heard raised voices in the hallway and stood to investigate. She opened the door to her office and stepped out, immediately backing right back in to dodge a stapler that flew by her head and landed with a thud! on the hallway carpet.

A man she recognized from the editing department stood to her right, while a casually-dressed woman stood to her left, fury in her eyes.

"You're a lying, cheating pig!" the woman screeched. "Who is it?" she demanded. "Who?"

Oh, God. Was this seriously happening? This poor woman, to be so desperate that she would make such a scene at his office. She couldn't believe her eyes.

Prudence looked at the man, who looked back with pleading eyes, but not innocent ones. Whatever this woman accused him of, and it was pretty obvious what that was, he was guilty of it.

But as she stared at the man, suddenly his face wasn't his own, but her husband's- the same husband who left her for another woman and now served her with divorce papers.

She wondered if the man before her had ever loved this woman, the way she was so certain Jeremy had once loved her.

Suddenly not concerned if the man got clobbered with a stapler, Prudence stepped back into her quiet office and closed the door. She would hear about the end result soon enough from Tera, who was also in the editing department.

She tried to focus on her work, but her mind continued to travel back to the fight she witnessed.

She picked up her phone and dialed Tera's extension, her hands shaking.

"Mountaintop Publishing."

"I can't do it," Prudence sighed. "I can't divorce my husband."

Prudence could hear Tera grind her teeth. "You can and you will."

Prudence opened her mouth to answer, but Tera had already hung up. Now look what she'd done. She'd been so stupid about the whole thing, her friend didn't even want to talk to her.

She turned to look out the window of her office, down upon the street, where cars passed. Down in the courtyard, the woman from the hallway fight walked slumped over toward the intersection, where the light immediately changed, signaling her to walk. She walked as if she had no more reason to live.

And yet it didn't make sense to Prudence. What would posses such a woman to be upset over a disloyal lover?

She backed away from the window and sat at her desk. Pulling the divorce papers from her drawer, she stared once again at the line where she was supposed to sign.

What would happen when she signed the papers? She'd never been divorce before. Was it the same as being single? Only worse? She couldn't imagine.

But she would soon find out.

She took her favorite pen from her pencil holder and signed her name on the papers.

She leaned back in the chair, wondering what that feeling was deep in her stomach, not grief, but possibly relief.