Predictable

• Danieka Howe, Grade 12, St Brendan-Shaw College
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

"Unbelievable", she thought. "Absolutely unbelievable."

The crease between her brows increasingly became more prominent as she stubbornly stared down her husband. His ugly features hidden by the newspaper in his hands, as though to avoid her line of sight.

"Actually, ya know what? It was typical. Completely typical of him."

She folded her arms at the breakfast table, asserting her anger in the cold, overly furnished room, though she would never admit to either of those in this moment. Not to this nostril-flared, bucked-tooth, donkey of a man.

She remembered when she first met him. He looked... Well, she could only describe it as expensive. Even his voice sounded expensive. His lips tasted expensive. She remembers like a woman could never forget. Felt the butterflies like a young school girl did. Watched him pay for each dinner. Inhaled the scent of his cologne every night. Loved that sense of him being by her side each day, and hoping it would never turn out like this.

"Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."

He knew she was a stubborn woman when he married her. Got it from her father, he claims. He hid his face, or rather hers, with the business newspaper that was conveniently placed on the breakfast table. He didn't even know what he was reading. Hopefully she hadn't realised that the paper was published in 2008. She had decorated the house that way. It was just the way she was.

It was the way she always had been, even back when they first met. 1992, even he could remember the exact date and time. He often wondered what happened between that first moment compared to now. What spark has possibly deteriorated so slowly between the two that a married couple cannot even fathom an argument? Like normal people? Their stubbornness often became a war of authority between the two, and this was a prime example.

They used to feel an aura around each other, the way young lovers do. Warm, and cozy, smelling like a meadow with the sounds of joyous laughter. Bright and promising. In this moment, however, there was a silent distance between them. Cold, uncomfortable, smelling like old coffee with the sound of only the wall clock ticking endlessly, driving them to madness. Dull and grey.

He finally, breaking the aching silence, put down the newspaper and sighed emphatically. He opened his mouth as if to say something. An apology, maybe. But instead he couldn't find the words. She stared at him so intensely, waiting for a response that he felt as if she was digging out his eye balls with her fingernails. But alas, he could not find the words to make anything that was happening better. So he got up. He left. The door clicked behind him and neither knew when he was returning.

"Typical.", she remarked, reading the date 10th March, 2008 print on the newspaper.

"Absolutely typical."