A Woman With a Gun

It was approaching dusk, but all the lights in the apartment were still off. Victoria sat in the shadows in the living room easy chair awaiting Martin. They had been engaged for six weeks now, the wedding was scheduled for next month. The wedding, however, would never take place as Victoria intended to break off their engagement in the most terminal fashion. Her slender fingers lay delicately across the loaded revolver as she watched the door and waited to kill him.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, at least that’s what they say. Victoria hoped it was true, since she felt fairly confident that would be her final destination after this concluding moment. She saw no other option in her introspective submersion, it was a romantic notion, and she had a romantic’s heart. As so many romances’ turn out, this one was a tragedy.

She had fallen hopelessly in love with Martin almost immediately, love at first sight, if such a thing existed. She met him by chance at a quaint little Sicilian deli on the north side of town. She had clumsily bumped into him as he came inside while she was walking out. Her bag had fallen to the ground along with all it’s contents and like the gentleman he was, he knelt to help her collect the items.

Their hands touched at one point and they looked into each others eyes, from that moment on it was practically a storybook romance. She had just left the hospital barely two months beforehand and was finally getting acquainted with the world again. She had a deep running emotional diversion from relationships, but his warm charm dropped all her defenses. For the next eight months they were virtually inseparable, they carried on in the sappy amorous way that lovers will.

He seemed to know her inside and out, and she soaked up every minute learning each detail of his life, his past, his aspirations and deepest fears. She had never met a man like Martin before, his sensitivity was equal with his masculine poise. Everything about him seemed so incredibly perfect, and he wanted to be with her. They had dinner one night in a French restaurant downtown when Martin proposed. The ring was at the bottom of her glass of chardonnay.

Her eyes filled with tears as she longingly accepted, suddenly her future was brighter than it had ever been. It felt as if she were living out a fairy tale, a forsaken street maiden who grew up to marry the prince. For the next two weeks her face shone as brightly as the diamond on her engagement ring. Nothing could have brought her down, as long as she had her precious Martin, anything seemed possible.

Into the third week of their engagement the pristine jewel started to crack. She was walking home from the market when she saw what almost stopped her heart. Martin was getting into a taxi with another woman. His face was crystal clear, she even heard his distinguishable laugh but only glimpsed the back of the woman’s head, she was blonde like her. Before the cab drove away she witnessed Martin lean into her and kiss her passionately.

She didn’t know how to confront him about the incident, she began to doubt what she even saw. As the week progressed her mind turned the whole account into him getting into the cab by himself. She was convinced that she had only imagined him kissing another woman out of her own worst fears and an overactive imagination. Nine days later early in the morning she awoke to voices, she quietly got out of bed and went into the living room.