Disclaimer:  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the author.  All rights reserved.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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They had gone to bed angry that night.  It was an unusual occurrence- they had made a promise on their wedding day that they would always work out their problems before turning out the lights at night.  But this night in particular, the fight had been worse than any other that they could work out in the past.  Ryan and his wife had gotten to a point in which neither of them knew what the point of the quarrel was.

Lying in bed, Ryan couldn't fall asleep.  He couldn't help thinking about what a jerk he had been to his wife not half an hour ago.  The things they said!  Ryan rolled onto his side and placed one of his hands underneath his pillow.  During their ten years of marriage, Ryan had always known how to fix his mistakes with Pat, but this was an exception.  On the bright side, Ryan had those many memories of making up with his wife.  He smiled as he remembered one special one in particular. The smile soon turned to a thin-framed frown.  His tired eyes became propped open by the flashback of the angry faces, the slamming doors, and the falling tears. 

Slowly he moved one of his legs across the soft cotton sheets to where his wife was.  He gently brushed against the smooth skin on the back of her leg in hopes that Pat would turn over, kiss him, and would want to talk through their problems.  As his toes reached her skin, he felt his wife's muscles tense and she edged towards her edge of the bed.  He quickly retracted his leg to his side of the bed and rolled over towards his edge of the bed.  A sigh escaped his lips as he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Ryan's dreams turned into unfamiliar nightmares as the stars faded into daylight.  He tossed and turned in hopes of driving these demons out of his head but to no avail.  When he would have nightmares at night, usually his wife would wake him up to comfort him and wipe the cold sweat that he would often wake up in.  But this night, there was no comfort, no one to wipe away the sweat.  Ryan sat up with a jump, breathing heavily with his hand over his chest.  The sun had just begun to come up through the early morning haze, throwing enough light into the room to be able to catch the prism hanging from the window. 

Every morning over the past 20 years, Ryan always made it a point to wake up before his wife did so that he could watch her sleep.  Something about the rhythm of her breathing and her warm body curled towards him put him at peace and prepared him for the day.  Unfortunately, on this particular morning, Ryan glanced over to an empty half of the bed.  The covers were tousled, as if Pat was in a rush to get where she was headed.  Against the nightstand leaned an envelope with his name on it. 

Ryan's heart pounded as he lifted the envelope from its position on her bed stand.  Looking over the side of her bed, he noticed that some of her clothes had been tossed around the floor.  He picked up her pillow from where it lay on the mattress and breathed in the scent he only knew as hers.  It was the scent that attracted him to her some twenty years ago, the scent that brought him home every night.  He put the pillow back to its proper palce and shoved his index finger into the envelope and tearing open the top to reveal a piece of stationery.  He took a deep breath as he took out the folded paper and opened it.

Ryan,
There's no better way that I can tell you this than in a letter- I couldn't bear to see your face.  Last night made me think about things- about us, about my life.  I just can't do it anymore- I can't tell you where I'm going or who I'm with, but know that a part of me will always be with you.

Ryan knew where she had gone, who she was with.  There were nights she came home from her part-time job smelling of cologne that was unusual, unfamiliar.  She would make excuses that seemed legit at the time to see 'him'.  His eyes became glassy as he ripped up the letter and threw the tiny pieces into the air.  Thoughts soon flooded his mind.  Did she lose his love for him?  What did he do to make her go astray? 

Ryan picked up the phone near his bed and dialed the only familiar number he could think of.  It rang once, twice as he looked at the alarm clock ticking in time to his own heartbeat.  It was only 5 a.m., but the receiver would have to understand.  He heard the click of the phone followed by some incoherent mumbling.

"Col?" Ryan whispered quickly.  His voice was steady and he had hopes of remaining strong while on the phone. 

"Ryan, good lord, it's…5 a.m.  What the hell do you want?"  Colin asked with increasing anger.

Ryan's steady voice became suppressed by quiet whimpering.  "She's gone- gone." 

Their conversation continued over the next hour as Ryan relayed the developments of the evening.  By the end of his story, Ryan felt he had convinced Colin that what Pat had done was rash and unnecessary as they talked it all out.  He needed someone to tell him that he was better off without her, that he could move on.  But deep down inside, he knew that he would never be able to live with out her heart, her smile, and most of all, that warm body beside him when they turned off the lights at night.