Jolene by Frank Vasquez

She was a pretty girl, much prettier than I was. She wore her hair long and blonde, much like mine. Jolene wore short skirts and tall, pointed, high-heeled boots. She insisted on real Italian leather. Her skin was soft and radiant with youth in its prime. Her blouses were never wrinkled, and never less than gracious to her breasts. She wore a pair of sunglasses at all times. Jolene caught my man's eye.

I don't know how he found her. I was always with him, after all. However, once he had, she was always popping up. She was there at the best of times and the worst of times. We would eat lunch with Jolene. We would see her smoking a cigarette outside the church after our AA meetings. She was quiet, sweet, and pretty. She had my man in her sights, though I was never certain he was aware of this. My husband would not have recognized his opportunity until it came to him, which is probably just how it occurred. I never saw her eyes until it was all over. She would always wear those damned sunglasses. Things would have gone different, otherwise.

My husband and I had had a fall wedding, in the forgotten-named forest where stood an immense tower, and a shattered skeleton of a keep that must have existed proudly long ago. The entrance to that tower had been sealed off, but its arched-roof pavilion, adjacent to the north side of the tower, housed our wedding reception. It was the happiest day of my life. In my nightmares, she's wearing my beautiful gown and saying the "I do" for me. I always wake with a start, sweating as though the room were on fire. My mind is a hell. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I study the wedding photo by my night stand to my right. I examine it closely; I am not satisfied until I am sure that it is Jolene in the picture. I then lie back down, close my eyes, and cry myself to sleep. My husband stirs, asks. "What's the matter?" and falls back asleep as soon as he hears that Jolene is fine. I don't have to say a word on these nights. I feel like shit.

"Hi, Jolene," I would say on the train ride to work.

"Hi Jolene?" my husband would be smiling, but he'd cover it up with a look of surprise.

I would stare past him, at the window on the door behind him. She was always there with us, so I came to figure that being cordial might make it awkward between them. I toyed with the idea in my head for a while. If I had become friends with Jolene, she might have backed off my man. It was a thought I'd invented on a cigarette break after church one evening.

"Hi, Jolene," I'd repeat. If only he could see my eyes, then my secret might have been known! If he'd just take his eyes off of Jolene, damn it!

She would just nod and stand against the window, looking pretty. She would look at my husband. My attempts always failed, and I quickly gave up on the plan. My husband never talked to me on our train rides. He would never talk to me because of her. There was nothing I could do but stand there and watch him. I could only watch as my husband stopped caring about me.

Jolene made my husband not want to talk to me anymore. He and I began to fight. I was right there, kicking and screaming in his strong arms, but he could still only see her. I'm sure of this! He would tell me he'd vowed never to fight with me. I'd remind him he could never leave me, not for anyone. He pretended to be puzzled by this. I would proceed to tell him that that part was in his vows, too. This would infuriate him.

Fights like those would get me thrown out of the apartment, with him asking me why as the door slammed shut between us. As if I had been the one doing something wrong! I spent so many nights in the sixth floor hallway of our apartment complex. The walls would echo with my sobs, and were never hushed by the sounds of cars passing out on the boulevard. Occasionally, I could hear the sounds of footsteps at the doors on the floor and the twisting of the covering of peepholes. I was never truly alone. I spent so many nights in that hallway, on the stairs, weeping. That bitch Jolene would be with me on those nights; she'd cry, too. The next day, conversation between my husband and me would be bitter and harsh.

"Why won't you quit smoking for the baby?" my husband asked, that last afternoon, at lunch. "Why won't you take those shades off?"

"Why should Jolene have all the fun? Jolene's pregnant, too," I'd retort. "You're going to let her have the child, aren't you? You bastard.”

At that moment, I remembered my first pregnancy vividly. We had both been sixteen at the time. He had me give the child up. He'd told me he couldn't be a father for a child who "wouldn't have a mommy." I tried to tell him I'd be fine, but he spoke sternly and said I was not. His friends agreed, I was too young to risk pregnancy. I gave the child up for him, but he wouldn't let me go visit the grave. Not ever.

Still, I'd wait for him so we could go to school together. I'd drop him off, and then wait for him outside – rain or shine. I was failing out at that time; the pregnancy made me lose everything I'd had. He dumped me, telling me it wasn't so because we "weren't together,” and that he just wanted to be to himself. So, I stuck a switchblade in his back, just above his left kidney. It had hurt so bad when he swung around and punched me in the side of the head. We both woke up in different hospitals.

I did not want to live without him. I took my time recovering. The trauma to my head had been minimal, but I did all I could to claim short term memory loss and the appropriate pain killers for my sorrows.

Both of our families were going to press charges against the other. My husband, however, had demanded that his family's claim against me be dropped after he'd come to speak to me. I made him regret hitting me. I winced every time he stroked my hair or kissed my cheek. He'd lift his hands, and I let out a tiny yelp. He made up his mind with tears in his eyes, and was thus mine again. We cried together, and then I told my family not to press charges against my future husband.

"You're not going back to what it was before, are you?" he asked meekly at prom, a year later.

"No. Promise me you believe me. I'm the me before the baby," I whispered back.

"I didn't want that version of you either," he tried to lead me back to our table, but I dug my nails into the back of his hand.

"You've no choice."

"Not again." He choked on a sob.

"No. Not again." I put on a big smile then and we'd danced the night away.

I murdered Jolene tonight. She had taken my man, even after I had pleaded for her not to. She had taken him because she could. She was going to be the mother of my husband's child. I could not allow it! That's why I had to kill her. I took the cake knife, plunged it deep into her pregnant stomach, and twisted the blade out. I stabbed again and again, until the blade found her heart. My husband came into the fray, screaming. He held me loosely with one arm, tossed away the knife with the other, and Jolene might have been there, too. I wasn't thinking anymore. He took my sunglasses off, though, and I saw Jolene's eyes for the first time.

They were right there, reflecting off his eyes as he gazed into mine.

"Why?" he asked.

I could not answer, because I died.