Like Father Like Son

“How could you do this to me?” I took a step backward. “I thought you loved me.”

He rolled his eyes. “As naïve as ever. This has been a long time coming, you know. I can’t believe it took you this long to find out. Then again, you were never the smart one in the relationship.”

My hands curled into fists, my nails digging into my palms. “Says the one who got caught.”

He snorted. “Don’t you get it? I wanted to get caught. I wanted you to find out. I wanted this to hurt you.”

I ground my teeth together. “Why? Was dumping me like a normal person too hard?”

“Call it a social experiment,” he said, watching me intently. “Everybody always says like father like son, but you are most certainly nothing like your father. Mommy dearest, on the other hand, you are very much like.”

“Stop it,” I said through gritted teeth. Tears welled in my eyes.

“But what I really wanted to know is if you would come crawling back to me, like Mommy to Daddy every time he beat her within an inch of her life. That is, until he finally drove her to drink herself into oblivion and she fell down a flight of stairs. Or did he beat her to death? Either way, she was dumber than you are.”

My blood boiled as I flashed back to watching my father murder my mother. “Take it back.”

A sinister smile curled his lips. “Or what? What are you gonna do to me? The same thing Mommy did?”

My upper lip trembled with fury. I grabbed one of his little statuettes from the shelves lining his office. Then I charged across the office.

As I ran toward him, confusion furrowed his brow until understanding dawned on him. His eyes shone with fear, and he scrambled out from behind his desk. But he was too late.

I swung the statuette back and brought it down on his head. He yelped and stumbled to the floor. Straddling him, I brought the statuette down on his head over and over again. I beat him well past death and continued to beat him after his skull fractured into a million pieces. Bits of his brain clung to the statuette and the walls and shelves.

My rage subsided as I raised the statuette again. I stared down at the bloody mess before me. I used to love this man. And now he was dead.

I scrambled to my feet, the statuette still clutched in my hand. My hands trembled as panic bubbled in my chest. I dropped the statuette in the trash can, grabbed the trash bag, and hurried to the bedroom to clean myself up.

Once I’d changed and washed all the blood off, I went back to the office one last time before I left. I looked down at my ex’s body and said, “Like father, like son.”