ginlibrary:

In the supermarket you buy a kohlrabi and a few organic carrots. I wonder, as I avoid the cracks in the pavement trailing you down the street, ‘What’s he making?’. I would make coleslaw, that’s what I’d suggest to you if we were still speaking, but I know that instead you’ll just boil it to death and create a pile of unseasoned vegetable mush. Philistine.

I want to make coleslaw for you.

When I follow you I tend to leave thirty paces or so between us, the route you are taking today I know well, we have walked it together hundreds of times before, with our arms linked or holding hands. Eventually you reach your front door and I hide behind a wall while you search for your keys. You spend a long time rummaging around in your bag trying to find them, so I know no one else is in otherwise you would’ve knocked by now. Once you enter I wait for 37 minutes before knocking.

A sigh at my sight. You walk back into the hall but leave the front door open, which I take as an invitation to come in. I follow you down the two small steps into your kitchen. Facing me, your features twist, a furrowed brow, pursed lips - almost the same expression as when we first kissed, but this is a different type of anxiety, I see it in your shoulders.

I brought my own knife from home - you never bothered to sharpen yours. It slices through the flesh of your belly like butter. They’re Jamie Oliver knives, I got them half price on Amazon. You slump on the floor, your back resting on the cupboard by the sink. You don’t speak but at least your expression has changed. Shock is preferable to anxiety I guess. Slitting your throat, I feel more tension with this cut, the blood spurts out gloriously, drenching me, staining my clothes but it’s OK because your housemate wears around the same size. I don’t look at you, I just slash and turn, listen to you splutter and gurgle.

You never once begged for your life, you were always stubborn like that.

I clean the blood off the knife and start to chop the kohlrabi.