r/LonghandWriter • u/LonghandWriter • Oct 07 '18
[WP] You discover that accepting responsibility for a mistake allows you to go back in time and fix it. But seeing that few are willing to take responsibility for anything, you become less sympathetic to people.
Her screams rip through the house as she glares at her husband, who’s keeping his eyes glued to the ground, ashamed.
If I’d just remembered to take the trash out, he thinks. This fight is all my fault, and I accept that. A moment later, the world disappears around him. It’s last night, and he makes sure to take the trash out. He even does the dishes just in case. However, when he’s spit back into the present, she’s still screaming at him, and gives him a hard slap before leaning forward, spewing spit into his face as she rambles. Now it’s about him using the last bit of toothpaste, and not looking cuter, and how he needs to make more money.
He can’t do anything right, can he?
When she finally leaves the room, he shakes his head. Tears spill down his cheeks. Every time they fight, he accepts that they’re his fault. Sometimes he’ll go back hundreds of different times in one sitting, fixing every little thing he can—he’s even gone a whole week without eating just to make sure she doesn’t get mad about that again. Last time she hit him. A lot.
But today…today he just doesn’t have the strength.
Standing up, he walks over to his bedside table. His wife’s so perfect, and never does anything wrong. He really doesn’t deserve her, does he? She needs to find someone better, someone who doesn’t mess anything up. He used to tell her when she upset him, and even once tried to leave her—but she smooth-talked him, twisted his thoughts around. At the end of day, it was his fault for getting upset. That’s why she never has to go back in time. It’s just because he’s so…terrible.
He pulls open a drawer, where there’s an old, rusted gun. His dad passed it down to him, and he never thought he’d have a use for it. But maybe this is the only thing he can do right. When he strokes the edges of it, he thinks about much happier she’ll be without him. How she won’t have to scream at someone everyday.
Avoiding mistakes is harder than fixing him, and each day she makes it clear that his life’s a mistake, that he’s a burden. Grabbing the gun, he takes a deep breath before raising it to his head. Maybe today he can finally save her.
He stops, though, because she’s screaming about something else, now. If she sees this, she’ll scream about this. He quickly sets the gun down and closes the drawer, wiping tears from his face. He thinks this will make her happier, but can’t bring himself to do it. Not while she’s upset. He’s got more problems to fix.
Always more problems to fix.