“The Days of Wine and Roses”

Honey stares at her face in the cracked mirror as she shakily applies a layer of foundation to the sprawling purple patch below her left eye. Who the hell is this? She thinks. “What HAPPENED last night?” she shouts to Matt, a mound of bed clothes on the sagging mattress. She pulls at a knot in the nest of tangled hair that used to be sleek as a sheet of gold. Then the hair brush hits the lump. “WHAT HAPPENED?” “Dammed if I know” the lump mutters. “Get up. I need you to drive me.”

Matt throws off the tattered blanket, stumbles to the mini fridge and pops open a beer. “What’s wrong with you? Stop shouting. You’re hurting my head” he pleads. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? What wrong with us? Look around.”
 Matt squints in her direction. The room spins. He falls into an under stuffed dung colored chair in the corner, legs asprawl. Honey sinks to her knees and puts her head in his lap. “Look at us. We’re living in a god damn trailer. You’ve lost your job. I’m a waitress for god’s sakes and lucky to have that.” “We’ll be fine. I have a friend who…”

Honey looks up at him shakes her head and sobs “I love you but we can’t go on like this. Please, please come with me.” “I can’t Honey” “Never mind. I’ll drive myself. You’re not going anywhere.”

The next day a neighbor calls the treatment center. Matt had been found dead on the porch that morning.