As I stared down at the mess I had made, it occurred to me just how much brains resembled overcooked pasta. Not something I ever thought I would have firsthand knowledge of but the white, sludgy mess that spilled from the overturned cooking pot was near identical to the white, sludgy mess that spilled from my wife’s head.

Comparably, it was actually easier to tell apart the blood and the marinara pasta sauce that mixed together in different shades of red. Red that splattered across the white tile floor and the white kitchen cabinets and the white shirt I wore and her white skin that was becoming whiter by the second. Red that was running slowly down the grout towards my feet.

I stepped back instinctively, then stopped when I saw my socks where already soaked through.

From the open balcony a cool breeze washed over me, pulling at my hair and cooling my flushed skin. It was crazy to think that mere minutes ago the apartment was alive with the sound of us cooking and then arguing and then fighting and then…

I knelt next her. I knelt and I scooped up what I could with my hands and shovelled it into the pot. The pasta felt awful between my fingers; warm and wet. It was homemade not the cheap store-bought stuff so it cooked fast. We had missed that all too short window to remove the pasta and it had congealed into a pale blob. Broken eggshells still sat in a pile on the marble counter-top. I recalled myself cracking those eggs as if it had happened years ago, cracking them against edge of the kitchen counter (marble, even though I wanted granite) and adding yolk to the flour mix as she stirred.

My fingers found something in the sauce, dragging me from my memories, and pulled it free. It was her phone. The phone that had started it all. The screen was broken from where it had fallen against the tiles. I turned it over in my hand, over and over, my resentment of it building until I stood and turned and hurled it as hard as I could. It sailed out the window and fell twelve stories to the street below.

That damned phone. She had been standing with her back to me when the text came in, and I looked over at it. Not in a weird way, not snooping. Just wanting to let her know who had messaged. And I saw it was Tony. Despite all her assurances that she wasn’t talking to him anymore, it was Tony. Normally I wouldn’t go through her phone because I’m not that kind of guy but of course I did when I saw his name. I read the message he sent her and I read the messages she had sent to him. And of course I was mad, as I had the right to be, and of course she was mad, which I feel was unfair. And of course, it led to a fight.

She tried to take the phone from me but only succeeded in knocking it out of my hands. She went to leave after that but I still had more to say. She didn’t want to hear it. She went to leave and when I grabbed her she hit me, hard. She hit me. I pulled at her then, back to the kitchen as she struggled to break free, pushing at me with one hand and frantically grabbing at whatever she could with the other. She knocked pots of pasta and sauce from their places on the stove-top, scalding our feet as it all spilled out on the ground. That was when she slipped, cracking her head against the edge of the kitchen counter (marble, even though I wanted granite). And that was it.

‍ ‍She died so quickly.

It was maddening.

Maddening how this woman who would spend hours fighting with me over the most insignificant things couldn’t even fight for her own life. I looked down at my red-stained hands. They were no longer trembling. I worked them underneath her body and lifted it up. She was heavy. Dead weight. I walked out onto the balcony and, struggling, I lifted her over and let her fall. I didn’t wait to see the body break against the street below. I went back inside and began hunting through the cupboard for a mop.