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He had me arrested for the 9th time and this time it was for a good reason. The last 8 times were because I snickered at his views on the afterlife. I knew he wouldn't press charges because even calling the police was a risk on his behalf but he couldn't help himself. After all, you never know if you are going to get a genuine officer of the law or some asshole on the take. Knowing that, I decked him.

After I was set free from the back of the cruiser, he went and cheated on his wife. She wouldn't know this until she got up in the middle of the night months later to seek a pain relief pill, only to find him and her together liplocked outside of the front door.

After trying to blame it on me, he eventually broke down after figuring out that the approach he was taking wasn't working. Another piece of her died that day, prompting me to step for my official duties.

I would sit down with her and review all of the shit she had taken from him. I would conclude that she should have overdosed on sleeping pills years ago (she had in fact tried this before, but being the inexperinced suicider she was, she ended up sleepwalking through the house until the ambulance came). We would look around the house for shit he had bought with her money; I could have stopped him in doing this, but I really didn't want to fuck around with any police, so I let it happen.

"Why do we let him do this to us?" I asked while standing with her in the kitchen.

She sauntered over the the sink, gazed out the window, and slowly said, "We want to see how it ends."

It did make sense.

Would we grow old together? Would I be by his side in the hospital? Would she finally snap and drown him? Strangle him with a length of cord?

Would he finally realize what he is doing and become the nice person we know he can be?

We looked at each and knew we were fucked. No, we couldn't just up and leave him. We had to stick around and see how it all played out because morons like us never give up; we just give in, and that is what has kept us mindfucked for so long.

Agreeing to a non-suicidal pact, we decided to continue what we were doing and hope for the best. We would stand there resisting the urge to hold each other's hand in comfort, but that wouldn't have been fair for him, had he saw us.

That, and hope we would have power of attorney one day. It would kind of make it all worth it, ya know?