Take Twice a Day

Take Twice a Day
A short story by Sarah Greenwood
“How could you do this to me?!” she screamed hysterically as the hand-painted china lamp she had just thrown shattered against the lavender colored apartment wall only inches from his head, “ To you?! This has nothing to do with you, don’t be so fucking selfish Kate!” he fired back. “I thought you loved me…” the tears streamed down the sift curves of her face and dripped off of her smoothly rounded chin. Looking far from pretty now, her face painted black with running mascara she collapsed to the floor, heaving heavy sobs of the weight she had been carrying since this evening began.
         Kate Christiansen had gone to the clinic for her regular check up. She went through the day normally, taking a trip to the grocery store for her and her boyfriend of three years, Jaden’s dinner, and dog food for his beloved pit bull Jazzy. She called Jaden on her way home to tell him that they would be having chicken fettuccini for dinner, and let him know he didn’t need to pick up food for Jazzy. “Hey Babe, whatcha need?” Jaden answered. “Well I got done with my doctor’s appointment, and I picked up some stuff from the store and now I’m on my way home.” Kate told him as she tapped her breaks for a crossing pedestrian “Did you pick up more food for Jazzy? We’re running low and I don’t want to run out.” Jaden inquired in a borderline frantic voice. “Yes Baby I picked up her food.” She replied as she pulled into the parking garage of their upscale apartment building. “Thanks Muffin. Well I gotta get goin’ I have a board meeting in five minutes.”  “All right then, I love you.” She said to him, “I love you too.” The words resounded in her mind like sunshine, brightening her day as well as her countenance and sending a smile crawling across her face as she opened up the door to a very excited Jazzy. She patted Jazzy on the head, “Calm down.” She said soothingly as she made her way, with her arms full of groceries, to the counter. As she put away the contents of her brown paper bags, she listened to the three messages on the machine. The first one was a hang up, so she skipped to the next one “ Hi, Kate it’s Doctor Myles; I need you to come back to the clinic, we have some results for that blood we drew, so sometime soon if you could call me back or drop by, I’ll be here until six, thanks,  bye.” Kate stood up from the crouched position she had assumed in order to put her cans of frozen orange in the bottom drawer of the freezer to give the answering machine a quizzical, slightly confused look. Without paying any mind to the rest of the groceries she grabbed her keys and headed back to the clinic. As she set out towards the door Jaden walked through it “ Oh hey Muffin where ya headed?” he asked as he gave her a peck on the lips and made a bee line for an uncharacteristically patient Jazzy. Standing slightly stunned by Jaden’s void of interest in her being filled by his consuming interest in his beloved pit bull, Kate replied “I got a call from Doctor Myles,  he did some tests today and has the results ready for me.” “Oh, how long until you have to be there?” Jaden asked “Well,” she replied glancing at her cell phone which read 4:07 “He’ll be in the office until six, but I wanted to go now. Do you think you could start dinner? All the stuff is on the counter all you need to do is-” she was cut off by an agonizing sigh from her boyfriend “Babycakes, you know how busy I am in the evenings, I have to polish and wax Veronica, I have to give Jazzy a bath, and trim her nails and feed her vitamins to her, you picked up her food right?” feeling more than a little annoyed Kate replied “ Yeah it’s there on the counter by the dinner stuff”.” As she turned to leave “Babe! You know Jazzy can’t eat that stuff, it’s the wrong kind” Jaden chastised “It was cheaper” she said rather bothered, Jaden said to her “ you might as well just feed her poison, or better yet TABLE SCRAPS, it’s got so many damn carbs in it.” On her way out the door and down the hall to the elevator she rolled her eyes and said “That food won’t kill her any more than your pampering will!” She was answered by the click of the latching door.
         When she reached Dr. Myles office she didn’t have to wait long at all. Dr. Myles sat her down in his office and said in a tone that made Kate feel as if she were made of very thin porcelain, “Miss Christiansen, we did a number of standard tests on your blood today and all of them came back negative. Except one; ma’am what I’m getting at here is that you’ve tested positive for Chlamydia. Now before you get too fired up I want you to know that it’s fairly simple to treat.” His words stabbed into her chest like hot jagged shrapnel, as he pulled out a prescription pad and jotted down something “I’m writing you a prescription for tetracycline, take it twice a day for two weeks and then we’ll test you again.” She tried to thank him but no words came out. When she arrived home Jaden wasn’t in the apartment. She called his cell; he answered and all she asked was “Where are you?” “Downstairs polishing up veronica” She nearly threw her phone in frustration “Why does he always have to name EVERYTHING?!” she thought to herself envying his precious shiny Porsche for being able to hold his attention. “Well, do you think you could tear yourself away and come up here?” she requested “ Yeah no problem sugar,” she cringed at his stupid use of pet names “Let me just kiss her good night and pull her cover on real quick, okay?” *Click* Kate simply hung up without a word. Jaden had barely shut the door when she fired her question at him “Who is she?” Jaden started to break a sweat and nervously wiped his perspiring palms on his pants as he responded “Who?” “Who are you sleeping with Jaden?! Who is she?!” her voice began to raise “Babe, what are you talk talking about?” Jaden asked as his face turned a deep crimson color. “No one gets fucking Chlamydia out of the fucking blue Jaden! Now who the hell are you sleeping with?!” She screamed at him across the room. Finally Jaden snapped “All right! Fine! You wanna know so badly?! It’s Charlotte, yeah that’s right, your fuckin’ sister. We’ve been together for 3 months now and all ready I can tell she got all the good genes…
         
         Now as Kate lay collapsed in a heap of sorrow Jaden responded “I never loved you, and you mean even less to me now than you ever did.” As she lay there weeping she heard the door slam shut as Jaden exited the scene. She bolted to the bedroom and removed the hand gun that Jaden kept there. She caught up to him as he reached the elevator, and as he stood and waited for the doors to open she approached him from behind and whispered in his ear “I’ve always loved you”. All that could be heard was two shots three seconds apart and all that could be found were two bodies one was Jaden Palatino age twenty six, and the other just a sad broken girl who had nothing left. She clutched a smoking gun in one hand and in the other an orange plastic bottle with a white cap and an Rx label that read: “Tetracycline, Take twice a day for Chlamydia”

Epilogue
Jazzy, Jaden’s beloved pit bull went to Kate’s grandmother who fed her nothing but table scraps and store brand dog food. Veronica, Jaden’s pretty precious Porsche went to the highest bidder at an auto auction, and her current owner washes her once every blue moon and the last time she was ever polished or covered was the night of Jaden’s death. As for Charlotte, her sister’s and lover’s deaths must have hit home pretty hard because she has now devoted her life to God and the Catholic church and can be found on any given day donning a habit and doing the Lord’s work at St. Mary’s convent in upstate New York. So apparently some good came out of that evening’s events.