My House of Pain: The Haunting of Mary

Another in the long list of chapters

The day I met Mary wasn't just another fucking day—it was the universe laying a trap with sugar as bait. Jimmy had dragged me to a random house telling me that's where Mary lived. It was one of those tired suburban two-stories brown wooden panels and a garden gnome, a petrified bambi, going along the stones pathway to the front door. I remember thinking the place looked different, yet cool, and that also somehow I knew crossing that threshold would change everything.

We had a dinner thing at a local Italian joint. I remember it clearly because it was one of those places where you drew with crayons on the table, and the straws were pasta straws so you could eat them. The restaurant was dimly lit with those grape vines hanging from the ceiling and Italian flags plastered on every wall. The kind of place that tried too hard but somehow still had the best damn garlic bread in town. With a name like Italian Oven, how could it be any other than that.

The moment we walked in, our nostrils got fucking assaulted by the heavy garlic and tomato sauce hanging in the air like a delicious fog. My stomach growled so loud the hostess probably heard it over the cacophony of clattering plates and boisterous laughter. Our table wobbled slightly on the worn terracotta tiles, scarred with years of dragged chair legs and spilled Chianti.

That garlic bread, Oh Ragazzo, the bread. It came out steaming hot, the butter soaking through the crispy crust and pooling on the chipped plate beneath. Each bite shattered between my teeth, releasing an explosion of garlic and herbs that made my eyes roll back. Worth every goddamn calorie. The marinara they served alongside was thick as sin, chunky with tomatoes that tasted like they'd been kissed by the Italian sun, not the pale imitations you find at the supermarket.

Italian Oven might look like a cheesy tourist trap from the outside, but the food punches you right in the childhood – the good parts, the ones you're always chasing but can never quite catch. It's the kind of place where the servers know when to leave you the hell alone and when to swoop in with more bread before you even realize you need it. We'll be back, no doubt about it. Some places just grab you by the soul and don't let go.

Jimmy and Mary were college friends, and Jimmy had always felt he was more than how Mary saw him. You could see it in his eyes whenever she walked into a room—that mixture of hope and resignation. He'd laugh too loudly at her jokes and touch her arm just a second too long. Classic Jimmy, always wanting what he couldn't have. I admired him though. He was steadfast.

He and I were friends because of my bestie Karl, who was his roommate. Karl was the kind of guy who collected people like others collected stamps—enthusiastically and without much discrimination. He'd found Jimmy during freshman orientation, both of them lost and looking for the same building, and they'd been inseparable ever since. Karl had this way of making every story sound like an adventure, even if it was just about going to the grocery store.

When Mary finally walked into that Italian restaurant, the air changed. She had this wild sandy blond hair that caught the light like it was made of metal and eyes so blue they looked artificial. She conventionally pretty—animated and laughing—but there was also something magnetic about her. She slid into the booth across from me, smelling like some cute perfume, and asked if anyone minded if she ordered for the rest of us and herself. That was Mary—unapologetically herself and daring you to have a problem with it.

Little did I know then that this random Tuesday night would be the first chapter in a story that would consume the many years of my life. A story that would leave me both better and worse in ways I couldn't possibly imagine as I sat there, drawing a crude stick figure on the paper tablecloth, trying not to stare at her hands as she gestured wildly, telling some story about her that I just hung on.

Cute as a button? Fuck that noise. Mary was devastating. Five foot four of concentrated compassion and eyes that warmed you completely in seconds flat. Her gaze washed over you like golden sunlight, bathing your worries in a healing glow that made your chest ache with relief. She wore a pretty skirt, flats and blouse – not as armor but as an extension of the pure-hearted creature within. The fabric danced around her like gossamer wings as she moved, each step leaving tiny impressions of kindness in her wake. The air around her hummed with something sacred, something that made your soul stand at attention. Her scent – honey and fresh linen – lingered in rooms long after she'd left, a blessed reminder that goodness had passed through. I could taste something sweet, almost painfully pure whenever she smiled at me with those goddamn merciful eyes. Wendy would tell me in the back of my head how cute it was, but Wendy missed the fucking point entirely. There was nothing merely cute about Mary. She was a walking salvation, a balm for broken spirits, terrifying in her capacity to see the best in people who'd forgotten it existed in themselves.

I wasn't chasing the people I dated in those days. I was a fucking walking corpse in nice clothes, going through motions like a puppet with half its strings cut. Mary moved and swayed to chase me - calling me, planning dates, bringing me into her life while I stood there, hollow-eyed and empty. After my recent losses, the world turned into a goddamn wasteland. Lendy cast me away, and my skin crawled with rejection. Every phone that didn't ring was another knife twisting in my gut. But deeper than that - buried beneath layers of numb flesh - Wendy was there, silently watching, maybe even guiding my paralysis. She knew something I didn't: I wasn't meant to chase. Her betrayal clung to me like the stench of stale cigarettes, impossible to wash off no matter how scalding hot I ran the shower, until my skin turned angry red and still the filth remained.

I was just... there. Existing. A fucking shadow.

One night after a long date with Mary, I found myself in the bathroom, staring at the mirror.

"You're wasting away. Look at yourself," Wendy's voice whispered from the darkest corners of my skull, following me through empty rooms like judgment made flesh. "When was the last time you even cared for yourself? You smell like regret."

I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror, cracked at the edge like my fucking sanity. Dark circles carved beneath my eyes like someone had scooped out chunks with a rusty spoon. My skin hung loose, a size too big for the bones beneath.

"Shut up," I hissed, knuckles white against the porcelain sink. "You don't get to talk to me like that."

Wendy's laughter echoed, bouncing between my temples like a pinball made of broken glass. "I'm the only one who's still here, aren't I? Everyone else got tired of your bullshit and left."

I struck the sink's ivory white porcelain, its cold slickness shocking my palm. As if the pain might drown her out.

"That's it," she laughed, her voice softening to an almost tender mockery. "Hurt yourself again. That'll solve everything, won't it? Let me out, and this all stops. Let me free, and you'll never feel this fucking hollow again." Her words clawed deeper. "What's worse? Letting me out or drowning in your own hate? Your body's eating itself alive while your mind circles the fucking drain."

And Zoe—my mother. Her voice lived in my head like a fucking parasite, burrowing deeper with each passing year, feeding on my decisions, gorging itself on my failures. “You always were the weak one,” she'd hiss through clenched teeth, her words dripping acid down my spine. “Always needing me. Always crawling back.”

I hated how much I still craved her approval, even after the scars and bruises scattered across my body like constellations of pain, even after the nights locked in closet that smelled of mothballs and terror while her boyfriends laughed on the other side of the door. She was always whispering what a disappointment I was between breaths, her voice crackling through phone calls when I was vulnerable, and she knew I was, desperate for direction.

Always a phone call away. Always there to guide me wrong. To control me. Her fingers had been wrapped around my throat since birth, not squeezing hard enough to kill me—just enough to make sure I knew who was allowing me to breathe. The memory of her knuckles against my cheekbone would throb whenever I tried to stand up for myself, the taste of copper and fear flooding my mouth.

“You need me,' she'd remind me, voice thick with satisfaction. 'Without me, who would you have to blame? Who would remind you what you really are?'"

When Mary looked at me, though, there was peace. That year of dating tasted like possibility, before the bravery of proposal happened. Her mouth against mine tasted like redemption, like maybe I wasn't completely fucked after all. Her fingers traced my collarbone like she was reading something valuable there, something worth saving.

We'd spend nights in her parents' basement, the musty scent of old carpet blended with the heat of our bodies. Valentine's Day, she covered that lovely blanket with rose petals—dark red against cream white like blood on snow. I remember thinking I didn't deserve this kind of beauty while she whispered things against my skin that made my chest ache.

The coffee shop and book shop around the corner became our confessional. We'd sit for hours in that back corner with the wobbly table, her fingers wrapped around a chipped mug, steam rising between us like druid chants. She'd talk about her dreams, her voice carrying over the hiss of the espresso machine, while I'd nod and smile and think about how easily I could poison this, too.

"Read me something," she'd beg, pulling me between shelves that smelled of possibility and other people's worlds. I'd find something suitably profound, my voice steady even as my hands trembled, playing the role of thoughtful fucking intellectual while inside I was screaming. And she'd look at me with those eyes—goddamn those eyes—like I was actually the person I was pretending to be.

But I was building us on quicksand.

Every foundation crumbled beneath my feet the moment I tried to stand on it. Her trusting eyes gutted me each time she asked about my childhood, about my family. The lies weren't even creative—just pathetic omissions that piled up like bodies. Rotting, festering things that stank of cowardice. I sanitized my history, buffed my broken parts to a high shine. I told her I was my father was not in my life, no longer living, because that’s what Zoe forced me to think and believe.

I dressed up my failures as noble sacrifices. Told her my friends had 'drifted away' instead of admitting they'd given up trying to pull me from the wreckage I kept creating. I hid my deepest feelings, much like the nights I'd spent staring at bridges wondering if the fall would even hurt that bad. I swallowed Wendy down so deep I could feel her drowning in my gut, clawing to get out every time Mary said she loved how 'stable' I was. Every compliment from Mary was another shovelful of dirt on what was real, burying me alive in my own bullshit. And still, I kept digging, kept smiling, kept pretending I deserved the soft way she'd look at me across dinner tables, like I was someone worth building a future with instead of a time bomb wrapped in human skin.

The proposal wasn't some grand romantic gesture. It was a fucking evacuation plan from my mother's grip. Zoe practically shoved the ring in my hand, her fingers digging into my arm as she hissed, "Don't mess this up. She's the best you'll ever get. And you probably aren't even worth that."

And like the good son I'd been programmed to be, I dropped to one knee and offered Mary damaged goods with a smile.

The velvet box creaked open like an old wound. Mary's eyes widened—not with joy, but recognition. She'd seen this coming from a mile away, smelled the desperation oozing from my pores like cheap cologne. The room buzzed around us, hollow as a forgotten dream.

My knee ground against the tile floor, sending splinters of pain up my thigh. Sweat trickled down my back, cold and clammy as a corpse's touch. The words caught in my throat like fish bones—rehearsed bullshit that tasted like ash on my tongue.

"Marry me," I managed to choke out. Not a question. A goddamn plea.

Mary's face twisted into something between joy and amazement. Her fingers—always so delicate, so careful—trembled as they brushed against mine. The diamond glittered under the room’s dim lights, reflecting our broken futures in its facets. It was a diamond that was purchased for me. Because I did not have the graces to do it myself. I could feel Zoe's eyes burning into my back, her approval radiating like heat from an open furnace. My mother's puppet strings pulled taut across miles, yanking me into position like the dutiful marionette I'd always been.

I remember the wedding, only because I was so numb and unable to process what was going on, that the memory is still vivid. I remember standing there, droning the words as I had practiced. It felt amazing. It was beautiful and kind. And it was glorious. So numb was I, that when Mary went to light the unity candle, I just stood there frozen. Unable to move.

"Punky, come here," she waved quietly, motioning at me to come over where she was standing. I snapped out of it. Oh shit! I need to move, I thought.

The honeymoon was a grand time. A week of rest and relaxation in the innards of Savannah, GA. A fine dinner at The Pink House, eating nuclear hot wings at the wing place down on the river-walk, the silly string incident (where Mary got mad at me for buying a can of silly string, and then jokingly spraying it on her).

The city wrapped us in its sultry, moss-draped embrace—old brick and cobblestone streets sweating in the Georgia heat, air so thick with humidity you could damn near swim through it. The Pink House's crystal chandeliers caught the candlelight in fragments that danced across Mary's face as she laughed, teeth white against her wine-stained lips. Those fucking wings at the Savannah Taphouse down by the river nearly burned holes through her tongue, the pain exquisite—as she gulped water and soda that did nothing to douse the fire. Her constant begging for the waiter to bring her more Ranch dressing. Dipping the wings themselves into the Ranch, thinking it would make them “cooler”.

The drive home tasted of rum-soaked chocolate cake, the fermentation buzzing through our veins as thunderclouds gathered on the horizon like bruises. We didn't know it then—how could we?—that those storm clouds were a goddamn omen of the darkness creeping toward our blissful little kingdom. But in that moment, with her head on my shoulder and miles of asphalt stretching before us, we were untouchable. Fucking invincible.

And we married. And it was grand. And times in the land of Yor were at peace. For a while......