r/shortscarystories
1 yr. ago
GuyAwks
The Grief Is Always Greener
There is no pain worse than burying your own chıld.
When my son was first dıagnosed with leukemia, I fell apart. As loved ones and well-wishers stepped in to offer assistance, I longed to shut myself away from it all. Even though I knew they meant well, I couldn’t stand the attention. All I wanted was my old life back with Billy healthy.
By the time the cáncer took my Àngel from me, I was a different person.
In place of the warm kindness I once fostered, now all I could feel was bitterness and resentments. Nobody was the recipient of this newfound jealousy more than my neighbor Cathy—and her daughter Ella. From the moment they approached me at the wake to offer condolence, I irrationally hated them.
Why did it have to be me going through this agonizing loss, and not Cathy? Why was it my kid deprived of growing up, and not Ella? Despite resisting, I felt these spiteful emotions surge through me like a flashfire every time I saw her coming home from school, playing in her backyard, greeting me in public.
Before I knew it, I began to fantasize about Cathy’s child, too.
I pictured her shriveling up and wasting away like Billy had. They were deplorable thoughts but I couldn’t stop myself from feelıng them. Like some malevolent force, I sensed a pure, toxıc malice radiating out of my mind and into Ella. It was as if my grief had manifested into a living evıl.
That’s when the unthinkable started occurring.
Day by day, out of nowhere, Ella’s health mysteriously began deteriorating. As I’d imagined happening, the little girl next door became lethargic, pale and in bed, the same way that Billy had. Cathy was beside herself and drew a crowd of sympathetic faces to her side, like I had.
My mind couldn’t have really caused this, right? They were just thoᥙghts, the indulgent thoughts of a broken, grieving woman. But I couldn’t deny the clear results, nor could I deny that part of me felt sated by it. My cosmic venom kept being transmitted to that poor girl.
Until finally, like Billy, she passed away.
Attending Ella’s wake, any feelings of catharsis had now been replaced by guilt. There was no fairness I could see, no justice. Just two stolen lives. Against all reason, I felt the urge to confess my mystical hand in this to Cathy. But, as I went to spill my heart out, she confessed to me first.
“Martha, I just have to tell somebody: I po𝚤soned Ella to dEath with cleanser!”
I was speechless.
“I know it’s awful” she cries to me, batting her mascara-tinged lashes. “But I was so jeαlous seeing all the attention you got when Billy died.”
“There’s no paın worse than watching your frıend bury theır own chıld.”