20 mintues prior

“Fuck!”

The expletive left my mouth as I ground my teeth and stared at the screen. The last hour had been the most frustrating hour of gaming in my life. Nothing had gone right. Each game was worse than the one before. Even the games I had been playing for years felt off. At first I tried to chalk it up to just my mood, but I knew better. The truth is, I was avoiding my thoughts. I wanted to be distracted, but instead the thoughts in my mind kept distracting me enough that I was playing worse than a noob.

On top of all that I couldn’t seem to get comfortable, no matter what I did. It started with feeling like my boxers were bunching up in odd ways. Then the sweatpants that I had worn for years seemed to have lost all their softness. The old and worn material felt scratchy as it pressed against my smooth skin. The way the baggy clothes would randomly press against different parts of my body distracted me each time I shifted in the chair. It wasn’t just the clothes though.

Like any gamer, I had worn my setup into place by playing for hours and hours on end. If there was anything that Melissa could have said was a problem in our relationship, it was that I spent too much time gaming. Yet, it all felt off. My typical slouched position was uncomfortable. I could feel pain in my back as I tried to find a comfortable position. Nothing had felt right since I had left the bedroom.

Closing my eyes, I struggled with the frustration that was welling up inside of me. Everything felt off and nothing I did seemed to fix it. The worst part of it is that I didn’t really understand why everything felt wrong. It was almost like the reason was just out of reach, hidden around a corner in my mind. Everytime I focused on it and tried to figure it out, the concept seemed to slither out from my reach just as I was about to close in on it. Everything just felt off.

“I wish Melissa was home.” The words fell on the empty apartment as I stood up and walked out of my office. It felt like talking to her would help me, but she was gone and working hard. I thought for a moment about calling her, but the idea of interrupting her seemed more wrong than just wallowing in my own frustration. My aimless wandering led me from the office into our bedroom.

Standing in the doorway, my eyes tracked around the empty room as I tried to figure out how to get past this feeling. As soon as my gaze fell on the white headphones, the feeling of frustration intensified. How was I supposed to make Melissa happy if I couldn’t even make myself happy? Was I really so pathetic that I needed some weird song just to get through my day? I could feel myself reaching for the headphones, only for anger to flare up inside of me.

My anger at the small ear buds felt almost like it was coming from nowhere. I knew they weren’t to blame, but something about them just seemed to set my mood off. The anger began to simmer as I stood there, alone and in silence staring at them. My mind started to drop each and every small mistake and wrong turn I had made on top of me as I stared down at the small white plastic.

I had known I needed to do more training on other languages. I could remember friends giving me advice that I needed to move on and try to better myself. Then there was the ego driven part that had stopped me from taking those early job offers. They were too small, didn’t pay enough, weren’t the right position. Looking back, I could see how stupid I had been. The worst feeling was that all while that was going on, Melissa was busy working for a second income. She was managing to not only replace a huge portion of my lost salary, but was getting promotions while it happened.

The words slipped from between my lips before I could stop them. “I’m not just a failure in my career, but in my marriage too.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and could feel my stomach turning in knots as I tried to think my way out of the situation. Only every thought ended in some failure of my own design. All I knew was that there was no way I could do what Melissa had suggested. My failure earlier that day had already shown me that I wasn’t going to succeed. I just couldn’t see it being anything other than an embarrassment to her reputation, not to mention what it would do to mine.

The disgust at myself, the feelings of failure just kept welling up inside of me and I could feel tears forming at the corner of my eyes. I ground my teeth and tried to **** them back. Deep breaths through my nose started to bring my heart rate back down and let me finally open my bleary eyes. The first thing I saw after finally managing to get myself back under control was those damn earbuds.

I stalked out of our bedroom and grabbed my running headphones. I needed to blow off steam, and with all my hobbies failing me, I knew that running on the treadmill was the only thing left. Stepping onto the device, I kicked the speeds up and started without warming up. I could feel each footfall as I pushed my pace faster and faster. It was almost like my feet were stabbing at the ground as I continued my reckless stride. It felt like I was running from my problems, but considering I couldn’t figure out a way past them, I didn’t seem to have another choice.

My breath became ragged as I went well past my typical sprint distance. Finally, I could feel myself unlatching, letting everything go as I cranked some old 90’s metal through my headphones and ran. My next stop came down with less ****, less anger, and the ones after it followed suit. Soon I was slowing down to a much more sedate pace, slower than my typical pace even. Focusing on my breathing, I continued to run away from my problems, and I could feel them slowly dwindling in the background. Until I felt someone pull my headphones off my head and I turned to see the absolutely furious look on Melissa’s face.

“What is going on Darren? I thought Missy had meetings all afternoon? Why aren’t you working?” Her tone was full of the disdain I had felt for myself earlier and I knew I had let her down again.

Stepping down off the treadmill, I turned to her. I wanted to explain what was going on, but all I could think of was that I had failed her yet again. “Honey, I… I mean…” I stammered and tried to speak up, but nothing came out as I stared deep into her eyes. Stepping back away from her I collapsed onto the couch and laid my head back and said the only thing I could think of.

“I’m sorry I’m a failure.”