January 3rd, 2014, PROMPT#3: Use this line: His last words were, "It's got melted cheese on it, so how bad can it be?"

 January 3rd, 2014, PROMPT#3: Use this line: His last words were, “It’s got melted cheese on it, so how bad can it be?”
Donnie was dead before he knew it. Perhaps if he had known that he had pushed her that far, he would have suspected it, would have seen it coming. A woman can only take so much lying, philandering and verbal abuse before she snaps, and boy, had Linda snapped.
She was young when they met, fresh out of high school and working a desk job at a vet clinic. He had a job managing the convenience store on the corner. He was older. He was cute.... and he knew just what to say to make an insecure young woman fall head over heels. They were married within 6 months. It was all peaches and cream for almost a year. Donnie wanted babies, and they sure did try, but it just wasn't happening and he just knew it had to be Linda's fault. She must be broken, because there certainly wasn't anything wrong with him or his man parts. He made sure that she knew on a daily basis that she was defective and if he had known that, he never would have married her.
The cheating began about 18 months in, for Donnie. it started with a co-worker of his, but that was fairly short lived. He had more women than he could count and he wasn't shy about it. At first he didn't try to hide it, even hitting Linda with low-blows that maybe one of them could make him a father. Linda considered packing her bags many times, but Donnie had convinced her that she would never find a man that would love her in all of her infertile glory. He considered kicking her to the curb multiple times, finding himself a woman who was worthy of all that he had to offer, but then his father passed away. Linda was very caring and helped him through and he was so grateful and sweet in his grief, he was even faithful for a good 6 month period. Then he found out how much money he would be inheriting, and his mean streak miraculously returned.
His new thing was letting Linda know how much she had failed him, how much of his time she had wasted, because now his children would never get to meet his father. What a miserable human being she was for that, he would tell her. He considered divorce but then discovered that she would get half of his small fortune, and he just couldn't have that. So he began sleeping around again, this time being more sneaky, for fear that she would use this for a reason to leave him.
Linda was no dummy, she knew what was going on. She knew where Donnie was most of the time, and she was just glad he was gone. He had quit his job because he didn't need to work anymore, but would not allow her the same luxury. She kept her job and had to work her 40 hours a week. He also demanded that she make him dinner each night, if only to use that as an opportunity to berate her daily.
Linda was a wonderful cook, everyone said so. Before her mother had died of breast cancer when Linda was 16, less than a year after her father had died in a car accident, she had taught her to cook, and Linda had cooked for the two of them in the last 6 months of her mother's life. Anytime they had guests, they raved about her food. Donnie would tell Linda that his friends took pity on her, they were just being nice. He would tell her how awful her food was, he would pick at everything on his plate. Linda knew he couldn't find it that awful, because he always ate his food. It was just another of his mind games, of which Linda was accustomed to.
Linda's life changed in her 6th year of marriage with Donnie. A new veterinarian, Jeremy, was hired at her office. He was kind, handsome, smart and he valued her. At first, it was wonderful to just have such a great friend, someone who boosted her self-esteem and never pushed anything on her. He knew that she was married, and though he did not care for Donnie and the way that he treated Linda, he never stepped out of line.
Donnie took trips occasionally, giving Linda a reprieve from her nightly abuse. It was during one of these trips that Linda stayed late at the office, and pushed things with Jeremy herself. She had never had an affair, had never even considered it. She had been so convinced that she was broken and incapable of having someone love her. She knew now that that was wrong. Jeremy loved her. He held her and told her that he wanted her to leave Donnie and their unhappy marriage. She wanted to, and began making plans.
Donnie caught wind of her plans, not her affair because he never would have suspected that anyone, let alone his pathetic shell of a wife, Linda, would dare cheat on him. In a drunken rage one night, he hit her for the first and only time. He told her that if she left him, he would murder her, and in that moment, she believed him. She cried to Jeremy that she couldn't leave him, though she wanted to so badly. Jeremy understood, and they continued their affair in secret. Jeremy knew that eventually Donnie would let Linda go, and then they could be together. He was a patient man, and he would wait for her.
They continued like that for several months, Donnie screwing anything he wanted to, yelling at Linda every night for being a failure of a wife. Linda and Jeremy meeting in private on their lunch breaks, and when Donnie was away. Then one day, Linda realized that she had not had her monthly visitor, and a home pregnancy test revealed that she would be a mother. She told Jeremy and he was ecstatic, and Linda was in such shock. Something snapped inside of her. She wasn't broken, and she wasn't useless, and she knew that she would make an amazing wife and an amazing mother, and Donnie had been wrong about her all of these years. She had been wrong about HERSELF for all of these years. At that moment she knew that she would get out. That she would be free and happy, and Donnie would pay.
When he got home that night, Donnie immediately noticed that Linda seemed to be in a good mood. She usually hid her happiness when around him, showing him the broken woman that he wanted to see. Anytime that she shone, he had to make sure to do all that he could to tarnish her. He started in about the meal, a mexican chicken casserole tonight. He told her that her hair looked like shit and she was sure she was putting on weight. He hated this meal, it always gave him heartburn, couldn't she remember simple things like that? What an idiot she was. His last words were, "Well, it's got melted cheese on it, how bad can it be?"
Linda smiled to herself, hand on her belly and mind a million miles away in her new, happy life. "Pretty bad, I guess", she thought to herself.