I bristle. “No. It’s private.”
“Even from me? I’d let you see mine.”
I don’t believe that for a minute. “So? I wouldn’t ask to see yours. Your phone is none of my business.”
“I am your business.” He sits up, bringing our faces closer together. I slide off his lap immediately and insert a healthy amount of room between us. “Or I’m supposed to be.”
“You don’t trust me,” I say.
“You don’t trust me, either.”
We watch each other. We’ve been watching each other so long, whenever I shift my glance I see a faint shadow of his silhouette thrown over every surface, like one of those black-and-white optical image tricks that you continue to see imprinted on blank spaces even after looking away. The sky has grown dark without our awareness. Through the living room window I can see a dash of stars, so much brighter here than anywhere else in the world. We’re in our own bubble out here in the country.
This house is a place outside of time. It’s so easy to spin around each other and lose track of hours, days, weeks. How long have we been here? It’s got to be years.
I strain to remember how I wound up sharing intimate space with this other human being. I think I remember a zing in my bloodstream, a click of magnets. Laughter. Hope. The beginnings are so sparkly, so effortless. You can imagine the other person to be whoever you want. In all the gaps of your knowledge about them, you can paint in whatever qualities you like as placeholders. You can paint the other person into a dream impossible for them to live up to.
We met at a charity triathlon and struck up a conversation when he stumbled and I helped steady him. We met while volunteering at a homeless shelter. We met at a bank, depositing millions of dollars into our respective accounts. Braiding lanyards with at-risk youths.
He’s right, I don’t trust him.
He’s kneeling at the other end of the rope bridge, hacking away at my lifeline with his knife. It’s going to collapse before I can safely passage over. His eyes gleam as he watches me panic. He can’t wait to see me fall.
Nicholas rises to his feet and checks the window, surprise flitting across his face when he sees that it’s already dark outside. I think he’s realizing we’re in a place outside of time, too. He shrugs back into his coat.
“Are you going out?” I ask, shadowing him. “There’s a freeze warning tonight. With as heavy as it’s been raining, I should get ahead of this and go salt Mom and Dad’s driveway now.”
Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes is like trying to hold in a sneeze. How could I have forgotten this particular habit of the golden son? Anytime there’s a freeze warning out and there’s been precipitation, Nicholas goes over to his parents’ house and salts the driveway. When it snows, he shovels their driveway. They could easily hire someone for this task, but darling Nicky takes up the mantle because he’s Such A Good Son and craves their approval like it’s cocaine.
“We should do our driveway, too,” I say. By we, I mean him. It’s freaking cold out there and I’m in my daytime PJs.
“Our driveway won’t get as bad as theirs, since it’s not paved.” He slides his gloves on and flexes his fingers, admiring the quality of leather. “I’ve got snow tires and four-wheel drive.”
“I’ve got …” My monster car flashes in my mind’s eye. I’m afraid to have another go at it, but my only other transportation is an ancient bicycle Leon left behind. “What if I want to go somewhere?”
He knows I’m fishing for him to say something wrong, or that maybe I’m hoping he’ll pass my impossible tests and say something right. Fire your shot and find out, Nicholas. “There’s a bag of salt in the shed.”
I follow him to the door. It feels like he’s always leaving right when I want him to stay. When I need him here and he leaves, I lose something every time, over and over. He takes it from me when he goes. Always going. He’s never going to belong to me. He’s never going to want to stay with me. I’m never going to be enough. Even when we’re not together and I’m away doing something else, it bothers me when that rigid sense of duty to his parents snaps its fingers and off he goes running. It’s easier if I decide I don’t want him around, because then at least he can’t disappoint me.
“Nicholas,” I say when he steps off the porch. Each blade of grass is an iceberg in miniature, crunching under his new work boots. I’m going to be the most honest I’ve ever been with either of us, out loud. Right now.
“I love you eighteen percent.”
It’s not a great number, but it’s been worse. Those glasses and the messy hair are unfairly handsome on him and he’s been more open with me. And more brutal. He killed a baby tree out of spite.
He stops in his tracks. Turns. “What did you just say?”
“That’s the percentage.” I clear my throat. “Eighteen.”
He’s so still, I think a strong wind might knock him over. “There’s no such thing as loving someone eighteen percent.”
“Yes, there is. I’ve done the math.”
“You can’t measure love.” His voice sharpens on the last word before twisting. There’s mockery running all through it now. “But if we’re going to play the numbers game, then I guess I would have to say that I tolerate you eighteen percent, Naomi.”
“So you don’t love me, then.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He didn’t not say it. I cross my arms and wait for him to say something else. “Well?”
But he doesn’t reply. His expression is so stormy that my pulse skips, and he leaves without another word. I go inside, a little wobbly after our conversation. I’m wobbly all the time now, but it’s a step up from my fugue of before, half seeing and half listening to my surroundings. I pick up my phone, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. But it’s not a rejection for one of my applications. It’s a text from my mom, which is rare.
I notice we haven’t received our wedding invitation yet. Have you forgotten our address?
I compose a reply: I haven’t mailed them out. We’re not settled on a photo to include.
Gnawing on my cheek, I backspace all of it and type: They’re ready to go. We’ll send them out soon.
I backspace again. Then I delete the text without responding.
It’s Saturday, which has a new meaning now that I’m still getting used to.
In our old life, if I wasn’t scheduled to work we never spent Saturdays at home. I’d go browse flea markets and thrift shops while Nicholas hung out with his friends: Derek, Seth, and Kara—the ex he’s “just friends” with and who loves to tell me I look tired. I don’t care that she’s married and blissfully devoted to her husband. I’m never, ever going to like her.
Seth’s indifference toward me evolved into jealousy when Nicholas and I got engaged, as if I’m a usurper stealing Nicholas away from him. One-on-one, he’s all right. Get him into a large group setting, and he tries to be a comedian. When this happens, all of his jokes are about Nicholas. He takes little jabs at him constantly, smiling while he does it, which disguises his put-downs as playful ragging. Nicholas’s appearance takes a lot of hits. Nice jacket. You stopping by the country club later? Every time he makes fun of an item of Nicholas’s clothing, it vanishes from his wardrobe circulation. He’s stopped wearing the Cartier watch his parents got him as a graduation present and leaves his Ray-Bans in the car. If he uses a big word, Seth laughs and asks him if he thinks he’s smart. You think you’re at a spelling bee or something?