I’m bothered by the intensity of my desire for him. I want to turn and fill his mouth with my tongue. I miss the taste of him, the smell of him, the sound of him. I miss when he would be on top of me, so consumed by me that it felt like he might tear through my chest just so he could be face-to-face with my heart while we made love. It’s strange how I can miss a person who is still here. It’s strange that I can miss making love to a person I still have sex with.
No matter how much I mourn the marriage we used to have, I am partly—if not wholly—responsible for the marriage it’s turned into. I close my eyes, disappointed in myself. I’ve perfected the art of avoidance. I’m so graceful in my evasion of him; sometimes I’m not sure if he even notices. I pretend to fall asleep before he even makes it to bed at night. I pretend I don’t hear him when my name drips from his lips in the dark. I pretend to be busy when he walks toward me, I pretend to be sick when I feel fine, I pretend to accidentally lock the door when I’m in the shower.
I pretend to be happy when I’m breathing.
It’s becoming more difficult to pretend I enjoy his touch. I don’t enjoy it—I only need it. There’s a difference. It makes me wonder if he pretends just as much as I do. Does he want me as much as he professes to? Does he wish I wouldn’t pull away? Is he thankful I do?
He wraps an arm around me and his fingers splay out against my stomach. A stomach that still easily fits into my wedding dress. A stomach unmarred by pregnancy.
I have that, at least. A stomach most mothers would envy.
“Do you ever . . .” His voice is low and sweet and completely terrified to ask me whatever he’s about to ask me. “Do you ever think about opening it?”
Graham never asks questions he doesn’t need answers to. I’ve always liked that about him. He doesn’t fill voids with unnecessary talk. He either has something to say or he doesn’t. He either wants to know the answer to something or he doesn’t. He would never ask me if I ever think about opening the box if he didn’t need to know the answer.
Right now, this is my least favorite thing about him. I don’t want this question because I don’t know how to give him his answer.
Instead of risking the wind blowing my words back down my throat, I simply shrug. After years of being experts of avoidance, he finally stops the divorce dance long enough to ask a serious question. The one question I’ve been waiting for him to ask me for a while now. And what do I do?
I shrug.
The moments that follow my shrug are probably why it’s taken him so long to ask the question in the first place. It’s the moment I feel his heart come to a halt, the moment he presses his lips into my hair and sighs a breath he’ll never get back, the moment he realizes he has both arms wrapped around me but he still isn’t holding me. He hasn’t been able to hold me for a while now. It’s hard to hold on to someone who has long since slipped away.
I don’t reciprocate. He releases me. I exhale. He leaves the bedroom.
We resume the dance.
Chapter Three
* * *
Then
The sky turned upside down.
Just like my life.
An hour ago, I was engaged to the man I’ve been in love with for four years. Now I’m not. I turn the windshield wipers on and watch out the window as people run for cover. Some of them run inside Ethan’s apartment building, including Sasha.
The rain came out of nowhere. No sprinkles to indicate what was coming. The sky just tipped over like a bucket of water and huge drops are falling hard against my window.
I wonder if Graham lives close by or if he’s still walking. I flip on my blinker and pull out of my usual parking spot at Ethan’s for the very last time. I head in the direction Graham began walking a few minutes ago. As soon as I turn left, I see him duck into a restaurant to take cover from the storm. Conquistadors. It’s a Mexican restaurant. One I’m not too fond of. But it’s close to Ethan’s apartment and he likes it, so we eat here at least once a month.
A car is pulling out of a space in front of the restaurant, so I patiently wait for them to leave and then I ease my car into their spot. I get out of the car without knowing what I’ll say to Graham once I walk inside.
“Need a ride home?”
“Need company?”
“Up for a night of revenge sex?”
Who am I kidding? The last thing I want tonight is revenge sex. That’s not why I’m following him, so I hope he doesn’t assume that’s the case once he sees me. I still don’t know why I’m following him. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to be alone. Because like he said, the tears will come later, in the silence.
When the door closes behind me and my eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the restaurant, I spot Graham standing at the bar. He’s removing his wet coat and laying it over the back of the chair when he sees me. He doesn’t appear at all shocked to see me. He pulls out the chair next to him with the confident expectation that I’ll walk over to him and take it.
I do. I sit right next to him and neither of us says a word. We just commiserate in our silent misery.
“Can I get you two any drinks?” a bartender asks.
“Two shots of whatever will help us forget the last hour of our lives,” Graham says.
The bartender laughs, but neither of us laughs with him. He sees how serious Graham is being, so he holds up a finger. “I have just the thing.” He walks to the other end of the bar.
I can feel Graham watching me, but I don’t look at him. I don’t really want to see how sad his eyes are right now. I almost feel worse for him than I do for myself.
I pull a bowl of pretzels in front of me. They’re a mixture of shapes, so I begin to pull out all the sticks and I lay them on the bar in the shape of a grid. Then I pull out all the O-shaped pretzels and scoot the bowl of the traditionally shaped pretzel knots toward Graham.
I lay my pretzel in the center of the grid. I look at Graham and wait quietly. He looks at the pretzels I’ve strategically placed on the bar and then he looks back at me. A very slow and guarded smile makes its appearance. Then he reaches into the bowl, pulls out a pretzel knot and places it in the square above mine.
I pick the spot to the left of the center square, placing my pretzel carefully in my square.
The bartender lays two shots down in front of us. We pick them up at the same time and swing our chairs so that we’re facing each other.
We sit in silence for a good ten seconds, waiting for the other to make the toast. Graham finally says, “I have absolutely nothing to toast to. Fuck today.”
“Fuck today,” I say in complete agreement. We clink our shot glasses together and tilt our heads back. Graham’s goes down a lot smoother than mine. He slams his glass on the counter and then picks up another pretzel. He makes the next move.
I’m picking up the next pretzel when my phone starts buzzing in my jacket pocket. I pull it out. Ethan’s name is flashing across the screen.
Graham then pulls his phone out and sets it on the bar. Sasha’s name is flashing across his screen. It’s comical, really. What must the two of them think, walking out and seeing both of us sitting on the floor together, eating their Chinese food.