I mean, we’re a floating dot in a chaotic universe where destruction reigns supreme. Doesn’t that bother anybody?
So many things about the world, about society, seem so wrong. The way husbands treat their wives (or, of course, vice versa), or the way people devote so much time to working jobs they don’t even like just so they can buy things they don’t really need. They spend time away from their families and call it “being productive”, and all the while their loved ones are sitting home, ignored and assuming personalities carved by neglect. People these days are desensitized to the point that they feel nothing, care about nothing. They’re mean, they’re so mean, to each other and to animals and to kids – holy shit and Jesus Christ! – and everything is just so damn dog-eat-dog I can barely stand it.
Some days, I think I might be going a little crazy.
Then again, I’m not the nicest person, so maybe I shouldn’t talk.
Sometimes I wonder…did the world create me, or did I create my world?
• • •
I was pregnant when I left Hollis. Six weeks along, and the new life growing inside of me pushed me over the edge. I wasn’t sure how Hollis would react.
Would he be resentful, somehow blame me for something we created together?
I was scared to tell him, so I stalled, drawing it out longer and longer, making excuse after excuse for why I was keeping the news to myself.
The fear of adding yet another person to my list of people to care for was enough to throw me into a deep depression. Deeper than the one I was already in.
Nicholas paid for the abortion. He never said it, but now that I know him better, more intimately, I can say with absolute certainty that he had no plans to raise another man’s child. He wanted every connection I had to my past cut, the ends wrapped up in a neat little bow.
So I snipped every damn tie.
A few years after we were married, though, we tried to conceive. Nicholas wanted a son, someone to which his empire could be passed. As for me, I just wanted someone to love – someone who might, just might, love me in return. Because, by then, I was starved for affection, hungry for it in a way that my husband refused to satisfy. Nicholas had already made it clear that I was his property and not, as I so naively assumed, his partner. I was lonely, and I figured as a mother, I wouldn’t be.
But the days turned into months, the months turned into years, and…nothing. Even two rounds of In vitro fertilization proved fruitless. For reasons the doctors could never pinpoint, I continued to remain barren.
But I knew why.
I knew.
After what I’d done, I didn’t deserve to have a baby.
Some forces of nature shouldn’t be fucked with.
Fortunately, the few days I needed to spend in Minneapolis with Nicholas just happened to coincide with Ford’s trip to Iceland. He wasn’t around to question my absence, and frankly, I’m getting tired of lying to him.
I should just break things off.
I need to break things off.
I’m pondering this very thought when Marla texts me, asking if I’d like to grab a coffee, maybe catch a bite to eat. It’s been a little over a week since I’ve seen her, though we did exchange a few messages when I was back home. We even talked on the phone, which I found to be oddly unsettling. Marla is a loser, obviously, and doesn’t think twice about spending hours on the phone chatting it up like some high schooler from the 90s. But as I had nothing to do (Nicholas only returned home to attend a client dinner for which he needed a date and, aside for a quick ten minutes together in the sack, devoted the rest of his time to work) I answered her call, pretended to be over the moon happy to hear from her. Of course, by the time she rang, I was well into a bottle of red and feeling so damn lonely I would have answered a call from Satan himself, bargained my soul for my deepest desires.
Being back home, completely and utterly alone for the first time in so long, felt…wrong. Nicholas’s distant presence only served to magnify the rapt attention I’ve been receiving from Ford these past weeks, and the contrast between my life in Minneapolis and the one I’m leading in Duluth was so jarring I felt like a woman split in two, coming apart at the seams.
Now, back at our lake house, I feel like I’m off my game.
I watch Gus tromp through the water, skittering this way and that, his black coat wet and gleaming under the late July sun. Like me, he’s happier here.
Nicholas didn’t respond warmly when I told him I’d adopted a dog, nor did he seem to appreciate my new hairstyle all that much. Not that his reaction bothered me, however. Frankly, I was just surprised he noticed at all.
And when I went so far as to remind him that this is how I looked when we met, he regarded me with blank stare buttered ever-so-slightly by disbelief.
Sometimes I question myself.
I don’t know who I am anymore. I mean, I try to remember. Try to generate a feeling of…something. Nostalgia, maybe. Or just the random, run-of-the-mill feeling of joy. But there’s nothing there. It’s like I’m empty, hollow, as if my insides have all dried up and withered away.
But Hollis remembers. I’m sure of it. He knows me, the real me, the truth of who I am. And I need that. I need to be seen, goddammit. Because I’m not invisible.
I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.
When I’m with Ford, I have substance. Though I’m still not real, not real at all, because he only knows a fabricated version of me. Around him, I’m nothing more than a flimsy apparition, a shadow in danger of dissolving entirely when exposed to the light.
So even if I wanted my relationship with Ford to last, it couldn’t.
Not that I want it to.
I don’t.
My phone buzzes with a text from Marla, letting me know that, yes, the place I suggested to meet would be just find and she’ll see me in an hour.
With so much time to spare, I might as well put it to good use.
Sliding my hand over my stomach, I slip my fingers into my bikini bottoms. Then, settling back on the chaise, I turn my cheek, rest it against the smooth fabric, and stare at the fence. When I see movement between the slats, I smile, lick my lips.
Showtime.
Ford returns from Iceland a hungry man.
So I feed him.
Me.
It feels so good to be wrapped up in his arms after two long weeks of cold nights spent alone, with nothing but a stuffed panda to keep me company. The bear’s smell is fading, overtaken by my scent…and a little bit of Gus’s, who happened to think it was a chew toy and stole it from my bed when I wasn’t looking. I had to chase that damn dog around the house for thirty whole minutes to get the thing back. The game only ended after he tired of it, and when I scolded him, the jerk practically laughed in my face.
I swear, some days I have half a mind to dump him in the next yard (with a fence, of course) that I see.
But for now, we’re at Ford’s, finally back at Ford’s, and all is right with the world.
Gus is quiet, curled up on the end of the bed, sound asleep. Ford’s arm is loose around my waist, his bare chest flush against my naked back, and my body feels mushy and warm from his attention.
He’s only been home for four hours, and already I’ve had him three times.
“I missed you.”