I walk on eggshells, my mind a swirling mess of questions I replay over and over, trying to find the right answer.
Should I wake him up?
What if he’s angry when I do?
Do I walk away and let him cool down?
Should I just let him sleep?
Is he avoiding me? Avoiding life?
I walk over to the bedroom door and stop. The door is closed, the room silent, and I listen for sounds, any sounds, but even as I will them to happen, they don’t. If I heard him moving around, maybe I’d be okay with opening the door. If he were talking on the phone, maybe he’d see the value in getting up and interacting with people.
I tell myself this is what it’s like, but it won’t be like this forever. This is what we’ll work through together and when it’s all over, we’ll look back on it and realize how much closer together it brought us. But right now, standing here in the present, feeling the weight of its severity, feeling the pressure of decisions and loneliness and loss, I struggle.
He struggles.
We struggle, together, but not really together. More like side by side. And that’s when the tears begin to pool in my eyes, despite my best attempts to stop them.
I place my hand on the doorknob, my fingers holding it softly in case I lose my nerve and don’t open it. I don’t want him to hear me. I don’t want him to think I’m checking on him, even if that’s exactly what I’m doing.
“Just go in,” Reid’s voice whispers from behind me and I gasp out loud, jumping away from the door.
“Shit, you scared the hell out of me,” I whisper-shout, slapping at his chest with my palm. “I thought you and Sie left for the store.”
“We did, but we forgot the reusable bags and you know how she is. Not a chance in hell she’s paying for plastic bags.”
“The bags are in the mudroom,” I prompt, looking at him, my head to the side, questioning his need to come all the way into the house.
“Yeah, I know, but the house was really quiet and I…”
“Came to check on Caleb?” I ask, attempting to finish his thought.
“I came to check on you.”
“Why?”
“Because no one has bothered to ask if you’re okay and that’s shitty of us.” He changes direction as his eyes scan my face. “You’ve been crying,” he states, but there’s nothing accusatory in what he says.
I swipe at my eyes, not wanting Reid to see I’m falling apart, too.
He moves his head in the direction of our kitchen as he begins to walk toward it and away from the closed bedroom door. By the time we reach the kitchen, only about twenty feet from the bedroom, I’ve started crying again. No sobs or heaving chest, just tears running down my cheeks.
“Ruby, what’s wrong?” he asks, slinging an arm around my shoulders and easing me against him. My head falls to his shoulder as I try to find the words to explain myself.
“I don’t know. I just feel exhausted by it all, but then I feel guilty for even feeling that way. My life is perfect in comparison…”
I stop talking, my voice growing higher as I speak and I don’t want Caleb to hear me out here whining about shit.
“You’re allowed to feel this way. I think we all do. Sie and I have learned to deal with this shit, but it’s new to you.” His arm tightens around me, creating a comfort but also sending a shock to my body as I grasp for something to hold me together. “You aren’t getting the support you need from the person who’s support you want. He doesn’t realize you feel this way though. He isn’t insensitive, if anything he’s far more sensitive than Sie or me, but right now he can’t see past himself.”
I shake my head, it brushing along Reid’s chin. I have no idea how to navigate any of this.
“I think you should try to talk to him,” Reid says, but his words are overlapped by Caleb’s as he asks, “Tell him what?”
We both turn to find him standing behind us. He’s disheveled, his hair messy and his face creased from the bed sheets. He doesn’t look like he’s at all open to having a discussion about my feelings, but his eyes find my face and the way he’s looking at me changes.
The defensiveness that was written in his furrowed brow and narrowed eyes has now developed into a wash of concern as the corners of his eyes tip down and his lips pull together.
“I gotta go,” Reid says, a bit of sympathy lingering in his voice. “Sie’s waiting in the car.” And with that, he leaves Caleb and me to decide how this is going to go.
The door closes and I now turn to Caleb.
“What’s going on?” he asks, a legitimate question without the casualness that normally accompanies it.
“Nothing,” I immediately respond, despite the air of tension that builds with Reid’s absence. I have no idea why I told him nothing. It’s obvious it’s something and by denying it, I’m just being selfish. My brain is sparing with itself as to how to handle this. Not talking about it keeps the peace, but not the peace within me, just between us. Talking now walks that fine line of where we could be brought closer together or argue with each other until one of us storms away.
I want to support him. I told him I’d never leave and I have no intention of doing that, but we have to find a way for this to work for both of us.
“I lied to you,” I now say, my eyes instantly shooting down to my feet.
“When? About what?”
“Just now when I told you nothing was going on,” I openly admit. There’s no going back now. “I’m having a hard time.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, the tears start, something I didn’t want to happen. I wanted to have a composed conversation with him, but here am blubbering like a baby, anything but composed.
He comes right to me, holding me to him and just letting me cry. My tears soak his t-shirt and he kisses the top of my head, his lips resting there as he gives me a soft shushing sound.
“You can talk to me, Ruby,” he now says and as much as I want to believe him, can I talk to him? Doesn’t he have enough to worry about?
“I don’t think I can. Sometimes…” I start, the courage lost almost immediately.
“Ruby, this isn’t just about me. Even my therapist told me that. If we want this thing between us to work, we have to talk to each other.”
It’s hard to control the sarcasm I feel stirring in my brain. The irony of this conversation skates dangerously close to an argument. These things have all been said between us before, but Caleb usually retreats to the bedroom and hides away from anything that delves too deep.
But I can’t be defensive or argumentative. I have to be open to what he’s offering in the moment. I know this and with my head still resting against his chest, I resolve to be honest with him.
“I’m having a hard time coping with being alone.” The words finally make their way out of my mouth, the relief almost instant, but then it’s replaced by the guilt that I should’ve never even said the words.
“You aren’t alone,” Caleb says, either missing what I’m saying or trying to deny he’s the source of my loneliness.
“But I am. When you sleep all day and when you ignore me by sitting on your phone. When a night goes by and we’re sitting on the couch and you don’t speak for hours. We’re trying to get away from these things, but they resurface constantly.”