Boulder
I was on edge!
Rationally, I knew I should enjoy the time I had left with Christina, but I couldn’t think straight. I was so scared of the end that I wasn’t myself when Christina confronted me that evening with the words: “Boulder, we need to talk.”
No, we don’t I wanted to scream because I knew what was coming, but I sat down with a knot in my throat and listened when she started her rehearsed speech.
“Look, I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know it was inconvenient that I came and took you away from your normal routine and your business dealings, but I appreciate that you’ve kept me safe and been my friend.”
I turned my head, unable to look at her when she spoke the dreaded word. “I’ve decided that it’s time for me to go home.”
Even if I had wanted to object, I couldn’t have. My throat burned as if hot lava was running down it on the inside.
“I know you want me to stay, but it’s really for the best, Boulder,” Christina said and this time our eyes clashed. I didn’t give a shit that she saw the disappointment and pain in mine.
“Please know that I’ve enjoyed my time with you,” she whispered and teared up.
I fought my own tears. There was no way I would be a wuss and sit here and cry like a little boy. My pride wouldn’t let me.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked after a long silence.
I swallowed again and again, trying to find my voice, but only managed to croak out: “When?”
“Tomorrow evening. I’ll go to the digging site tomorrow and instruct the team how to proceed from here. I don’t think we’ll find much more in the library but they may want to proceed with other parts of the university.”
“Okay,” I said brusquely and stood up
Christina leaned her head back to look up at me. “Okay?” she asked.
I made an angry shrug that beat falling to my knees and pleading with her to stay. “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing… I mean, I just thought that maybe…”
“What? That I would beg you to stay?” My voice was shaking with emotion.
She reached out to me but I stepped back. “You made your choice.”
A minute later I locked the door to the bathroom and watched myself in the mirror. I used to think myself handsome and worthy. Now I could see nothing but my flaws. Tomorrow I would be in the same boat as Magni. A public failure whose wife had left him.
I dried away an angry tear and shamed myself in my mind.
You really thought you’d be enough to make her want to stay? As if you were ever smart enough, attractive enough, sexy enough, enlightened or evolved enough.
My head fell forward, my shoulders sinking. What did it matter that I was one of the best fighters and most successful businessmen in the Northlands? I was just a big unsophisticated brute in her world. Tomorrow I would be alone again, and somehow that was worse than never having had a wife in the first place.
I knew what it felt like to have someone to protect, the pride of being chosen, the pride of having what other men would never have.
I knew the delirium of having a woman spread her legs and invite me to enter her.
I knew the salty taste of her skin after a day of work and the warmth of her body in my bed at night.
I knew what crazy ideas she had and how she made me reflect on things I’d always considered normal.
I knew what it felt like to laugh with a small woman who tilted her head and asked me questions like I mattered to her and was the most interesting person in this world.
And tomorrow I would know what missing all of it felt like.
I had seen old movies with break-ups but at least back then there were other women to move on with. There would never be another woman for me. That was certain, and even if there was, how could anyone affect me the way Christina had?
Acute nausea made me hold a hand to my mouth and widen my eyes in panic. Not that!
With frantic movements, I turned on the shower before I leaned down over the toilet bowl and threw up. My stomach convulsed in painful cramps until I had nothing more to get rid of.
To cover my tracks, I flushed the toilet, cleaned my mouth, and showered quickly. The time in the shower gave me a chance to collect myself before facing her again and when I did, I acted as calm as possible. My plan was simply to get through tonight and tomorrow with my pride intact.
Christina
Boulder took the news much more calmly than I’d expected. He didn’t ask many questions or try to convince me to stay.
Except… From his hard expression, I almost got the feeling that it didn’t matter much to him, and I wondered if it was our argument from earlier that had caused this change in him.
I don’t know what I had expected or hoped for. Maybe a sign that I was more to him than merely the first woman he had been intimate with. Or that I wasn’t the only one who felt an emotional connection between us.
After our talk, Boulder took a shower before he joined me in bed. We lay quietly looking up at the ceiling, not speaking a word for a long time.
“This is our last night together,” I finally whispered.
“Uh-huh,” he responded quietly.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
I turned my face to see him in the soft light.
“Will you miss me?” I asked him softly.
Slowly he turned his body and met my eyes. “Will you miss me?”
There was such a heaviness to the atmosphere in the room that I tried to lighten it up with a smile. “I’ll miss being with you at night.”
“And at day?”
“Nahh, you’re a pain,” I said ironically. Surely, he knew I would miss him.
Moving my body closer, I kissed him gently. “Do you want to be with me one last time?”
To my surprise he hesitated and didn’t hungrily roll on top of me like he normally would have.
“Is that what you want?” he asked in a controlled voice.
Sucking his lower lip into my mouth and releasing it with a pop was my way of answering him affirmatively, but he still didn’t get into action. “Yes,” I clarified. “I want us to have one final night together.”
He didn’t say a word when we undressed, and the sex was very different than usual. More cold and mechanical, as if he was holding back. I tried to kiss him, but he kept the kisses short and would hardly look at me.
I didn’t come, and I learned that night that sex without an emotional connection is no better than being with a sex-bot. Or maybe even worse, because with a bot you have no expectation of anything beyond a physical release.
After we were done, Boulder turned his back to me and the quietness resumed. I had never felt so lonely in my life. He was right there next to me. I could reach out and touch him, but I didn’t. Emotionally he was closed off and maybe it was for the best. Tomorrow we would be strangers again. Strangers living different lives in different worlds. Strangers who shared memories, but nothing more. A colossal sense of loss overwhelmed me and I cried, pulling the cover over my head to drown the sound of my shaky breathing.
I needed to go home and curl up, and somehow make sense of all that had happened in my life these past six weeks.
Once I get home, my mind will clear up and I’ll be happy that I didn’t stay, I comforted myself.