Tansy
Breaking apart a couple takes even more work than I expected. Finding Jody in bed with that guy had almost felt like a relief. At last. Here it was. The thing I could point to and explain why a relationship that should have been so right was pure misery.
She was cheating all along. Of course I must have realized on some level.
Jody spends hours explaining how lost and pressured she’d felt. She’d crumpled under my expectations.
I didn’t know it was so much to ask her to support me and love me.
She keeps me up until 3 a.m. before she finally admits that we have to sleep sometime.
When I try to remind her about her promise to sleep on the couch, she acts like she never said anything like that. My memory is failing me under all this stress. Maybe I’m wrong.
“I’ll sleep on the couch, then.”
“You won’t get any real rest.” She’s standing in the bathroom we’ve shared for eighteen months. One of her fists rests on the edge of the raised sink bowl. “You’ll toss and turn.”
“I’ll be fine.” My eyes are so bleary, it hurts to blink.
“Here, take a Xanax at least.” She grabs the bottle from the medicine cabinet and shakes one into her palm.
“Those are yours.”
“And I’m sleeping in the bed, where I’ll sleep like a log.”
Sleep like a log when we’re less than twelve hours away from what should have been our wedding. I can’t understand her.
“Fine,” I tell her. I take the pill and toss it back. I’m going to sleep either way so it doesn’t really matter.
I hold the small, stuffed bear that’s been with me since my childhood in Idaho and shuffle to the pale-gray sectional. The blanket from the back of the couch is thin but warm when I nestle into it. Tears burn my cheeks. I hold down the sobs that I could make, because I don’t want Jody to come back. I want space. I want to breathe. I’m not sure I’ll ever breathe right again. When I think the combination of my silence and snotty nose will choke me, I roll over so that my face is buried in the throw pillows.
And, the thing is, I don’t think I’m crying over my relationship. I want to be free. I want myself back. I cry because I can—because it’s not my job anymore to be the calm, rational person that Jody always demanded.
It hurts to realize again that I’m human. With human feelings that have been hidden for so long I’m not sure if it’s best to wipe my eyes as I cry or if that will make things worse. I’ve forgotten how to cry.
I drop into sleep like a pebble into a well.
I jerk out of sleep gasping.
“No, no, it’s okay,” a familiar voice says. Jody.
I wipe a hand across my eyes. My sight won’t clear. I think it’s the crying that’s left my eyes swollen. Or maybe the pill. “Jody, we have to sleep.”
“I couldn’t.”
“What time is it?”
“Five.”
Two hours after she finally let me go to sleep. I can’t think. I am fog. “I have to sleep.”
“You can’t leave me.”
“I don’t want to be with you anymore.” It’s my clarion call. The one thing I kept saying over and over last night, between the explanations, between her justification.
“I don’t know what I’ll do.” She’s sitting on the edge of the couch, her hip pinning my ribs in. She takes my hand, wrapping her fingers around mine. “If you go . . . I might as well be dead. Maybe I will be.”
I don’t say anything, which could seem awful to some people, but I know from the other times that there’s no right answer. If I act like I don’t care despite the adrenaline surging down my useless stick limbs, she’ll flip to rage. If I take her veiled threats seriously, we’d end up with her mocking me for needing safe spaces and too much sensitivity training.
My mouth feels like it’s been wiped down with cotton wadding, so dry I can barely swallow.
“You won’t leave me.” Jody pets my hair back. “We’re good together. Everyone says so.”
I rub my tongue over my lips. It’s hard to line up words. “I want to go.” I can’t think past the basics.
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“After everything I’ve done for you. Everything I’ve given you?” There’s a light on in the bedroom, just enough to let me see the shape of Jody’s face but not her eyes. I don’t trust her if I can’t see her eyes. She’s cold like a Russian saint and just as hard. Her grip on my hand tightens. My bones grind together.
“You’re hurting me.”
“You’re hurting me,” she echoes, pinching my fingers tighter.
Tears well in my scratchy, swollen eyes. “Please.”
“Always with the tears. I’m not hurting you. I love you.”
Aren’t these my bones? She pushes my hair away from my face and kisses me. I don’t kiss her back, but I don’t pull away either. She’ll only get more upset with me. Her hold on my hand loosens at last. It’s only when she pushes my shoulders down that I realize I’ve been trying to curl up and get away. I am away. I’m floating even though I’m lying flat.
Gyoza meows from somewhere else in the apartment. I think she must be on her perch in the dining room. He likes the window overlooking the pool.
I guess Jody is still kissing me. She’s flat on me. Her thighs straddle my thigh and she rubs. She buries her face against my cleavage, and the irony almost kills me. My breast are sensitive. During tough times, I had to beg her to touch me there. Told her how much more eager for sex I’d be.
She does it now. Not then.
I stare at the ceiling. My hands are flush against the couch cushions. For a second I think the fabric’s damp, and then I realize that my palms are sweaty.
She cups my breast, her hand beneath my V-neck shirt. The individual brands of her fingertips are made of sandpaper.
Any minute now, she’ll notice that I’m not here. I’m not with her. I’m so far away that each long, slow blink moves me back and forth across galaxies.
She grips my shoulder tightly. I make a noise like a whimper. I guess it hurts. She intertwines my fingers with hers and pushes them down her cotton shorts. She’s wet. I try to pull my hand away, but she doesn’t let go.
In a little bit, she’s done.
With a gasp that’s nearly a cry, she collapses on me. Her knees push between mine. Her head rests on my chest.
Outside a car door slams shut. The downstairs neighbors are home. I hold my breath and wonder when Jody will get off me. How much space is in the universe. There are molecules between her and me. I wish there were more.
I wish I hadn’t taken that pill.
“You see?” Jody touches a single, wet finger to my sternum and pets a sticky path to the neckline of my T-shirt. “We’ll work this out.”
“I’m going away,” I promise, and then sleep swallows me.