I
slide the door open and let the onslaught of Chinese take-out and soft alt-rock
wash over me.
“Hey,” he looks up from the kitchen counter and smiles at me as he’s emptying a
shit load of sesame noodles onto a plate.
“Dinner?” He grabs two sets of chopsticks, the plate and napkins and starts
heading for the living room. “Grab the wine?” He nods towards the counter where
two glasses of red wine sit waiting. I put my bag down and walk straight across
the loft and into the bathroom. I shut the door and lean against the sink. He
had to pick today to bring home dinner and wine and be all nice. What a fucking
disaster.
I take a piss, splash my face with water and go back into the kitchen. I grab
our glasses and head for the living room floor where he’s sprawled out chomping
on the noodles. He doesn’t seem at all phased by the fact I just spent 10
minutes in the bathroom without explanation.
I sit down beside him and force a small smile.
“Bad day?”
“No, fine,” I answer honestly.
“What gives?” He looks up.
I shrug, trying to hide the fact I’m staring at him like he’s a science
experiment. “Nothing.” I’m a bad liar.
Now he shrugs, “Eat.” He pushes the plate towards me and unwraps my chopsticks
like I’m 12. Breaking them in half and rubbing them together to take out the
splinters that cheap take-out chopsticks always have in them. It annoys me.
I grab them from him and start eating without saying a word. I know he’s
watching me for the first few minutes, but I pretend he’s not.
A little time goes by, “So, nothing?” He sips his wine and I watch the deep red
liquid stains his lips.
“Nothing,” I say quietly and keep eating.
He picks up the remote to the stereo and switches the CD.
“I like that one,” I protest quietly.
“Get over it,” he switches the disc anyway. Great, here we go.
“You hate all the music I like.”
“No I don’t.” There is a slight tone of amusement in his voice.
“Do too,” I grind my jaw and get angry for absolutely no reason.
“Whatever, you still hungry?”
“I’m not five, if I’m still hungry I’ll eat more.”
His eyes narrow at me, “Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?”
“Nothing!” I practically yell. I’ve gone completely insane at this point. I
stomp into the kitchen and rinse my wine glass out, pouring the majority of it
down the drain. He comes up behind me. Idiot.
He puts his hands over mine and forces me to set the glass in the sink. He
turns me around slowly and just looks at me for a long time. Then he backs up,
as if to assess what planet I’ve come from. He watches as my petulant, pouty
face darts all over the room. Looking anywhere but at him.
Finally he speaks, “If you had a bad day and you need to be pissed at someone,
that’s fine. But let me know what the fuck is going on.”
“It’s not that,” I say as I contemplate how much I hate the hardware on the
kitchen cabinets. I actually let my distaste for it fuel my anger.
“You wanna tell me or you wanna be a little bitch for a while longer?”
“Fuck you,” I glare at him. Yes, I need a straightjacket.
“If it’ll make you feel better,” he takes my hand and starts to walk towards
the bedroom. Why the fuck is he being so nice to me?
I stop in the middle of the loft and pull my hand from his. He looks back over
his shoulder at me, “Fine.” He rolls his eyes and shrugs and keeps walking toward
the bedroom.
As he hits the stairs my words stop him, “It’s day 22.”
He turns around, “What?” He looks bored.
“We don’t go more than 21 days without a major blowout.” I know my lip is
trembling but I ignore it.
“You keep track of how often we fight?”
I slowly nod, “Sort of.”
“You’re sick.”
“It was accidental. I felt like we were on borrowed time, like we only ever
stayed happy for a couple of weeks, and finally I started to notice the
pattern. We can’t go more than 21 days. It’s day 22. We haven’t fought since
the 3rd of this month.”
He comes back across the loft and stands in front of me, “You measure happiness
by how long we can go without flipping out on each other?”
“I guess,” I shrug.
“Then get ready to be unhappy forever.”
“Huh?” I look up at him as he starts to walk away from me.
“We fight, it’s what people do,” he rolls his eyes at me like I’m a complete
idiot. And I’d have to guess that is about right. “You take all that’s wrong in
your life and make it the fault of the person who least deserves it. You’ve
watched me operate for how long?”
I guess I know that is a characteristic of human behavior, punishing the people
you love the most. But why the hell is that? It’s so fucked up.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I furrow my brow.
“Sure it does,” he walks back over to me again, “you get pissed at the one
person you know won’t run from you.” He smiles and I almost die, “Why the fuck
do you think I’ve been yelling at you for all these years?”
I smile a little, “But I hate when we fight.”
“Get over it. It’s part of the package. People who don’t fight are in way more
trouble than we are.”
“You think?” His hands slide around my neck and his forehead tilts forward to
touch mine.
He just nods.
“And the making up is good,” he just stares at me.
I bit my bottom lip, “About that fuck…”
We start to walk toward the bedroom and he throws an arm over my shoulder,
“That was only when I thought you needed cheering up, Sunshine.”
“I’ll get pissed off again if it makes a difference.”
“No such luck.” He smacks my ass and the world seems right again.
Feedback to throughthelens78@yahoo.com