"Come on! Do it already!" Beth said.
"I can't," I replied.
"Sure ya' can."
"Seriously. I can't."
"Can't? Or won't?"
"This is weird."
"Just hurry up and go. My knees are getting sore from kneeling."
"Yelling at me isn't going to make it happen any faster!"
"Quit making excuses and piss on me!"
"Okay. That's it. I can't go along anymore."
I pulled up my underwear. I walked off the tarp Beth had laid down on her bathroom floor. I put the toilet seat down and sat on it. Ironically, sitting there made me feel like I had to pee. Beth got up from the floor and sat on the edge of the tub. She took off the lab goggles she was wearing and tossed them onto the plastic sheet.
"Sorry," she said finally.
"It's okay."
"No, it ain't. Ya' were uncomfortable and I yelled at ya'. I shouldna' done that."
"It's just...it's really weird. I have a hard time peeing if someone else is in the men's room. There was no way I'd be able to pee on someone staring straight at me. I don't even know why you wanted to try this. Seems kind of gross."
"It is gross. That was supposed to be the point. It's dirty! I was thinking it might be a turn-on."
"For me or you?"
"Both, I guess. I don't think I really thought this through. It just popped in my head a while ago and I couldn't get it out so I wanted to try it. God! By now ya' really gotta' think I'm a freak."
"It's freaky, yes, but it doesn't make you a freak. If you really want to try it I could go drink some more water."
"Do you always have to be so fuckin' understanding about everything?!"
"I don't know why you're yelling at me."
"Most every little thing I've asked of ya', ya' just sat and told me it's cool or fine or understandable!"
"Generally it is!"
"No, it ain't! Not all of it! It makes ya' sound like a wimp when ya' agree to everything I want to do!"
"I'm only trying to make you happy."
"But you're doing it by burying all your feelings. You're letting me do anything I want. I pick the restaurants, the movies, when and where we're gonna' have sex. I can't even tell ya' one damned time when ya' initiated sex. Ya' always wait for me to do it."
"I'm not a take charge guy. You know that."
"And it's getting less attractive."
I didn't know how to respond to that. I wasn't even sure what we were arguing about. Or why. Up until now I hadn't realized that it was a problem, my shyness. She never brought it up before. If she never mentioned it then how was I to know?
"I'm going to go then," I said. I picked up my pants and pulled them on.
"Go ahead an' leave. That'll prove me wrong."
I buttoned up my pants, glaring at her. I set my jaw, afraid that if I didn't try to look angry then I would burst out crying. The tears were already burning the back of my eyes. If she thought I was unmanly before then sobbing in front of her wouldn't dissuade that notion. I did manage to swallow my emotions. Long enough to choke out, "Or I could stay here and we can say hurtful things to each other. That would be much better."
She looked like she was on the verge of saying something then she bit it back. The way she struggled to keep it down made it look like she was going to choke to death. I was tempted to ask her what she was about to say. I decided to follow my own advice and kept my mouth shut. Nobody needed to say anything needlessly hurtful.
It was difficult. Pretending to be angry made me angry. I was confused. I wanted to scream and yell and call her all sorts of names. I always found it weird that in situations like that, with tensions raised, I wanted nothing more than to see Beth cry. Any other time I wouldn't ever want to. I would do anything to prevent it. Now it seemed to be the only thing I wanted.
If I did make her cry I knew I would regret it. It was like emotional ice cream. It would be satisfying at that moment...later it would make me sick to my stomach.
I finished dressing in that awkward, pained silence. Beth continued not saying anything. She didn't even bother getting dressed. She sat and glared at me. I finished lacing up my shoes and stood up. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know if I should say anything. On impulse I almost said goodnight. Instead I barely nodded to her then walked out.
I closed her door, maybe for the last time. It wasn't a dramatic door-slamming that would punctuate the argument. I let it fall shut with a soft 'click.' I walked to the elevator slowly. I held out hope that her door would open, that she would run down the hall and hug me and kiss me and end this stupid fight. But she didn't. The elevator door opened, I stepped inside and pushed the button for the first floor.
The elevator lurched downward. The knot at the base of my throat stayed where it was. I wasn't angry anymore. I shifted towards sad. Removed from the argument, even at this short of time, I cooled off. The whole walk away from her door my throat had constricted tighter. It felt like I swallowed a jagged rock which got stuck halfway to my stomach. Tears stung at my eyes. I was going to cry, there was no stopping it. I wanted to wait until I was in my car. I felt that if the doorman saw me crying I'd be too embarrassed to come back.
Was that really a concern? I didn't know if I would be coming back. As far as I could tell this wasn't my fault. As long as she held onto this anger then it was her choice to reconcile or not. The most I could do was forgive her and take her back if she decided to stop being angry. I couldn't apologize for being me.
I got into my car and surprised myself by not bursting into tears. The jagged rock still stuck in my throat. I was suddenly tired. Weary. Weary was a good descriptor, one I never thought would apply to me. Even when I thought of myself as an old man I never figured I would describe myself as weary. It was the constant shifting of high emotions. It wore me out. I sighed, shifted the car into drive and sped off into the night.
I hated driving in silence, but it seemed like the radio was against me. Every station I turned to was some sad song about broken hearts. I even tried the hip-hop station. It was playing some heartfelt ballad. I stabbed the radio's off button. I rolled the window down and drowned out my thoughts with rushing wind.
When I parked at my apartment my phone showed that I had missed calls. It was an unfamiliar number, three times, so there was no doubt it was Beth. I didn't call her back. I deleted the messages. Too soon. As much as I wanted her to apologize as I walked out of her apartment I knew it was only a fantasy, a cheap bandage over a serious wound.
If I was being honest with myself I knew I was being petty. Some part of me wanted to imagine her in her apartment crying her eyes out. Seeing it in reality would destroy me, but it gave me a terrible pleasure to think she was. She created this situation. She started the fight. Let her be miserable. She deserved to be. Make her feel as miserable as I did.
I was angry because I felt like she tricked me. She put me in a situation where I was uncomfortable, that I had only gone along with to make her happy and she got mad that I did. If she didn't really want to do it then why bring it up? I only wanted to make her happy. I didn't feel like I was sublimating myself to do it. Without her...I didn't want to do much. Didn't she understand that?
That's why I liked her. She made me get out of my apartment. I let her pick the bars because she knew where she wanted to go to have a good time. I had no regular places. The only bar I frequented with any regularity was a place called The Hex. It was a club the girls from work liked to go. If we had anything like a Christmas party, that was where we went. Sometimes I joined them for a drink there after work. Other than that I had nothing. So it was exciting to be taken to new places, places I would never go on my own. I didn't want to pick a place, only for it to turn out to be lame and have to apologize for it.
She had the world to show to me.
I only had my apartment and video games with Wade.
FUCK!
I slumped down in my recliner. I stared at the wall. Nothing else to do. I didn't want to play videogames, watch television, read. It was too early in the evening to think about sleep. In my keyed-up state I doubted I could get to sleep anyway. Just because I was emotionally worn out didn't mean I was physically tired. If I did try to crash then I was likely to wake up in the middle of the night. Then I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep.
I wasn't looking forward to being in bed, in the dark, staring at nothing while I wondered what went wrong. I hoped this was just a speed-bump, a small fight, and not the end. Or the beginning of the end. I liked Beth, probably loved her. She made my world seem bright. I didn't want to lose her.
My apartment felt empty. Like it was just a place to store my stuff. Looking around at my television and my books and my posters it all seemed unimportant. It was like set dressing for a television show. At that moment none of it mattered to me. It was all just junk. All of it replaceable. It didn't make me happy. It entertained me, kept me occupied during the hours I wasn't working. Beth made me happy. She made the time outside of work worth living.
It struck me right then how lonely my life had been before she came crashing into it. Before it had been two years since I had been with a woman. I wasn't lonely because the thought of another two years without sex was depressing. I was lonely because I realized that I had grown to like having someone next to me, close to me. I liked the massages before and the cuddling after more than the sex. That's what I could remember fondly. I liked holding Beth in the dark, looking out the window. Those were the moments which made me feel happy when I thought about her. If she did break up with me those were the times I would miss most of all. Letting go of that would be a hard adjustment.
I tried to remember if I felt this way when Karen and I split up. I didn't think so. Back then we split up so gradually that by the time we were officially done we hadn't been together in a long time. She was on the east coast and I'd slipped gradually into being alone. That was a slow withdrawal process, helped along by sparse, infrequent visits. This would be going cold turkey.
My phone remained still. I stared at it, willing it to buzz with a call or chime with a message. Anything. Right then I would answer. In a heartbeat. I would have broken down and called her, but I deleted her new number along with her messages so I couldn't be weak. Now I was truly screwed. Nothing to do but sit and wait for her to call me.
