I can feel the difference between being in and out of the know like an itch on my arm. Where before, we’d traveled through the darkness of Brooklyn like wayward twins, weaved and wedded in need, now we were like two wives, one left at home until dawn while the other went out to explore the dirty trails of their own worlds alone.
I’m buying lingerie and finding them one size too small. I’m planning dinners he’s not showing up for. When he is home, he’s telling me short stories about his time at these after-parties, the parties themselves deceptively uneventful, the narrative gaps gaping, the names literally unbelievable. How do you know when the love of your life is lying to you? Every smile is forlorn. He’s so sorry for something he can’t ever articulate. You watch a romcom, and he’s nostalgic.
But since she was so interested in my anguish, I was happy to share with her our secrets of callous betrayal, to let her in on our toxic matrix., I tell her over Facebook Messenger, the new interface perfectly blinding and white, Everything is starting to fall apart — I’m making stupid, irresponsible mistakes at work — my irritability is peaking at odd intervals — I’m fucking up formulas and misjudging outputs.
But when I was alone, I could say it to the bottom of the vodka bottle. I could get wasted and listen to music that made me cry and daydream about the different ways I wanted to be remembered., I whisper after a beat to my best friend, my head pounding against the cold wall of the bathroom stall after heaving my insides into the proverbial basin of significant regret.Yeah, the second one this year.
In the first days after we separate, it’s the sleeplessness that bonds us. Over the phone, we cling to the rhythms of each other’s breath to help calibrate our own. I’m falling asleep, but I want him to make it known: I’m not the only one limbless in the small sac of despair. He’ll never say it, though, and he’ll never let me go. He wants to know that I’ll be dedicated enough to await his permission or dismissal. His revenge happens in the thrill of knowing that I’m there.
I called out of work, told my boss that I was sick, achy, didn’t tell her with what — really, what was there to say? What I needed was sleep, not pity. When I got into the office the next day, I decided to be honest, tell her I was going through an earth-shattering transition and was not going to be well. With empathy as real as a Hallmark Basquiat, she encouraged me to throw myself into work as a distraction, reminding me that pain is tentative and will pass if you ignore it.
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