HOME | DD

Description
His lips wound vowels and fricatives in my direction, the skin around the edges white with the tension. He was angry, and every once in a while he would stop and click his jaw on the left side. He only did this when he was angry or when he was bored. I let myself think too long about the possibility of it being boredom and perhaps he wasn't angry at all. My eyes rolled in their sockets to the side and I smiled just long enough for him to catch it.

'Ffffuck it! Areyouevenlisteningtome!' Well no I wasn't. He was doing that thing he did where he spent twenty minutes shouting about something I could sum up in thirty seconds.

'I know you're upset but…'

'Upset!' He waved his arms and turned away, his hands on his hips - he looked just like his mother - and head cocked to one side. He was really angry; I heard his neck click.

'Calm down!' I sighed, folding my arms and cocking my own head. 'I don't see how this upsets you so much. It's a step forward? I thought this is what you wanted?' I would have stepped forward and put my hands on his shoulders but this was no time for sympathy. 'Nick?' I said his name softly, It had worked once, lulled any mood, coaxed secrets, but now it just hung in the air, echoing in my own head and sounding stupid!

'I don't want to… Why would you do this?' I had frustrated him to the point of tears? Really? I bit my lip and kept quiet, I didn't like getting angry with him, he usually won because he wouldn't back down and I could never keep it up. 'Are you… Are you pregnant?' He turned so I could see the side of his face. He was the same shade as the walls, a light brownish cream that looks quite pleasant behind a picture of a sunflower but sickly and wrong on a human being. 'Jesus Christ!' His eyes were glazed and pink, the green seemed faded.

'What? No!' I laughed as he ran his hands over his head, his dark hair slicked back by the clammy palms. 'And Jesus Christ? Makes sense, it would be an immaculate conception.' I mumbled the last part, he had always thought that sex was too big a deal for me. All the same he hadn't touched me at all in two months.

By this point I was definitely angry. 'But Nick,' I said, talking a semi-step forward. 'That is what you wanted! You were pissy with me because I worked all the time remember? If we're both working, you said, how can we start a fuckin' family? You begged me for this you arrogant prick!' Arrogant didn't really fit there but I was mad. I had just thrown away my career for him. We had lost half of our income because he wanted a family. I was throwing myself on the line, ready to be a housewife and he was swearing into his cupped hands and bending his shaky knees.

I didn't understand him fully, at first, his voice was shaking with no solid verbs, then I heard it, a cruel whisper. 'Do you hear me?' I waited for him to repeat whatever it was and he did. It was slow, word by crushing word, and by the final one my fingernails had dug crescent moon craters into my palms. 'I said I… I've met someone else.'

The room filled with static and I could hear my bones creak with every slight movement. My neck squeaked like a rusty door hinge as I turned my head slowly to the side. My shoulder popped quietly as I reached out for the cushion beside me, laying my hand on it and steadying myself as I breathed in deeply. I felt sick and stupid, so very stupid. 'How long?' Hardly any sound had come out but he replied.

'Three months…'

I frowned and stared at him through my dark fringe, we had only been technically apart for two. 'You were sleeping with her and then coming back to me?'

'I'm sorry! I wish I'd said something sooner…'

'No you don't!' I sighed, pushing myself to my feet. 'What's her name?' A boring name, fitting the image of a stock blond actress in a stock red dress.

'That's not important.' He still wasn't facing me. 'But I love her.'

'You loved me.' I retorted running the joke through and through my head. 'Right? You did?' Or maybe he didn't, that was part of it! I probably knew her! There were camera's everywhere and this was a practical joke, all of it, from the moment he asked me to the cinema to that very second where he told me.

'Of coarse I did.' He lied.

Next thing I know I'm lying on the floor and my knuckles are killing me. My face feels like its just reversed over several times by a school bus. He's making his way to the door, suitcase filled with clothes, briefcase filled with files, head swimming with relief and stomach full of adrenaline. To add insult to injury he slams the door.