Page 47 of Courtroom Drama
“It’s similar, I suppose. People who feel slighted. Real, fractured human emotions. People blinded by hurt.” There was no saving my parents’ marriage. I thought there was no saving Damon and me. But seeing relationships mended, in part with my help, gives me hope.
Both of us have shifted our chairs to face each other, and just like in the courtroom, when our knees bump, I don’t particularly mind. “Why haven’t you had a serious relationship?” he asks.
I sip my wine for some time. “I just haven’t met anyone that... fits.” I think back to Dominic, the guy I met two years ago in line at the CVS pharmacy as we both awaited antibiotics for similar bouts of strep throat. We expressed our disdain for the woman in front of us who was demanding the pharmacist fill her prescription immediately despite the line. Grumpy and throats inflamed, we bonded over our deep disapproval of people in public, generally.
Dominic and I messaged over the course of the next three days, comparing symptoms and TV binging choices. On the fourth day, we met at a mom-and-pop coffee shop equidistant from our respective apartments and ordered an array of all the carb-heavy items on the menu.
“Food is amazing,” he said, eyes as glazed as the doughnut before him after four days of limited intake.
“Carbs good,” I grunted through a bite of chocolate croissant.
We saw each other two to three times a week for nearly six monthsafter that, though neither of us sought to define the relationship. For me, it was because I wanted to match his aloofness. For him, I found out later, it was because he had several casual relationships he’d been juggling at once, a few of which had even been double-booked with me on the same days, I came to learn.
Dominic was the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship. I don’t even know that I particularly liked him.
“Why do you think that is? That you haven’t found anyone?” He leans back and crosses his left ankle over his right knee, and I’m distracted by the sheer spread of him. I resist the urge to volley the question immediately back to him.
“Like I just said, I guess it’s because I haven’t met the right person.”
He squints his peacock-feather-colored eyes at me. “That feels like a cop-out.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Does it?”
“Yeah.” He rubs his thumb along his bottom lip absentmindedly, and it’s the epitome of distracting.
“Okay, real talk?”
He places both feet on the ground and leans forward, hands clasped ahead of him. “Always.”
“My parents’ marriage, it was borderline abusive. D’you remember how many times I showed up at your place around dinnertime just to escape it?”
He nods.
“I can’t imagine hating someone that much. I don’t ever want to hate someone that much.”
“Itwasabusive, Syd. Things don’t have to be physically violent to be abusive.” He swallows.
I know this, of course. But putting that label on things somehow makes it all less sweep-able under my ten-year-old rug.
“You’re not them,” he says, then takes a sip of his beer. Intellectually, I of course know I’m not them. But they are my DNA.
“What about you?” I ask, keen to turn the spotlight.
“I had that girlfriend in college,” he says. “But things didn’t workout. She was great. Really great, actually. But I just never got to the point of wanting to take the next step. She wanted to move in. I wasn’t ready. She left, found someone who was ready, got engaged and married all within the next year.” He spins his pint glass in little circles atop the table, spreading new arms of the glass’s watery ring. “I told myself I didn’t care about her enough to give her what she wanted. But sometimes, I think maybe I cared too much. So much that I was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing her. Once you lose someone, loss is this thing that is sort of... waiting. It felt like a ticking time bomb. Like if she stayed with me, she’d eventually die.” The tips of his ears are red. “I know how that sounds.”
“How does it sound?” I ask, my throat tight with recognition.
“Paranoid. Morbid.”
I shake my head, cross my arms against the table. “I think it sounds honest.”
We stare at each other, and I can practically feel the heat of his face spreading to mine.
Tamra taps her knife gently against her glass, forcing our attention. “I have a toast,” she says, cheeks bright pink and eyes glassy. It appears Tamra is a bit tipsy after half a glass of pinot noir. She stands, raises her wineglass, and looks down at the three of us. “I’d just like to say,” she begins, then presses her eyes shut in deep concentration, or perhaps contemplation. “That of course this situation is less than ideal. I know we all miss our loved ones, would rather be with them than on this jury.” Her eyes grow full. “But I just want to thank you”—she makes eye contact with each of us at the table—“for giving me some semblance of a little family while we are here. Friendship is the wine of life, as they say! To new friends!” She raises her glass emphatically and sloshes a raindrop-sized dollop of wine onto the center of the table.
