I know he’s playing a character, but it’s one that comes from inside himself. How different from Tobin can this pirate be?
We must have hit some swamp fire, because every stick of emotional dynamite lights up all at once.
“I already took a turn in the crow’s nest. I came down because it’smyturn to steer.”
“I’ve captained this ship for nigh on eight years. Your keen eyes can spot trouble miles away. That’s how we’ll survive the marsh, which none have traversed alive since—”
“I know about themarsh,” I snap.
“Apologies.” He sweeps a sarcastic bow, annoyed I’m not giving him a “yes, and.”
One part of me thinks,Good. At least when I’m angry, he feels something.But there’s a little sparkle of fear at the bottom of my treasure chest of fury, a memory of our one fight before this year. Not even a fight.
We’d just taken ownership of the house we could barely afford. He thought we wouldn’t need movers, but only one of the people who’d owed him favors showed up to help us move. By 10P.M., the house was still chaos and we were so, so over each other. I wanted us to go crash at my parents’ house, which I thought was a normal thing to do when everybody was furious and nobody knew where the mattress was. He said he’d stay and keep unpacking, but at midnight he climbed in the window of my childhood bedroom, eyes red, begging me not to leave him over one bad day.
We kissed each other’s tears away, and I came home. We found the mattress in the living room, collapsed behind the couch. We didn’t even have the energy to put sheets on; we just found a blanket and folded into each other like exhausted origami. I thought we’d done okay, for our first fight.
Except there was never a second fight. Tobin made himself the peacemaker in our relationship, just like when he was a kid refereeing his parents’ marriage. But what if breaking our old patterns breaks that one, too? If I’m angry, and he’s angry right back, what then?
I pile justification on top of the fear to cover up its cold brilliance. “Let me ask you something, Captain Crunch. How come you’re in charge?”
He looks at me like I’m beautiful, but slightly touched. Can I not see what a fine figure he cuts in his buckskins and boots? Does not his shirt gape open at the front, revealing his manly chest? Who else could be captain?
A tourist squats on the next rise, gigantic camera pointed our way.
“I rose through the ranks, like any captain.”
I know. I watched him get chosen. “No. Nothowyou became captain.Why. Why you, and not me? Name one reason I couldn’t lead.”
His eyebrows bunch so hard the bandanna gathers at the middle of his forehead. “I don’t… this is what I always do. Why would you want me to do something else?” Fair point. In an uncomfortable situation, Tobin defaults to what he does best: leading the expedition, filling silences with games and songs and adventure and himself. He’s fantastic at it. Clients love it. Everyone loves it, if I’m being honest.
But I don’t want to be his client. Or the stage crew for his performance.
“I don’twantyou to do something else, Tobin. Ineedyou to. I don’t want to play the same roles forever, where you ride in on your white horse and save the day and, oh yeah, I’m there, too. I want togrow. And I want you to value the invisible work I do, because you do that work, too.”
We break off as a pair of defeated hikers trudges past. They look inexperienced, but they could get to Hell if they had opportunities and support. If their first failure wasn’t taken as a permanent judgment on what they could do.
Enough. “I want a turn being captain. And if you won’t share, I’m getting my own boat.” I march to the stern, looking for a plank to walk.
“Li—sailor! Stop!” Tobin yells. “The marsh is too dangerous. We won’t survive if we split up.”
I’m cracking him. Breaking through his character, peeling it off him strip by strip. Ignoring McHuge’s commandments. Tobin’s trying to preserve the fiction, but the fear in his voice feels real, sawing across my heartstrings in a jagged screech.
He doesn’t want me to go. But if the power of “no” is the only power I have, then that’s what I’ll use.
I look over my shoulder. “You’re right. I don’t know what’s out there. Maybe a sparkly merman with washboard abs. Could be a kraken who’ll eat me alive.” I shrug. “But I need to find out.”
His hand drifts to his stomach, checking the architecture of his own abs. Is he jealous of an imaginary merman? The lower half of his face looks… insecure. Unhappy.
“This is a problem in our marriage, Tobin,” I say gently. “You don’t see me as someone who can lead. Neither of us did, if I’m being honest. And you didn’t see yourself the other way. You didn’t picture needing help. Or standing there while someone else says yes to everything on your behalf. Oh, and you’d be in an absurd dress where you can’t move or breathe.”
“You’re wearing jeans, Liz,” he points out curtly. “I mean, pantaloons.”
I thought he’d figured things out after the rawness of the radio scenario, where we made progress by doing things differently. Instead, he’s wrapped up in the role, determined to rescue me.
But in real life, no one rescues you. No one offers you opportunities if you’re different from the people who’ve always gotten those chances.
In real life, you have to rescue yourself. You have toGET MAGIC,as my phone reminds me every time I open my Notes app. It doesn’t sayask people to let me have magicorwait for magic to find me.
