I mean, one of the things Ilovemost about him. Love. Present tense.
I put his palm over my bra, where it’ll push away my thoughts.
His face flickers as I lean up to kiss his neck. He pulls his hand away, not breaking rhythm. My nipple feels suddenly cold, and not in a sexy way.
“Tobe? You okay?”
He smiles, says nothing, and puts his other hand where it would’ve made me see stars ten seconds ago.
“Tobin.” I reach for his bad wrist, but he leans on his elbows, putting it out of reach. “You can’t go out tomorrow if it’s this sore. You have to get someone to replace you.”
“Last weekend of the season. Everyone’s booked. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I will be in a couple minutes,” he breathes, planting his lips on mine.
Another day, I’d let it pass. Today, though.
Today, all the words we don’t say gather in my chest. Today, I pick the word first in line.
“TMBNNNN,” I shout into his mouth. “I don’t want to hurt you. Can I do something different?”
“We’re good.” He bites my earlobe, my jaw, my lower lip.
He doesn’t see me. Here, in bed, the one place we still communicate, he can’t hear how it hurts me to hurt him.
My wanting sputters and fizzles. It’s like I’m getting banged by the same hot stranger who’s been showing up in my bedroom for the last three years straight. It might sound sexy, but the four hundredth time it happens, it’s lost its shine.
I can’t do this. Not with Tobin. I’m used to not being seen, but when it’s his eyes with that thousand-yard stare? His ears, blocked by these cones of silence? It’s unbearable.
Even so, nobody’s more surprised than me when I blurt the second word in line.
“No.”
He falters, coming to stillness.
That, he heard.
I pat his shoulder twice, one-two, like a wrestler at the end of the scripted entertainment.
“I’m done.”
“What?” He looks confused, his brain still carried by the momentum of desire. But the part of him that’s fading fast against my panties knows. He rolls away. “But I didn’t think you… you’re done, from that?”
“Not done like that. Done, like,done. I can’t do this anymore.” I’m through being invisible, here or anywhere.
His body stills, like a prey animal who’s caught a whiff of wolf. “Is this, uh, a game?”
This is no game. I look right in his eyes and think the thirdword, the one that’s been nibbling at my edges for a few months now.
Divorce.
I’ve been so afraid to say that word. It has a dark power that can’t be undone once unleashed. I’ve held that word in my heart, in my throat, under my tongue.
I can’t bring myself to say it. Not even now.
But I can’t be this hurting, lonely, half a person I’ve become. I can’t be the puzzle piece that looks like the right shape for his but has to be pounded into place by force. Ican’t.
