All your perfects

Chapter Two

Now

Our marriage didn’t collapse. It didn’t suddenly fall apart.

It’s been a much slower process.

It’s been dwindling, if you will.

I’m not even sure who is most at fault. We started out strong. Stronger than most; I’m convinced of that. But over the course of the last several years, we’ve weakened. The most disturbing thing about it is how skilled we are at pretending nothing has changed. We don’t talk about it. We’re alike in a lot of ways, one of them being our ability to avoid the things that need the most attention.

In our defense, it’s hard to admit that a marriage might be over when the love is still there. People are led to believe that a marriage ends only when the love has been lost. When anger replaces happiness. When contempt replaces bliss. But Graham and I aren’t angry at each other. We’re just not the same people we used to be.

Sometimes when people change, it’s not always noticeable in a marriage, because the couple changes together, in the same direction. But sometimes people change in opposite directions.

I’ve been facing the opposite direction from Graham for so long, I can’t even remember what his eyes look like when he’s inside me. But I’m sure he has every strand of hair on the back of my head memorized from all the times I roll away from him at night.

People can’t always control who their circumstances turn them into.

I look down at my wedding ring and roll it with my thumb, spi

But nowhere in that jeweler’s explanation did he say the ring symbolizes eternal happiness. Just eternal love. The problem is, love and happiness are not concordant. One can exist without the other.

I’m staring at my ring, my hand, the wooden box I’m holding, when out of nowhere, Graham says, “What are you doing?”

I lift my head slowly, completely opposite of the surprise I’m feeling at his sudden appearance in the doorway. He’s already taken off his tie and the top three buttons of his shirt are undone. He’s leaning against the doorway, his curiosity pulling his eyebrows together as he stares at me. He fills the room with his presence.

I only fill it with my absence.

After knowing him for as long as I have, there’s still a mysteriousness that surrounds him. It peeks out of his dark eyes and weighs down all the thoughts he never speaks. The quietness is what drew me to him the first day I met him. It made me feel at peace.

Fu

I don’t even try to hide the wooden box. It’s too late; he’s staring straight at it. I look away from him, down at the box in my hands. It’s been in the attic, untouched, rarely even thought of. I found it today while I was looking for my wedding dress. I just wanted to see if the dress still fit. It did, but I looked different in it than I did seven years ago.

I looked lonelier.

Graham walks a few steps into the bedroom. I can see the stifled fear in his expression as he looks from the wooden box to me, waiting for me to give him an answer as to why I’m holding it. Why it’s in the bedroom. Why I thought to even pull it out of the attic.

I don’t know why. But holding this box is certainly a conscious decision, so I can’t respond with something i

He steps closer and the crisp smell of beer drifts from him. He’s never been much of a drinker, unless it’s Thursday, when he goes to di

It says something that I forgot to look forward to it tonight.

“Qui

I can hear all his fears, silently smashed between each letter of my name. He walks toward me and I focus on his eyes the whole time. They’re uncertain and concerned and it makes me wonder when he started looking at me this way. He used to look at me with amusement and awe. Now his eyes just flood me with pity.

I’m sick of being looked at this way, of not knowing how to answer his questions. I’m no longer on the same wavelength as my husband. I don’t know how to communicate with him anymore. Sometimes when I open my mouth, it feels like the wind blows all my words straight back down my throat.

I miss the days when I needed to tell him everything or I would burst. And I miss the days when he would feel like time cheated us during the hours we had to sleep. Some mornings I would wake up and catch him staring at me. He would smile and whisper, “What did I miss while you were sleeping?” I would roll onto my side and tell him all about my dreams and sometimes he would laugh so hard, he would have tears in his eyes. He would analyze the good ones and downplay the bad ones. He always had a way of making me feel like my dreams were better than anyone else’s.

He no longer asks what he misses while I sleep. I don’t know if it’s because he no longer wonders or if it’s because I no longer dream anything worth sharing.

I don’t realize I’m still spi

He tilts my face upward and he bends forward, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

I close my eyes and subtly pull away, making it appear as though he caught me while I was already mid-movement. His lips brush across my forehead as I push off the bed, forcing him to release me as I watch him take a humbling step back.

I call it the divorce dance. Partner one goes in for the kiss, partner two isn’t receptive, partner one pretends he didn’t notice. We’ve been dancing this same dance for a while now.

I clear my throat, my hands gripping the box as I walk it to the bookshelf. “I found it in the attic,” I say. I bend down and slide the box between two books on the bottom shelf.

Graham built me this bookshelf as a gift for our first wedding a

That was back when touching each other still held hope. Now his touch is just another reminder of all the things I’ll never be for him. I hear him walking across the room toward me so I stand up and grip the bookshelf.

“Why did you bring it down from the attic?” he asks.

I don’t face him, because I don’t know how to answer him. He’s so close to me now; his breath slides through my hair and brushes the back of my neck when he sighs. His hand tops mine and he grips the bookshelf with me, squeezing. He brings his lips down against my shoulder in a quiet kiss.