You

43

IT’S a good thing that I took a screenshot of your I love you text. Something changes after that night and it’s like I’m standing so close to a pointillism painting that I only see the dots, not the picture. You are still my girlfriend—you are. But . . .

You don’t e-mail me back right away, which would be fine if you weren’t making excuses:

Sorry, I was in class.

Sorry, I was on the phone with Chana. . . .

Sorry, do you hate me?

I try every kind of response:

No worries, B. Did you want to get dinner?

No sorries allowed. Unless, of course you’re not wearing your robe . . .

Hate you? B. I love you.

But no response is the right response because as soon as I hit SEND, the wait begins again. My thoughts turn dark and my mind wanders into Nicky’s beige den of rock ’n’ roll and lust. But you’re not seeing him. Were that the case, you’d tell someone or write to him and you don’t. I still have your old phone and I still check your e-mail and your Facebook. You love me. And one of these days, I’ll find a way to get you to admit that your mother still foots the bill for a phone you lost months ago. We’re getting there. But I love you so much that I can’t willfully close down my portal to your communications. When I worry that you’re drifting—and I do worry—I hold your phone and will you back. It sounds crazy, but I think it works. We need all the help we can get right now. Relationships get like this; I know that. But I’m allowed to be frustrated. Your word is sorry and my word is no and what happened to the time when our word was everythingship? Ethan says not to worry.

“She’s nuts about you, Joe! Blythe says she’s practically writing pornos in class, you know.”

Only Ethan would call it porno and Ethan doesn’t have to wonder where he’s eating dinner or when; Blythe is in it with him and since when did that relationship seem stronger than our everythingship?

My toothbrush is dry. You’re not using it anymore and I can pinpoint the moment you stopped. When I want to watch Pitch Perfect you are tired or you just watched part of it on the train. When I want to go out for pizza you had pizza for lunch—once upon a time, I knew your lunch at lunchtime—and when I want to have sex you want to wait just a little while longer.

“Just let me finish writing this paragraph. I am so late. So bad, I know.”

“Just give me a few minutes. I ate falafel and I think it was not a good idea.”

“Just wait a little while. I put our robes in the washer at the Laundromat and I should go back sooner rather than later.”

I bring you A River Runs Through It and The Things They Carried because you never knew that both books have more than the title stories. I write inscriptions in each and I don’t tell you. Four days go by and both books are still on the counter. There are no loving chocolate smudges, no highlighted paragraphs, no pages marked. You don’t love them, you don’t know them and at times I feel like an intruder.

Me: I was just looking at that picture of that place on your thigh.

You: Ack, hang on. Bad signal.

Me: Do your thing. I’ll catch you later.

And then you don’t write back to me and I slowly descend into insanity because

What

The

Fuck?

You’re not talking smack about me to Lynn and Chana. You’re not cheating on me; you’d never be able to pull that off with my access to your e-mail. I know. I know that you don’t have a lot of work at school and setting Ethan up with Blythe really was a bad idea because he comes into work telling me about the fun they had last night at the golfing range—I shit you not—and I can’t even get a response from you when I write to discuss the odd coupling of Ethan and Blythe.

It hurts, Beck. I don’t know what to do with your absence. You’re not mad at me. I know you well enough to know when your tail starts pounding the floor, and you’re not happy at me, either. I ask you if you want to get into our robes and you kiss me and tell me we’re beyond robes. You wrap yourself in me and hold on to me but what does that mean exactly?

Beyond robes.

We still have an everythingship because you still do things. I wake up with my dick in your mouth at least once a week. You still let me know when I’m on your mind for no reason:

Solipsistic (n) thinking of you and your hot bod

And you rave about me when you write to your mother:

This is different, Mom. He’s on my level. And yet he shouldn’t be technically because our lives are so different. But when it works . . . it works. You know?

Your mother can’t wait to meet me and I close my eyes and see us in Nantucket, in love. I even ask you about it one night when you’re laid up with cramps.

“So you think this summer we’ll hang out in Nantucket?”

You giggle and I burn. It wasn’t supposed to be funny and you feel bad. “Joe, baby, no, no. I wasn’t laughing at that. Of course we can go to Nantucket. It’s just that you don’t say in Nantucket. You say on Nantucket.”

I can’t think of a witty comeback and I used to be so good with you but maybe Ethan was right and you ask me to run up to the store and get you Advil and I do. The curtains are open and I see you open up your computer and start replying to an e-mail. I know that I shouldn’t look at your e-mail as much now that we’re together but it’s a cold night and a long walk so I refresh your outbox.

Nothing.

I look in drafts.

Nothing.

And that’s not possible because I saw you writing an e-mail with my own eyes. I buy the Advil and start home and decide to confront you but when I let myself in—you gave me a key a couple weeks ago—you aren’t in the apartment. I call your name but you’re gone and I panic. But then I hear the water turn on and I walk into the bathroom and you’re wet hot, mine.

“Well, get in here already,” you say. And I do. You fuck me like an animal and we get into our robes and I don’t think about the e-mail and maybe I was wrong, maybe you deleted it. We are close that night and the next day I wake up and you’re already gone and I text you.

Me: That was fantastic. I woke up thinking about you in the shower.

You: Good good.

Me: Let me know when to come over. I have a feeling you’re gonna need another one.

And then it happens, the most dreaded response in the world, more terse than any word, more withholding than a no, and strictly verboten for someone as in love with language and me as you claim to be.

You: K

I get the dreaded K and I ask Ethan to fill in for me for the rest of the day but he can’t. The day doesn’t go by and I’m losing it and I’m looking at pictures of you and losing my patience with customers and I close early and call you but I get voice mail and I leave you a message asking when you can come over. I’m home when you finally respond and as it turns out, there is something worse than the dreaded K.

You: Long story, honey but I gotta bail. Call you tomorrow xoxo

I cry and watch Pitch Perfect and sing along with the Barden Bellas. I don’t want to be a person who knows the name of a fictional a cappella group in a chick flick but that’s what love has done to me. When it’s over, I jerk off in the shower like a lot of unhappily married men in this world. But I cry harder because I’m not even married to you. Yet.