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Awake
Lying on her side so that her hair is splayed out over the pillow, her toes poke your legs and she asks if you are awake, if you want to talk. You don’t. It’s been a long day and you just want to sleep and forget about everything. Her giggles affect you though and you open your eyes wide enough so that she thinks you’re paying attention. And she talks. About anything and everything. About the future and a house with a terrace and the names of your children, an art scholarship and some classes that she wants to take. Her words are filled with anticipation and excitement. She laughs and pokes you in the side and whispers in your ear, leans down so she can rest her cheek on your chest.
Pretty soon you learn how to drift asleep on her words. The soothing comfort of her voice lulls you into dreams and when you’re asleep she continues talking to herself.
This is the way it is in the beginning.
You’re not exactly sure when it changes but you’re in bed one night and you can’t sleep and you recognize the fact that the room is quiet. She’s lying on her side, facing the wall, breathing steadily in and out. It is then that you realize that you can’t remember the last time she turned around and poked you and asked to talk. Over time, she’s learned that you don’t listen anyway.
At first you’re okay with this. The silence is nice.
Although, it’s hard to fall asleep without her words in your ear.
You begin to notice other things. The fact that she never really laughs like she used to, the way she settles into wearing the same thing everyday, that she’s put away all the art supplies and stopped mentioning scholarships.
And then one day you decide to visit her up in the office. The guys in the warehouse really can be obnoxious and you suddenly have the overwhelming desire to just see her smile. To hear her laugh.
When you get there she is already smiling. Already laughing. You can hear it before you walk around the corner and the dimples in your cheeks deepen because you’ve forgotten what that sounds like.
But she’s not smiling for you. Not laughing with you. And he’s hunched over her, with his hand in her hair and there’s something so intimate in the way their hands touch that you feel something sink inside your stomach. Fear that quickly turns to range and she has to throw herself in front of you so you don’t slam him against the wall like you want to.
Her words are soothing and she says it’s just office pranks. On the way home she repeats that they are just friends. Just friends.
But that image of him with his hand in her hair won’t leave you and you tell yourself that you will try a little harder.
For awhile things seem to go back to normal. Sometimes she even turns around in bed and talks to you. You run your hand through her hair and convince yourself that nothing has changed.
Then one day the temp whose name you can’t remember burns his lunch and everyone is forced outside for several hours.
Darryl has a stash of alcohol behind a crate of cardstock so you all stand around outside and drink while waiting for the all clear. You are gulping a beer when one of the guys laughs and tell you that you better watch out for your girl. It is then when you look up and see that they’re leaning against the front of the fire truck together, talking to one of the cameras and laughing animatedly. His hand falls on her shoulder for a moment and when he turns to look at the camera, her eyes don’t leave his face.
The warehouse guys snicker and taunt you like they have gotten used to doing whenever they see the two of them together. Darryl tells you that he could help kick his scrawny ass but you just throw your beer to the ground and walk away. Walk toward them. And when you ask them if you can hang out for a little while you feel like you are interrupting something.
She kisses you that day in front of everyone. You are pleasantly surprised at the force at which she grabs your shirt and pulls you to her. You start to say something about going out for lunch because you haven’t taken her out to lunch in months and you feel guilty about that. Then you see the look she gives to the car that he has just driven away in. Suddenly, you’re not hungry and you decide to head back down the warehouse because you really can’t face that.
You’re not really sure why you don’t do or say anything. She’s stopped talking at night again. And sometimes you see her eying the ring on her left hand like she hates it more than anything else.
It’s not until the night of the company camaraderie event that Michael moronically schedules aboard a booze cruise in the middle of January that you decide something needs to change. Granted, it takes three beers and two snorkel shots but suddenly you’re standing there in front of everyone and finally setting a date for the wedding.
She smiles at you that night like she hasn’t in months and you feel that everything will be okay. Everything will be okay as long as she keeps smiling like that.
But you wake up in the morning with a splitting headache and a sense of dread in the pit of your stomach. She's talking about flowers and bridesmaids dresses and you like the fact that she’s excited about something again so you say nothing.
A rumor begins to spread around the office and it reaches the warehouse. When you hear, you only laugh because it doesn’t matter anyway. She’s still smiling and she’s got your ring on her finger and when you confront him about the rumor there’s a tiny part of you that knows it’s only so you can remind him of that fact.
It is on that day that you really begin to lose her. She tells you about an internship but you blow it off. There’s really no reason but you’re tired and you hate the fact that she tells you he thinks it’s a good idea too.
As you lay in bed that night you wait for her to turn around and talk. But she doesn’t. You stare at the ceiling and think that she’s asleep until you realize that she’s breathing heavily and shaking slightly and her head is buried into her pillow to muffle the sound of her tears.
You could comfort her but you don’t know how. You can’t even begin to figure her out anymore. She doesn’t talk to you anyway. You wonder if she wishes she were with him and you can’t handle that thought so you get up and sleep on the couch. In the morning her eyes are slightly puffy but she smiles at you anyway and tells you that she loves you and part of you thinks it might still be true.
He ends up leaving two months before the wedding. She tells you about it on the way home from work while she stares out the window. You think that you’re glad that he’s gone but you know by the emptiness in her voice that a part of her went with him. A part that you never really knew or even cared to know.
The tears stop that night.
You’re not even sure if she remembers how to cry anymore until that moment two years later when the doctor puts your first born son in her arms and she looks down at that baby like all the happiness in the world rests in his tiny form. And you feel out of place again, like you did that day outside of the office.
Her life becomes about your children and she throws herself into PTA meetings and soccer games and piano lessons. Sometimes you come home at night and hear them all laughing together in the living room. Most times you turn and go to your bedroom to flip on the game and tune out the laughter you will never be a part of.
Years later you see her cry again. She is cleaning out the closet and comes across a box of old mementos. She pulls out an old packet of hot sauce and you open your mouth to ask her about it when you see the tears forming in her eyes. You leave her alone then because you know without asking that it has something to do with him.
Later on she kisses you goodnight and rolls over without another word. You wonder, like you used to, if she’s thinking about him. If she’s imagining how it could have all been different.
You try to think back about when it all changed, how it all changed and you pray to God that she would just turn around and talk to you, poke you in the side and giggle like she used to, curl her hand against your chest and whisper secrets into your neck. But she doesn’t and she won’t and you know that she probably never will again. The thought chokes you a little and you beg yourself not to cry but the tears come anyway and you suddenly know what it was like for her all those years ago.
If you could, you would give her everything. If you could, you would go back to that time when she still smiled at you. You would tell her that you loved her and you would open your eyes and listen when she talked. You wouldn’t make her wait three years for a wedding and you would tell her to take that scholarship. You wouldn’t let her work as a receptionist. You would make sure that she had a reason to laugh every day.
And you know now that you love her enough to let her go if that’s what she needs.
Because maybe she was never really yours to begin with.
The tears drip down your face, onto the pillow and you can’t stop crying, don’t even know if you want to because at least it’s something to hold on to. And you’ve never felt so alone until you feel the bed shift slightly and suddenly her fingers are sliding against yours and she’s turning around with a little sigh.
It’s not much. But it’s something. And you tell yourself then that it’s impossible to go back. But you will do whatever it takes, anything, everything just to see that smile again.
The way it was in the beginning.
Awake by shannanagin
Author's Chapter Notes:
I can't help but feel bad for the guy.
shannanagin is the author of 6 other stories.
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