Page 46 of Come Back To Me

“You’re a husband,” she said. “Is that weird?”

“No, not even a little bit. I knew I would be as soon as I saw you, English.”

“You haven’t called me English in weeks,” she said. “I missed it.”

I thought back, trying to remember why. “I guess we’ve just been busy.”

“Busy?” She frowned. “Too busy for nicknames?”

“Too busy for affection. Isn’t that fucked up? The weeks before a wedding all of the softness in a relationship goes away.” We hadn’t fought very much, but there had been days of quiet stiffness when neither of us chose to speak to the other.

She laughed. “Well it’s over now, thank God. We can get back to living.”

“Yara Lisey,” I said.

And then the doorbell rang with our food and I stood up to put my robe on. I was happy, so happy; the way you feel when you realize that out of the billions of people on the planet you’ve found your one.

She didn’t stick around long enough to change her name.

Back then Yara cared more about Petra than I did. I thought her fixation would stop after we were married. But I think Petra is ultimately why she left. Or maybe I just need a reason to understand why she left and that’s the one I chose.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” she’d ask.

I did.

“Yes.”

“Do you think she’s into you?”

I did.

“Yes.”

“Do you think she understands you better than I can?”

I did not.

“No.”

“Why are you asking me these things, English?”

“Because I know you’ll tell the truth.”

She was right. It was hard for me not to tell the truth and she used that against me. Sometimes it felt like she was building a case with my truth. I started being an omission kind of guy, to field off Yara’s truth searching. I told myself I was protecting our relationship. For the first six weeks after we were married I was happy. Yara seemed happy too. She took to baking, which I’d never seen her do before. When I asked her about it, she blushed and said baking was what you were supposed to do when married.

“I think that was in the nineteen fifties.” I laughed.

Yara waved a spatula at me. “So what do we do now then?”

I came up behind her and kissed her neck. “We fuck,” I said. “It’s the new baking.”

She threw her arms around my neck, still holding the spatula. I felt cake batter drip down my neck as she kissed me.

“Good,” she said when she pulled away. “I hate baking, it’s such a fucking bore.”

I saw Petra a few weeks after Yara and I were married. I was at Ferdinand’s house with a couple other people watching a Seahawks game. Yara was working the nightshift at the restaurant. I’d forgotten about the text until she walked in, and then I felt guilty. I’d deleted it so my wife wouldn’t see—or rather so she’d not have a reason to be angry with me.

I was sitting on Ferdinand’s couch between Brick and a guy Ferdinand grew up with named Erick. When Erick went to the kitchen to grab another beer, Petra took his spot next to me.

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