Page 54 of Sparks
Around midnight his time I made him stop texting so he could sleep. I, myself, was in a dreamlike state all evening, and realized as I went to bed that I’d hardly eaten a thing all day. I hadn’t even felt hungry.
The next day I woke to his good-morning text, and I lit up as if his words were shining sunlight into my soul. Wow. Cheesy, much? More like shining mozzarella into my soul.
I had it bad. Again, my day flew by: work, texts, pictures, and smiling my face off.
I had an overnight in Boston and we landed early. Shawn had been out drinking and my phone rang. It was the middle of the night his time.
“What are you doing up?” I asked, cuddling into the comforter.
“Harlow Robinson!” It was his smiling voice. Freaking ugh. My heart. My ovaries. My whole entire vagina. I squirmed and couldn’t stop smiling.
“I take it you’re loving Japan.”
“Oh, my God. This place. I love everything about it. Except maybe the overcrowded public transport. But it’s fine on base.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said, letting out a soft sigh. We were quiet a moment and the space filled with the elephant in the room. “Have you talked to Natalie much since you’ve been there?”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve sent her some of the same pictures I sent you, but she’s not exactly impressed.” He cleared his throat again. “I sent one of the school where Bennett would go and she told me to please stop.”
“Ouch.” I had no idea what else to say.
“I video chatted with B earlier today, but when I tried to talk to her afterward, she said she was tired and had to go.”
“I see.” This wasn’t looking good for them. And in my position maybe that should make me happy, but I felt awful for him. This would affect how much he saw his son. I couldn’t imagine how hard that would be.
“Something’s gotta give,” he said. “We can’t do this forever.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Honestly?” he said. “I feel like it’s over. I don’t feel any love from her. It’s like we’re going through the motions and dragging out the inevitable.” When I was quiet, he said, “I’m sorry. You don’t need to be my therapist.”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You can talk to me. I just don’t know what to say, and I don’t want to push any boundaries. It’s all sort of…delicate.”
“Delicate,” he repeated thoughtfully. We were quiet again until I heard his breathing.
“Shawn?” I said. He didn’t answer, and his breathing got a bit louder and more even.
Oh, my gosh. He’d fallen asleep. I listened to his breathing for a few minutes feeling way too intimate and lovey at the sound of his sleeping noises. Then I forced myself to hang up, holding the phone to my chest as my heart felt like it might explode with big, fat squishiness.
I was in so, so much trouble.
Deep down, the voice of my conscience told me I needed to back away from Shawn until he got his situation figured out. But there was a strange sense of safety in the fact that he was out of the country. Still, I worked hard to try and keep things “innocent.” At least on the surface. Because what I felt underneath was not innocent at all. The amount of guilt I felt was monumental. Shawn was probably about to go through a break-up and I truly did not feel I should be in the picture while that happened. But his attention was so addictive.
We continued to text at any opportunity we had. Our favorite thing to do was send pictures of ourselves with drinks, any kind of drinks. He drank a shocking amount of alcohol with his Marine pals. My pics were mostly coffee and water. There was one with my face all scrunched up in disgust when I’d tried to be healthy and try kambucha. He’d laughed about that pic all day.
At the end of week one he called me on a night I was home at the crash pad. The girls in the living roomOoooh’das I disappeared into the bunk room to talk to him. He’d been sending pictures from a bar all day, so I wasn’t surprised to hear his voice sounding sloshed. “Sloshed” by Shawn’s standards wasn’t like normal men, though. He never slurred or sounded drunk. He just got really lovey.
“There she is,” he said. “I wanted to hear your voice all night but I knew you were with the girls.”
I pulled my knees up on the bottom bunk, my head brushing the underside of the top bunk. “Hey you. Did you have fun tonight? Are you going to fall asleep on the phone again?”
“Ugh, you’ll never let me live that down!” He laughed, and I giggled. “No giggling, Harlow Robinson. No little cute sounds from you.”
Which, of course, made me giggle and make more sounds.
“Stop that. You’re so hot.”
His words stole the breath from my chest. He’d never called me hot before.
