Page 67 of Dearly Unbeloved
My hands still. Where did that thought come from? Sierra and I don’t hang out. We don’t build LEGO sets together. We have sex, cuddle for an adequateamount of time to make sure we’re both okay, and go to bed in separate beds.
Sure, lately we’ve crossed paths for breakfast and sat together a few times—most mornings, I guess—and I did help her with her stupid radio quiz yesterday. And we eat dinner together every night, but that’s just because it’s usually right before or right after sex. We don’t hang out. Not really.
But this is the first Sunday in a while that we haven’t been together, and I… miss her. Shit. What an inconvenient feeling.
I jolt as Jazz kicks me under the table. “Still with us?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking. Strategy, you know,” I answer, holding up the half-formed rosebud in my hand.
“It’s LEGO. You don’t need a strategy. They do that for you in the instructions,” Xan chimes in, already halfway through his camera.
“Right. Sorry.” I flip to the next page in my instruction book and grab the correct red piece from my pile, snapping it into place. “I just realized I don’t actually know when you’re due. I completely missed it in all the excitement on Thursday,” I tell Jazz.
“Around the first week of June,” she answers, squinting at her bricks. “I’m having a Gemini, which is terrifying, but also probably what I deserve, considering what a menace I am to everyone around me.”
“Sierra’s a Gemini, and she’s not so bad, I suppose,” I say, without thinking, and they both turn to stare at me.
Xan raises abrow. “Not so bad?”
“You suppose? That’s certainly a way to describe yourwife,” Jazz says, sounding like she’s trying not to laugh.
There’s no heat in their teasing, but I’m kicking myself internally. Sierra’s so much better at this than I am.
“We’re just fucking with you,” Jazz promises, winking. “We know what you two are like. Half the time, it sounds like you don’t even like each other.”
“Of course we like each other. We love each other.” I jump to defensive so quickly that I don’t have time to think about the words before I say them.We love each other. They should taste sour on my tongue, but they don’t. They taste like sweet maple and cinnamon and chocolate. Like Sierra. Oh shit. Shit. Shit.Shit.
“Honestly, if it wasn’t for how much you’ve changed since you got married, I don’t know if I’d even believe you,” Xan says, smiling as if I’m not in the midst of a fucking crisis over here. Not that he knows, but—wait.Changed?
“What do you mean, how much I’ve changed? I haven’t changed.”
He blinks in surprise. “Are you kidding? You’re like a whole new person. In a good way,” he tacks on, quickly. “Look around. We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t said something. And I’ve seen the pictures on Sierra’s Instagram of the two of you going on hikes and cuddling with your rabbits. It’s nice to see.”
“Sierra’s changed, too,” Jazz says, before I can even begin processing what Xan said. “She just seems lighter, happier, you know? More settled. Like, when we used to hang out, it always felt like she was waiting for the othershoe to drop or something. She feels more present now. You two are good for each other.”
They both make it sound so easy, so matter-of-fact. But there’s no way I’ve changed Sierra. For worse, maybe, considering how much she’s having to lie about us, but not for better. She probably just seems different because she’s overcompensating for the lies so much.
And as for me… maybe there’s something to it. I feel like a different person than I was a few months ago, but surely it has more to do with me opening up than the person I opened up to.
Unless it doesn’t.
The whole situation feels like a jumble of LEGO bricks, and I’m trying to click them together without a manual. I’m a scientist. I like facts and proof, and things adding up like they’re supposed to.
Fact: I’ve changed for the better.
Fact: Sierra most likely contributed to that.
Fact: I miss her today.
Fact: I can’t wait to go home, just to see her.
Fact: Whenever I think about unlocking her collar or taking our rings off, it feels like the world is crashing down around me.
Possible conclusion: I might be in love with my wife.
I click the stem onto the final rose and hold the bouquet in my hand, trying to stop my fingers from trembling.
Because those things might all be true, but I’m missing some key facts. Some painful, unavoidable facts.
