in his voice.
“Because I’m an asshole.”
“You’re just now figuring that out?”
Wow, Ken. You’re so good with feelings and empathy and stuff. How could I have ever accused you of being a cyborg?
“Actually, I was crying because you’re an asshole.”
Crickets.
“I just told you I’ve been crying, and all you can do is sit there and stare at me? Jesus, Ken! Just go to bed! It’s not like you actually care what’s wrong.”
I felt Ken’s hand gingerly pat my hip. He didn’t argue with me or offer any solutions. He simply implied nonverbally that I was right. He did, in fact, just want to go to bed and didn’t actually care what was wrong.
Using my legs and free arm, I pushed him off the bed and pointed in the direction of the master bathroom. “Go! Go get ready for bed, asshole!”
Exasperated, Ken’s silhouette threw its hands in the air and huffed, “What? What do you want from me? I asked you what was wrong, and you called me an asshole—twice. What am I supposed to do with that?”
Fuck it. Let’s do this.
Sitting up in bed, I glared at the backlit black hole where Ken’s face should have been and snarled, “You know what you can do, Ken? How about you don’t ever say anything nice to me, give a shit about my needs or feelings, or get my name tattooed on your body to make up for the initials you have carved into your arm? Okay? How about you not do any of that shit? Oh, wait, it’s too fucking late!”
Ken’s outline looked contrite, and he responded to my outburst in a small voice, “You were serious about that? You really wanted me to get that tattoo?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake!
“Nope. Not anymore. Good night, Ken.”
I turned my back on the beautiful shadow and pulled the covers up around my chin, signaling the end of the conversation. After all the cathartic soul-searching I’d just done, I couldn’t believe the way I’d lashed out at Ken. Evidently, accepting that he didn’t love, want, or need me was one thing. Pretending to be happy about it was quite another.
Take a Picture. It’ll Last Longer.
With my eyes screwed tightly shut and the comforter pulled up around my ears, I tried to block out the sounds of Ken stomping around the house. I could hear countless cabinet doors and drawers opening and closing in the kitchen—or maybe the office?
What the fuck is he looking for?
It sounded like he was trying to wake the dead, not get ready for bed.
A few minutes later, Ken’s heavy footfalls made their way back toward the bedroom. I clutched the comforter and held my breath, silently thanking God that we didn’t own a gun. When the footsteps stopped just a few feet away from me, the black backs of my eyelids were suddenly bathed in screaming yellow.
Ugh!
I flipped over and squinted through the near blinding rays of my bedside lamp to see Ken looming over me, a long blunt object in his outstretched hand.
Instinctively, I braced for impact. When it never came, I risked a peek and found, to my utter, unadulterated glee, that Ken was extending to me…a calligraphy pen.
I sat up and stared at him, slack-jawed, searching his face for some indication of what the fuck was going on. He gave nothing away. He didn’t speak. He didn’t emote. He just stood there, sexily disheveled in his dress shirt and slacks, looking tired yet resolved. His usually bright aqua eyes paled to a steely gray as they bore into me, daring me to take the bait. When I shakily reached out to accept the pen, Ken clung to it for just a moment before relinquishing it to me. He then proffered another object in its place—his right hand.
Oh my God.
My mind vomited up so many thoughts and feelings at once that I was temporarily immobilized by the bottleneck of mental processes competing for my attention. I felt elated and deeply touched yet surprisingly guilt-stricken.
Seeing my constitutionally stubborn, almost pathologically rigid husband standing before me, asking me to draw a tattoo that he never wanted on his skin, made my chest constrict and my stomach turn.
My poor Ken. What have I done to you?
My guilt was quickly overshadowed by irrational anger, however, when I realized that Ken’s offering of that particular pen, and that particular hand, was completely fucking calculated. He was letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that he’d been reading my journal. And he was ending this charade