or not. Caving, I call him, chewing on my fingernail as it rings and rings and goes to voicemail. In the message I leave him, I try to sound as calm as possible. I let him know I am worried about him and am curious where he is because I need the car to go to work. I hang up, and I pause to reflect on my choice of words. The car. Not that long ago, I had always called it mine.
I lie down with my phone propped up in front of me so I won’t miss his call, but it’s the front door I hear three hours later instead. I had taken a shower and made myself some breakfast while waiting. I am grateful for being up and dressed when I walk into the front room to see a group of people there. I only recognize the neighbor who had been there the day before. There are six people total, four guys and two girls.
"Shouldn’t you be lying down?" Jon says, looking everywhere but at me as a couple of his new friends snicker behind him.
"Can we talk?" I say quietly as I gesture toward our bedroom.
"Yeah, sure. Hey guys, hang out here."
Jon hurries past me and down the hall to our room. I’m still not feeling great so I follow him slowly. He’s sitting down on his side of the bed, up against his pillows, legs crossed at his ankles in front of him. He looks very relaxed.
"What did you want to talk about?"
My mouth drops open. Did he really just ask me that? I cock my head to the side and look at him as though I have never seen him before. It’s like he’s a stranger sitting on my bed. I am rendered momentarily speechless and close the door behind me.
"Jon, where were you?"
"Just hanging out."
"I missed work because you had the car." There it was again, the car.
"I thought you'd still be sick today."
I walk over to sit on my side of the bed. When I sit, Jon gets up and goes to stand by the door. Why did he get up?
"Are you leaving?"
"Yeah. We were going to head over to the thing."
The thing? "Are you taking the car?" The car.
"Yeah. You’re just going to be in bed."
"I'm going to work tomorrow so I need the car to be here." The car.
"Yeah, yeah…" and he was out the door.
No apology. No “how are you feeling?” I sit there wondering what those people in my front room had thought of me, wonder if he had even said anything about me. Not one of them had made a move to introduce themselves. I suddenly feel paranoid, like I’m the butt of a joke. Maybe Jon will be home early enough tonight that we will have a chance to talk about it. I decide I’ll rest during the day and make a nice dinner for the both of us. If I have the ingredients, I’ll even make Jon's favorite: enchiladas.
I spend most of the day stressing out over where Jon is and what he might be doing. He’s been taking off so much recently I don’t know how I should feel about it. I’m a mixture of emotions and can’t choose just one. I feel abandoned, jealous, insecure, hurt, and sad all at the same time. I cannot understand why I feel the need to constantly walk around on eggshells around him while he cannot even bother to be polite to me. How is that fair? At this point, I would be so blown over by any small gesture of affection. Can he see that?
I change my clothes into something slightly nicer than the sweats I’ve worn all day and make the enchiladas. As I slide them in the oven to cook, I wonder if it had been silly of me to even assume he will be coming home at dinnertime. I check my phone to see if he had maybe sent me a text. He hasn’t. While dinner cooks, I second-guess myself, not sure if this had been a good idea. At worst I’ll eat alone and pack up the leftovers to take to work as lunch the next day. I turn on the TV to act as a distraction from the thoughts crowding my mind. Watching the news, I learn there is snow in the forecast and dream of someday living someplace warmer.
Jon never shows up. I eat by myself and pack up the leftovers. I