There she is.
Pushing through the cracks of bar-goers, she slithers my way.
It’s dark inside. Neon lights cast odd shadows, highlighting the odd expressive flicker on her face as if her mind doesn’t know whether to play it straight or smile away.
“Where have you been?” I ask above the call of the music. Her head tilts as if she didn’t hear. Or that what I said doesn’t compute.
I press my cheek to hers, a curtain of hair between my mouth and her ear. “We were worried about you.”
I thumb over my shoulder at friends ordering drinks.
Learning away, our eyes connect. Something’s definitely off. It’s hard to hide facial expressions. It’s harder to hide expressions of the eyes.
She sees it in my pupils. Panic begins to fill the glass of her eyes. Then, an idea. I feel her hand. It’s on my thigh. It’s between my legs.
Looking down, her left-hand squeezes. The diamond ring catches blue neon.
Something is very off. This isn’t her. But blood drains from my brain and surges to meet her hand, taking my questioning thoughts with it.
Looking back, her face is now all mischievous. She nods to the rear exit. To the back alley.
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
Time is Imaginary
It had been a long month.
Had it already been a month?
Two weeks earlier we stood before friends and family and gods and demons and exchanged vows.
Two weeks before that, I discovered she was cheating.
In a perfect world, everything would have been pushed back. There’d be time to recover and think and analyze and cry and scream and mend. But in a perfect world, she wouldn’t have cheated.
So we continued as scheduled. Few in the audience knew what had transpired. Outside of the gods and demons.
Vows were exchanged. Stacked on top of promises from the weeks prior. But cards can only stack so high until everything wavers. Everything falls.
I cried during our ceremony. Because we were getting married? Because of the mistake I allowed to continue? I’m still not sure.
It had been a long month.
Had it already been a month?
We continued on, masking emotions from the other. At least I know I did. I wanted to trust. I didn’t want to doubt. I wanted to go back in time to when none of what transpired existed.
But time is imaginary.
We continued spending time with friends. We continued going out, laughing, playing, joking, doubting.
I’d watch her laugh from across the room. The familiar, warming sensation still in my chest, but something else had leaked in. Had corrupted the feeling. It only takes one wrong ingredient to ruin the most delicious meal.
There was a wrong ingredient in my chest, but I couldn’t place the taste.
My chest would tighten daily as her return from work neared. Would it be on time? Would it linger? I wanted to trust. I wanted to remove doubt. But there was that taste.
We went out with friends to a staple bar. One of the same bars we always went to. We had drinks. We laughed. We joked. We talked. I went up to the bar to order another round. When I turned around, she was gone.
Placing Tastes
She had me finish on the alley wall.
She didn’t want it in her mouth.
But I didn’t complain. The entire thing was unexpected. She had a million excuses for oral. Didn’t feel like it, it hurt her jaw, she didn’t want to bite anything, you wouldn’t like it either.
I zipped up. The moonless night hid all, including her eyes.
Something in her eyes.
“Time for a drink,” she said, and took my hand, leading me back inside.
Blood returned to its normally scheduled circulation. It returned to my brain. As did the taste.
I pulled her back.
“Let’s get some food instead. Blew the energy right out of me,” I said with a wink. I don’t think she saw it.
She hesitated, looking back at the emotional cover provided by the bar. But she accepted.
We sat in the late-night burrito place. We sat, the only two in the restaurant. The bar crowd hadn’t made its way in yet. She ate her food. I hadn’t touched mine.
“So what was that all about?” I asked.
She stopped. Shades flashed behind her eyes as she switched emotions. She playfully asked what I meant, even though she already knew. Then her eyes narrowed.
“Can’t I do something nice without being questioned?” She pivoted. Against an unfamiliar opponent, it might work. But I’d seen the move before.
“Where did you go?”
“The bathroom. You know how the women’s bathroom gets.”
A buddy’s girlfriend had checked. I told her so. I asked her just for the truth. Was she talking to him?
She extended her hands to me. I hesitated, then took them.
“He called me. I told him to stop calling me to — ”
Words faded. Her lips continued to move but my head swirled. Why had I let this linger? Why couldn’t I walk away? The taste returned. I pulled my hands from hers, taking the diamond ring from her hand in the process.
She stopped talking. Her eyes widened briefly, then narrowed again. Attack mode. She started to speak again but I shook my head. I inspected the ring, looked to her, then flicked it to the corner of the restaurant.
“Maybe he can get you a ring that isn’t defective,” I said, before standing and walking out.
The taste remained.
Walking away from the restaurant, I felt guilty. But not about the ring, or about finishing on the alley wall.
I really wanted that burrito.