After Romeo clubbed me with the truth stick, I drew a bath to scrub his words off my skin.
I wanted us to be a couple. A real one. Not sure when that had happened, but now that I did, any other outcome would end with devastation.
The second blow of the day came in the form of a pink spot splattered on my underwear. Big, bold, and unmistakable.
And a day early.
I held the cotton to the light as if any doubt existed as to what it was. The sight sliced me open. Misery poured in through the gaping wound.
The stain felt like betrayal. Like grief and self-loathing.
I introduced the fabric to my sharpest scissors, shoved the tattered remains into the trash, and yanked the bathtub plug, refusing to fester in my own blood.
If I didn’t smell like a brothel from this morning, I would’ve forgone a shower entirely. Instead, I made it quick, shrugging into my most comfortable, childish pajamas and crawling beneath my comforter.
The third blow came when I willed myself to cry, failing to conjure the tears that had eluded me all my life.
I needed relief. In any form it would come.
Yet, once again, my body failed me.
In tears.
In fertility.
Fine. It wasn’t my eggs’ fault that they suffered a sperm drought. I just preferred not to acknowledge the simple truth.
Romeo refused to have sex with me. No matter my advances. No matter every delicious, toe-curling, orgasm-inducing, almost-sex activity we engaged in.
The beginnings of a storm teased my ankles, curling around them.
My father’s unannounced visit. My husband’s rejection. My period. My general sex-free existence. They swirled together, gaining force, brewing into something sinister and dangerous.
So, hours later, when the door wailed open, I knew the visit would not end well.
Romeo never knocked, and I never cared.
Only, tonight, I did.
His shadow glided across the sleek darkness. He stopped just above me, the scent of him—of spearmint, cologne, and potent man—sailing into my nostrils.
He came.
Because I’d asked him to? Because he missed me? Or because his needs required fulfilling?
I never could tell.
Romeo trailed his knuckles along his favorite constellation of freckles on my cheek.
“What’s on the menu tonight, Mrs. Costa?” The husky, low tone seeped straight through me. “Another sixty-nine, or can I finally fuck your tight little asshole?”
At his words, the storm transformed into a hurricane, festering somewhere deep below and rising to the surface.
Unlike the natural calamity, its speed and ire didn’t weaken upon hitting the ground.
It increased. Tenfold.
I slapped his touch away. “Get out of my room and never come back.”
I hate you. I hate you with everything I have in me and more.
Lord, had it always hurt this much to breathe?
It was true, what they say. There’s no law of conservation for love. You don’t get what you give.
“Is this about our conversation earlier?” His light, unbothered tone might as well have been a dagger. “Dichotomy is a simpleton’s best friend. You should aim higher than that, Shortbread. Love isn’t in the cards for us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy each other’s company. If I truly couldn’t suffer through our brief encounters, I would have granted you the divorce you desire so much.”
I don’t want a divorce, you stupid, selfish fool.
I wanted dinners in front of candlelight, movie dates, and inside jokes that no one else understood. I wanted kisses, comforting words, to be his shining light when gloom seized him.
I flung the duvet over my head. “Just get out.”
“What’s the matter with you?” The temperature in the room dropped, indicating his shift in mood. “You’ve been acting strange all day.”
“You know,” I murmured into my pillow. “I don’t think Leonardo DiCaprio truly made it big in Romeo and Juliet. I think what put him on the map was Titanic. And I think everybody felt sorry for him. That dang door clearly could’ve fit both him and Rose.”
The silence that followed sent a wave of panic into my gut.
Surely, he didn’t actually leave.
Alas, he did not.
“I’m sure there is logic behind your words, though for the life of me, I cannot find it.”
“I want to have sex with someone who’d grant me a place on the door!” I tossed the comforter away, glaring at him in the dark.
He appraised me as if we were meeting for the first time. Sizing me up, taking notes, deciding how he wanted to approach the matter.
“We don’t have to go on cruises. Personally, I have a strong dislike of yachts—”
“Arghh, Romeo.” I bolted out of bed, pushing his chest. Desperation practically oozed out of me. For what, I didn’t even know. “I’m not talking about yachts right now.”
He flicked the light on.
Neither of us said anything.
He waited for me to make sense. I decided to put him out of his misery.
“Congrats.” I stomped to the door and opened it, waiting for him to leave. “I got my period.”
Romeo just stood there. Silent.
I didn’t get the sense that he was happy.
I didn’t get the sense that he was sad, either.
“I’m sorry.” The words dripped obligation.
“No, you’re not.” I swung the door wider. “Now leave.”
“Will I be invited back in the near future?”
“Only if you want to have sex like a married couple.”
“Boring, fast, and every other week?” I could tell he didn’t want to argue, didn’t want to return to being foes, but also didn’t want to meet me halfway, however that might look.
“Without a condom.”
Before, I’d considered the emptiness inside me bottomless. But as he left, as stone-faced as he’d come, it grew and grew, until I was certain if someone screamed into my mouth, a terrible echo would follow.
I knew he wouldn’t return.
Not tomorrow.
Not next week.
Not even next month.
He’d dodged a bullet, and he wouldn’t dare mess with a loaded gun again.
I had one chance.
And my body blew it.
