Big Man For Christmas

Maybe that isn’t entirely Tyler’s fault. People are different. And he isn’t someone who is incredibly free with touch and affection. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love me.

But as I undress and get in the shower, I feel cold in spite of the hot water. Nothing that I see in Tyler now makes me like him any better than when I left angry at him. And nothing convinces me that he is actually sorry. It took being reminded by his boss that I was his fiancée to make him understand.

The thought makes me shudder. I try not to think the worst of people, but I wonder if the reason he wants me back at all is because the higher ups at the law firm know that he is getting married and he wants everything to look perfect so he will get his promotion.

It settles in my stomach like a rock.

He’s dressed when I come out of the shower. “How are things going to be different?”

“What?”

“You say that you’re sorry. That you want to go to counseling with me and make yourself better. But I want to know in what ways you’re going to be different.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you mean. We’re going to go to counseling. We’re going to work it out. I’m not seeing Andi anymore. And everything else will go back to normal.”

Frustration rises in my chest. “I don’t know if I can do that normal Tyler. I’ve had a lot of time to think, and we were just existing, we weren’t happy.”

“Yes we were,” he protests. “We were fine.”

“That’s exactly it. We were fine. We never ‘spent the evenings watching TV together.’ You were on your laptop the entire time. Do you remember the last time we had sex naked? Neither do I. Because you were too busy fucking Andi to bother making sure your fiancée was actually satisfied. I can’t remember the last time you actually asked me a question about how I felt or how my day was or what I wanted, because everything was always about you. So if that’s what you mean by going back to normal, no. I’m not doing that.”

He grows serious. “Of course it won’t be like that. I love you.” Coming over and taking me by the shoulders he says, “I promise things will be different. We’ll do things together. I’ll pay more attention.”

“How?” I insist.

“Let’s talk about this when we’re home. You can lay out everything that you need from me and then we can make a plan.” He kisses me on the forehead and heads out the door. “I heard your mom calling, people are starting to show up so get dressed quickly.”

He didn’t answer the question.

Tyler is a lawyer. He knows how to dodge questions he doesn’t want to answer. Dread still sits in my gut. If he doesn’t have an answer, then he doesn’t have a plan. And Tyler always has plans for the things he wants to accomplish. He’s had a plan to make partner since we met in college.

I dress and push it out of my head. Right now, there’s nothing I can do. We have to set up for the fireworks, and everything else can wait. At least a day.

It seems like the entire town arrived in the twenty minutes that I was upstairs. People are eating pancakes and are overflowing outside toward the field to start the early clean up. The first big job is to comb the field and clean up any trash or dangerous things. There usually isn’t anything, but just in case, everybody covers the whole area.

Tyler is already outside, coat and gloves on, talking with a smiling Jessica. I know that expression. It is the charming expression he wears when he is flirting. Or when he wants something. I’ve seen it a lot since we first started dating. It worked on me, and I know that it can work on everyone else too.

I walk through the field with everyone else, and by the time we’re finished, the trucks have arrived with all the booths, ready to build. From across the field I can already see that Casey is right there with the trucks, unloading the pieces and stacking them in sections.

Tyler is next to Jenny Shrum. Married, cheerleader Jenny Shrum, and he’s flirting. I can hear his laughter from here, and she’s laughing too. She puts a hand on his arm, and I remember a time when seeing another woman put a hand on him would cause me to turn into a jealous monster. Now I hope that she’s not buying too much into his bullshit.

Because I’m not anymore.

I’m no longer confused. At least about Tyler. Finding out about him is like putting on new glasses and suddenly being able to see the leaves on the tree rather than a big green blur. All the things that I used to find charming are gone. All the little ways he used to pacify me—they don’t work. I don’t believe he wants me back. I think he wants what our life was: a warm body at home that cleaned for him and cooked for him and let him fuck her without asking for anything back.