I opened my mouth to say something snippy, but then I really thought about her question. I had been battling with it the last couple of days too. My relationship with Mila had found a happy place of comfort. We trained together regularly, we fucked almost every day, and afterward we would stay up and talk, sometimes for hours. It looked like a relationship, and it felt like one. We were both just refusing to call it one. Perhaps because we both knew that at the end of this thing, Mila would leave for another state and it would be that much harder to get over.
I thought about Walter Black, and I realized that my interest in him had faded fast in the last two weeks. I was starting to believe that maybe he didn’t really exist. Maybe he was just a random guy who disappeared right after because he was scared of retaliation. Maybe he had nothing to do with the Knights, and I had constructed that narrative because I had been so consumed by revenge.
Now I actually hoped that the narrative I had built was wrong. That way, I could forget about Walter Black and I could concentrate on Mila. But what would I do in that case? Ask her to stay with me? That was a huge step, and it was a declaration of my feelings for her. There were moments, however, when we were lying in bed together that I felt as though she wanted the same thing.
It felt as though she wanted me to tell her to stay. But I wasn’t sure if that was just wishful thinking on my part. She had made it clear from the start that I was the wrong type of guy for her and this was the wrong lifestyle for her.
“Zackary?”
I blinked and focused on Miriam. “You’re married, right?” I asked, turning the questions around on her.
She smiled and nodded. “Twenty-four years this winter.”
“And what’s it like being in a long-term relationship?”
“Fucking irritating,” Miriam replied. “Eighty percent of the time.”
“I see.”
“But the other twenty percent… well, that’s magic right there,” she said. “And it’s worth it.”
“Twenty-eighty,” I said. “Doesn’t seem like it is.”
“Oh, trust me, you’ll only realize it when you’ve found the right person,” she said. “But it’s totally worth it. Can you imagine what it’s like to have a partner in life, someone you can trust and rely on? You’ve got a best friend and a lover all rolled into one; you have someone you can yell at for no reason who won’t hold it against you the next day. You’ve got someone who can pick up the slack when you’re sick or tired. You’ve got someone who will have your back when no one else will. I mean, who wouldn’t want that?”
I smiled. “How did you meet him?” I asked.
Miriam seemed amused by my questions. “It’s interesting that after all these years, you’re finally interested in my life.”
“Sorry…”
“Don’t be,” Miriam laughed. “Sometimes you need to relate first before you can be interested in someone else. I suppose you never had a reason before Mila.”
It was painfully obvious that she knew why I was asking so many questions about her marriage. She saw the same need in me that I had recognized. I wondered if I was that transparent to everyone or if Miriam was just very perceptive.
“I met Darren when I was twenty-seven,” she said. “I was doing my Ph.D, and he was a surf instructor.”
“What?” I asked.
Miriam laughed. “Which part are you surprised by?”
“Every part,” I replied. “The fact that you have a doctorate, for starters… and the fact that you’re apparently married to a surfer.”
Miriam winked. “It doesn’t sound good on paper, does it?”
“No.”
“That’s what everyone thought too,” she laughed. “Hell, that’s what I thought. But we had this connection that was impossible to deny. He had just come off a messy divorce, and I was still figuring out my life, so it was just supposed to be a fling. We actually broke up for about six months. I ended things with him because I thought we were too different. Our lifestyles would never meld together.”
“Then what happened?”
“I realized that the six months we were apart were the worst of my life. I even had to take a break from my Ph.D. because I couldn’t concentrate. We ended up getting back together, and three months later, we were married.”
“Wow.”
“I got my doctorate, we bought a house by the sea, and somehow… things worked out.”
“How did you end up here?” I asked. “Running a burger shack in this tiny town?”