Our Way

I wrap the towel around my waist and inhale deeply as I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

Cut it out, I warn myself. She’s going to leave if you keep losing your head.

I close my eyes and shake out my arms as if I’m preparing to go into a fight, because that’s how it feels, like I’m constantly fighting myself over her—an internal battle between what I should want and what I do want.

What I know and what I want to learn.

Everything about this situation is screaming at me to drop it, and every day I decide to.

Yet, every day I fail the task.

I walk out into the darkened bedroom. Eliza is lying on her side with her back to me. I grab my boxer shorts from the drawer and slip them on, and then I get a glass of water, get into bed beside her, and I lie on my back.

I can’t touch her because I can’t trust myself not to start it up all over again.

We lie in silence for a long time until, eventually, she asks, “Is everything all right?”

I close my eyes, fuck. “Yeah, baby,” I whisper.

“Cuddle me.”

I roll toward her and take her into my arms. I press my lips into the crook of her neck.

“Do you love me, Nathe?” she whispers. She asks me this all the time. It’s an affectionate joke between us.

I screw up my face and pause as my chest constricts. “You know I do.” I kiss the back of her head. “Go to sleep.”

“Goodnight, Nathe.”

I remember how perfect that ten minutes were when she was in my arms, and I smile sadly into the darkness. “Goodnight, Eliza.”

* * *

I stare at the big screen over the bar. It’s 10:00 p.m., and after the longest day in history, I just want to go home and sleep.

But home is complicated. Actually, home isn’t even my home. It’s her home.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and scrunch my eyes shut.

Fucking hell, what a mess.

I sip my scotch and stare up at the television screen.

Here’s what I need to do. I need to go back to my house and sleep in my bed. I also need to have sex with someone before I ruin everything.

I sip my drink and stare into space, infuriated at the situation I find myself in.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Nothing about this is fucking normal.

Am I having a midlife crisis or something?

I think about what the possible outcomes are if I tell Eliza what’s going on in my head… and my pants. She could be mortified if I made a move and she wasn’t into it. We would become awkward and drift apart. She might just not like me that way, it’s probable actually. I mean, in the ten years that we’ve spent every spare moment together, she has never once hinted at anything like that between us. Neither have I, but things change, apparently. She could be totally disgusted that I’ve been sleeping with her and seeing her undressed while feeling an attraction to her. What if she feels violated? Am I violating her? I don’t even know anymore.

This really is a fucked-up situation.

I sip my scotch as the worst-case scenario plays out. What if she does, in fact, feel the same and we sleep together and it feels wrong? What if I don’t like it but she does? I would then have to tell her that it was a mistake.

It would hurt her.