The Unrequited

by Saffron A Kent

  I can’t be—it’s the fate I chose months ago—but words come to me now because of her, as though she is my muse. I don’t want a muse. I don’t want Layla Robinson in my thoughts.

  I grip the neck of the bottle tightly, restless, unable to sit still. I take another long pull of my beer. “Yeah. Decent,” I say in reply to Jake’s earlier question.

  “That bad, huh?” He rests his arms on his thighs and gives me a meaningful look. “Listen, go easy on them. Not everyone is Hemingway in the making. Look at the spirit, not the talent.”

  “Is that my first lesson on how to be a teacher?”

  “If you want it to be.”

  “You’re full of wisdom tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I’m always full of wisdom.” He grins, making me scoff.

  We talk until it’s time to go. Hadley thanks Grace for having us over and they hug. Jake and I pat each other’s shoulders.

  It’s a bit of a drive to our place from Jake’s house since they live off campus. As I start my car, I see Grace and Jake kissing and giggling like teenagers in the rearview mirror. It intensifies my headache even more.

  When Hadley is all buckled up, I pull out. An instant sense of relief overtakes me at her nearness. My fingers twitch on the wheel with the desire to touch her skin, the curve of her cheek, her graceful neck—but I don’t. She won’t like it.

  “So, uh, did you have a good time?” I cringe at my question, my eyes on the snowy road. Might as well have asked about the useless weather. I’ve never been a conversation starter, but for her, I try.

  “Yes.” She nods, giving me a glance that lasts only a second before turning back to the window.

  The silence is oppressive. My fingers tighten, white-knuckling the wheel. “Do you think it’s…going to snow tonight?”

  I am nauseated as soon as the words are out, so empty and impersonal. It’s like we’ve never met before, never touched each other, never felt each other’s heartbeats or skin.

  It’s like we’ve never been in love before.

  She shrugs in answer to my pathetic question. “Probably.”

  The nausea lurches and I feel hot all over. The car seems to have shrunk in the past five seconds. I want to stomp on the brakes, jerk us to a halt, and shove out of this tight space. I want to leave it all behind. Every fucking thing.

  But there’s nowhere else to go. So I keep on driving.

  In fact, I’m so absorbed in this mundane task that I miss the turn that leads to our house. I keep driving straight and come to a stop in front of the park entrance. Only then does Hadley notice where we are.

  “What…What are we doing here?” She turns to me. I’m ashamed to admit it gives me pleasure to see her disorientation. It gives me pleasure to see her need me, even if it is for something as inconsequential as seeking the answer to her question.

  “I want to show you something.” My voice is quiet, despite the roar inside my body.

  Her golden-brown eyes flick over my face. It’s probably the first time all night that she’s been aware of me, and like a fucking beggar, I take it. I rejoice in her undivided attention.

  It’s gone too soon though. She jumps out of the car and I follow her. I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea, but I’m running out of options. I need her to understand.

  Our footsteps crunch, filling the silence as I direct her to our destination: the bench under the white-flowered tree, the very spot where I proposed to her.

  As the bench comes into view, surrounded by heaps of snow and spotlighted under the lamp, the night changes into that day from eight years ago. I’m thrown back to that rainy afternoon, when I told her I wanted to spend my life with her. I was going to go away to the city for grad school and I wanted her to come with me.

  “Do you remember this place? You waited for me, as always.” I swallow. “And as always, I was late. I thought you’d be gone. I was rehearsing all the apologies in my head, but there you were, and I just stopped. I had to catch my breath for a second. You were so beautiful and calm and…soft.” I plow my numb fingers through my hair. “I felt so inadequate, like I didn’t deserve you. I’ve always been such a…moody asshole.”

  My words trail off as Hadley turns around and faces me. I don’t know what I was expecting to see on her expression, but it wasn’t this…deathly stillness. She is like a blank piece of paper. She is almost one-dimensional in her absence of emotions, as if she has no depth whatsoever, nothing beyond the surface.

  “I want to go home.” Her voice is the same, quiet and soft, but it sounds all wrong with her expressionless, indifferent face.

  “Hadley—”

  “I don’t want to be here.”

  “You promised.” My voice thunders. I clench my fists to get it under control. “You promised you’d try. We both did. And I’m trying, Hadley. I swear to fucking God, I’m trying to be the kind of husband you deserve.”

  Anger and fear are warring inside me. What if I can never get through to her? What if I can never make her understand how much I have changed? What if she asks for a divorce again? I remember the invisible jolt I felt when she asked for it that day months ago. Her demand was a boom inside my body, an implosion of organs, my heart. I hadn’t even realized things had gotten so bad.

  “Is that why we’re here? In this town?”

  “Yes, because you love it here. You always wanted to move back.”

  “But you hate this town.”

  “I don’t care. I’d do anything for you.”

  “Even give up your writing?”

  I flinch at this. I’m not used to hearing it out loud. It’s not something we talk about. For years, I lived on words, on creating them, molding them. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I loved Hadley too. Words made me forget my wife, and I fucking hate them now. I don’t want them. For her, I’ll give everything up.

  “Yes. Nothing means more to me than you.” I shake my head, tired of this longing, this need for her. “Don’t you get it? You give up anything for the people you care about. I’m just doing what you’re supposed to do in love.”

  Her eyes shine with unshed tears, hurting me but making me happy because they mean she still cares. This display of emotion makes me take a few steps forward, but I come to a halt when her face changes. The emotions are erased and her expression has turned blank again.

  “I want to go home. I’m tired.” She doesn’t give me time to respond, simply begins walking back to the car.

  It takes me a few seconds to move. Anger is like hot lava, burning my flesh. She keeps rejecting me at every turn. Why the fuck can’t she see what I’ve given up to be with her? Why won’t she forgive me? Why aren’t things getting better when I’m doing everything I can to make them so?

  Ten minutes later, we are home.

  We enter the house through the kitchen door. Home is a bit of stretch. It doesn’t feel like home. It doesn’t have a personality yet. It’s too new, smells too much of paint and wood. Unlike in the city, it’s too quiet in here; I’d rather be sleeping through the blaring siren of a fire truck than sitting in the unnatural silence. Small towns make me think I’m all alone in the world.

  Hadley moves like a ghost, with light feet and grace, as if she’s floating. She drifts up the stairs and just as she reaches the landing, a shrill cry echoes. Nicky is up. Hadley winces at the sound, pauses a moment in front of his door, but then moves on.

  I fist my hands at my sides. I can take her indifference toward me. It fucking hurts, but I can take the pain—but her indifference toward Nicky makes me want to throttle her. I breathe in deep and climb up the same stairs. I come to Nicky’s white door and my sweaty palms slip over the knob as I turn it.

  The room is lit by moonlight and a lamp with sea animals on the shade. It stands on the dresser right next to the rocking chair Susan, our nanny, is currently occupying. She has Nicky in her arms and she is gently cooing in his ears. I pad inside the room and she looks up at me, smiling slightly.

  “He
’s just being a little fussy,” she tells me as she stands.

  I reach over and take Nicky in my arms, relieving her. I rock him with practiced ease and kiss his forehead. “It’s okay. I got him. You should go on home.”

  She rubs circles on Nicky’s back, trying to soothe him alongside me. “Are you sure? I can stay. You should get some sleep. You have work in the morning.”

  Nicky fists the collar of my shirt and tries to put it into his mouth. I clutch his chubby fist and place a soft kiss on it. “I’ll be okay.” She doesn’t know how many sleepless nights I’ve spent under this roof.

  Susan studies me with a frown on her weathered face. Maybe she does know. She opens her mouth to say something, but I stop her. “Do you need help packing up your things?”

  “No. I can do it.” She throws me a sad smile. “I’ll go then. Good night.” She leans over, kisses Nicky on the cheek and leaves.

  I let out a relieved breath. Finally, I am alone. I welcome the solitude after the roller coaster of tonight.

  Nicky has calmed down and is drooling over my shoulder. I lay him down in the crib and watch him sleep. I trace the curves of his cheeks, the soft, cute chin with my eyes. His hair is dark and mussed, his fists lifted up by his face. He jerks and his blue onesie-covered feet twitch. I pat his chest, run my palm in circles, hoping to soothe him. Soon, his breathing goes back to normal as his mouth falls open slightly.

  The words tumble out of my mouth on a whisper. “I love you. I’ll always love you.”

  And I love your mom.

  The thought pulsates like an ache in my skull and a churn in my gut. I’m restless again.

  I need to remind Hadley how much I love her. I need to remind her that we share a child. We are a family. You never turn your back on your family. I have learned that in the worst of ways.

  But how do you remind someone who doesn’t want to remember?

  Monday morning, the start of another week of school. Emma and I walk to class together and sit side by side, in the middle of the semicircle. Dylan enters a few minutes later and walks straight to Emma, smiles, and takes a seat by her. They begin talking and I look at my notebook, grinning.

  Who would’ve thought my life would entirely spin around in a week? A week ago I didn’t even have friends, and now I have three, and I’ve got the Labyrinth too—or at least, I can hang out here until they realize I don’t belong.

  My heart thumps in my chest as I flip pages of my notebook and come upon the very last page filled with my squiggly handwriting. I’m scared to look at the words I wrote. They seem childish, inadequate, unworthy of the dynamic man to whom they are dedicated.

  I snap the notebook close and stare ahead.

  Before long, Thomas enters the class, carrying a bundle of papers in one hand and running the other through his hair. My body tingles, goosebumps erupting over my skin.

  He takes off his jacket, throws it on the chair with a tight, jerky flick of his arm. Fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt, he opens the button and folds the sleeves up to his elbows. I watch his hands cradling the papers, flicking through them, and picture him cradling Nicky’s fragile neck, soothing him.

  Thomas Abrams is magic. He’s a wordsmith, a baby whisperer, a blue-eyed asshole, but most of all, he’s like me: brokenhearted.

  “Miss Robinson.” Thomas’ voice lashes through the room, and I wince. He looks at me—glares, actually—and my stomach is filled with terrified butterflies.

  “Do you have some work for us?”

  “W-Work?”

  “Yes. Do you have any?”

  “Uh, I don’t…I don’t remember you giving us any homework last class.”

  He throws the papers on the desk and folds his arms. “It’s a writing class, Miss Robinson. It requires you to write, to hold the pen and put it on paper—sound familiar?”

  I gulp, twisting the pages of my notebook. Yup, a major asshole—but why does his anger turn me on so much? I’m a fucking masochist.

  “Read us a poem you’ve written.”

  Fuck. Fuck!

  The butterflies inside my stomach freeze and die, dropping to the bottom like dead weight. The silence is so thick that I hear the rustle of clothes as people shift in their chairs. All eyes are staring at me and I hate that, hate the stabbing gazes.

  “Do you think you’re special, Miss Robinson? Do you think I should completely ignore the fact that you’ve failed to turn in your assignment from last week? Or maybe you think your fellow students are fucking idiots for following the rules. Which is it?”

  I grit my teeth against the onslaught of emotions that seem eerily similar to betrayal and choke out, “I have some work.”

  He looks surprised, and that gives me a teeny sense of pleasure. “Let’s hear it.” Thomas leans against the desk and crosses his ankles.

  Okay, I’m not so turned on right now as I feel the class watching me with pity. This must be so natural for them, reading their ‘work’, and here I am quaking in my boots.

  I clear my throat and begin.

  “The day we met you watched the moon

  While I watched you.

  Tall and alone. Dark and lonely.

  You looked like my mirror.

  Cracked and empty.

  Dried up and chewed out.

  I could have been yours.

  If only you had looked at me.”

  My voice is scratchy, and words sound garbled and thick to my ears. I’m afraid to look up and see Thomas’ reaction. I keep dog-earing the page and shifting restlessly in my seat. Even though I’m not looking, I know the exact moment he is about to say something.

  “Well, an A for the effort and courage to read it out loud. No, actually…” He scratches his jaw with his thumb. “I’d say A+ for the courage. You must have a lot of it to read something this choppy and unpolished. Tell me, Miss Robinson, how many times did you revise your work?”

  I almost open my mouth and blurt out, Was I supposed to? but I control myself and manage to lie. “Once?”

  “Once,” he clips.

  “Uh, twice.” I hold up two fingers; they are shivering, barely able to stand on their own, so I lower them.

  I can see Thomas doesn’t buy it. “It shows. The structure is choppy. It’s abrupt. And your word choice is horrendous.”

  My body heats up in shame, his words hitting me like fire darts. I poured out every fucking emotion I had into this stupid poem and that’s all he has to say to me? Is he even the same person from yesterday? Is he even capable of vulnerability? Is it all in my head?

  “Isn’t a poem supposed to be a snapshot of a moment?” I ask with clenched teeth.

  “If I have to tell you what a poem is, I think you’re in the wrong class.”

  With one flick of his gaze, he dismisses me, and I’m left seething. I feel Emma squeezing my hand on the desk and I want to snap it away and shrink in my seat. I’m happy being the weird loner. I don’t need pity.

  Thomas calls out other names, asking them to read. He is impatient with his comments, snappy and rude, but not as rude or condescending as he was to me. I think by the time the class is over, he’s enjoying the back and forth, the healthy debate over his precious ‘word choice,’ though he would never admit it. Fucking egomaniac.

  The only person to get a fraction of positivity from him is Emma. Thomas said her poem has potential. Potential. I’m so jealous, and it’s so ridiculous that my breaths are coming in pants.

  And it has nothing to do with being turned on.

  ________________

  All day I’ve been seething over what happened in Thomas’ class, so much so that once my other classes are over, I trek back to the north side of campus and inside the Labyrinth. The building is as alive as ever. I wonder when these people even go home. It’s almost five in the evening and I can still hear the thumping footsteps above—the theatre crew. Fucking hippies.

  I take the flight of stairs to the second floor, which is similar to the first floor with its long hallwa
y and flanking rooms. A few are classrooms, but mostly this floor is for faculty offices. I stop at the last door. It sits right above our classroom downstairs and reads, Thomas Abrams, Poet in Residence. I grimace. More like asshole in residence. The door is ajar and I push it open.

  Thomas is sitting in a high-backed chair, pen poised in his hands, head bent over a bundle of papers. He looks up as the door opens.

  “Miss Robinson. Did we have an appointment?”

  I enter and close the door behind me. “No.”

  “Then you should make one and come back later.” He goes back to reading the paper in front of him.

  If he doesn’t look up any time soon, I might throw something at him. By the looks of it, it’s going to be the small Tiffany lamp sitting by the door on a polished wooden stool.

  “What was that?” I release a pent-up breath. “You humiliated me in class.”

  For the longest time, all I hear is the scratch of his pen, and all I see is the dark hair on his bent head. My hand creeps up toward the lamp, almost touching it. I’d do it too. I’m that mad and that fearless.

  At last, he is done. He sets the pen aside and looks up. “And when was that exactly?”

  A laugh of disbelief breaks out of my lips. “Are you serious right now? You fucking humiliated me, tore my poem apart like it was some…some…” Dammit, I can’t find a word for it.

  His fingers are laced together on the desk and with inscrutable eyes, he watches me struggle. “Like it was some what?”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I swallow the scream that itches my throat.

  “No.” He stands up and walks around the desk, leaning against it. “I don’t enjoy being cornered for giving my honest opinion. Maybe you didn’t understand the first time: this is a creative writing class. If you can’t take the heat, then get out. Besides, aren’t you not in my class already?”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I bring my backpack around to my front and fish out the printed document. I walk up to him and pin it to his chest. “Here, my official registration confirmation. I am not a trespasser anymore.”