Relationships are glorious, fulfilling and flawed, but in all the right ways. At least that was what I thought, believed rather, with every fibre of my being. Despite my mother's disapproval, I spent many nights watching movies from the entire spectrum of romantic movies, these artificial depictions of reality defined romance and from that definition, I moulded the idea of love.
My model was based on the scenes of last-minute kisses in the aisle of an airplane, preventing take-off while everyone swooned over the newly reunited couple, not once did I even fathom of the ugly reality that is the relationship itself, the unattractive scenes that played out after the credits had rolled. I didn't need to imagine it though; the post-credit scenes became my life.
The more time I spent with him, the less it felt like I was a part of a relationship, it felt more like I was portraying the character of a woman in a relationship, to be fair, most of the time the scenes felt like monologues; I would talk about the latest electric bill and I would be lucky if I got a nod in response.
At first, I understood, his was a demanding field of work and he had been receiving increasingly negative reviews from his line manager, so he felt the pressures of keeping his job, adding to that, three family generations preceding him carried significant weight in the accountancy field and his only fear was being the first to let down the family name. The only thing worse than the lack of conversation was the lack of intimacy, how can two people who barely engage in conversation jump the barrier of physical touch? The issue was never that I was not sexually attracted to him; in fact, I would find myself getting moist in between the legs when I thought about the way he used to touch me. The issue was time; he arrived home towards the end of the night when I had already made my way to bed and he always had a hard time waking me and so it became routine that upon arrival, he would join me in bed, the distance between us gradually increasing.
I had a lot of nights to myself and when you have watched every single episode of each show, you grow tired of staring blankly at a television screen and so amid desperate loneliness, you engage with your thoughts. On one such night, I got home and found that I would be gifted the gift of my own company, as per usual and so I decided to heat the food that I prepared the previous night in the hopes of sharing a meal with my partner, it's anyone's guess that I ate alone.
"Two nights in a row, it almost feels like back in the day when my roommate was away, and I had the whole apartment to myself. Simpler times" I whispered to the pots full of food, staying true to the nature of a monologue. I prepared a plate for myself and just as I was about to finish, I wondered whether I should make an extra plate and put it in the microwave. I went back and forth with myself until I decided against it on the basis that each time he came home late, he couldn't eat because "he had too much to eat at the business dinner". Without warning, I felt myself brimming with a feeling I could only describe as rage.
Suddenly, every explanation he had ever given me sounded like a minimum-effort lie, I felt as though I was being deceived. Every late night at the office slowly warped into intimate interactions with various women, during the time he was supposed to be spending trying to destroy the ever-increasing distance between us.
In a blind fit of rage, I made my way to my phone and dialled his number; it was only when I heard his voice on the other end of the line that I knew that I had not planned what I was going to say. "Hello?" he repeated several times, doubts started creeping in, maybe I was wrong to assume the worst of him. "Is something wrong?" he asked with panic in his voice, "No, what are you doing." I stuttered in a weak attempt to sound normal. There was silence on the line, "I am at work and you know this, I need to go." "Can you prove it?" I shouted in an attempt to get a word in before he hung up the phone. More silence followed and he took a long, deep breath and said in the calmest voice, "Is there a reason you called me other than to interrogate me because you sound like you've given your insecurities the phone."
I felt myself being taken out of my body; he had never been so harsh to me without being provoked. We had had arguments that had boiled over into an exchange of words, mainly aimed at hurting each other before and it had been so long that it felt foreign hearing him jab at me in such a manner. I looked at the phone and my finger moved to the red icon without giving it a second thought.
Whenever we got into a fight at night, I would struggle to find sleep and as the years progressed, I found a solution, it has never been the healthiest, but it has been the most convenient: sleeping pills. After processing the phone call, I headed straight to the kitchen and filled a glass with water and reached for the pill bottle, mentally debating how many I should take. Thoughts of my early morning the following day led to me taking only one, it wouldn't overpower me in the morning, but it would make me sleepy enough to catch sleep. I gulped the pill and water combination down and headed to the bedroom, slowly undressing on the way, when I reached the bedroom, I was already stripped down and I threw all my clothes into the laundry basket behind the door.
