Being single and living with a beautiful woman isn't easy, especially when she's your ex.
Danielle and I decided to finally call things quits last week. The decision came after months of arguing, breaking up, and making up again. Every month, like clockwork, from January and into July, we repeated this ritual, until we both reluctantly accepted that we were spending the majority of our relationship being upset, and we finally made peace with the fact that we were never going to make each other happy. The breakup was unexpectedly amicable and proceeded in an almost business-like manner. So business-like, in fact, that when we found that our financial situations made it impossible for us to live individually, we resolved that just because we weren't meant to be with each other didn't mean we couldn't live under the same roof and be civil towards each other.
This civil agreement, however, didn't preclude subtle acts of pettiness. We both clung tightly to our self-righteous anger after the last big fight before breaking up and we were anxious to show the other how well we had adjusted to our new roles as
just friends
. Danielle didn't take long to get back to her normal, peppy self. I almost didn't recognize her when I saw her in the kitchen the next morning. She was wearing a
very
short white sundress I didn't recognize and singing some airy folk song while bouncing around the kitchen whipping together some mess of a breakfast, teasing me with flirtatious glimpses at what wasn't under her skirt. It was like she traveled back in time to who she was when we first started dating, she even dyed her hair back to that deep burgundy color from her natural blonde. She looked like she belonged in some rom-com starring Zoey Deschanel.
At first, I felt a bit bad that she wasn't taking the break-up as hard as I expected her to, but we had agreed to end things on peaceful terms with as few loose ends as possible. After all, this is the same woman who bursts into tears if someone takes a stern tone with her at work, so that she had dealt with her emotions so quickly was a bit of a shock to me. It felt as though she was rubbing herself in my face, showing me what she could be like if I had worked a bit harder on trying to stay together instead of giving her up. I let her know how happy I was that she was feeling better, and like a good friend, offered to make her a cup of coffee.
Danielle had only moved in with me a few months ago, so she hadn't had a chance to get her name on the lease and officially change her address. Fortunately for her, I'm not
so
petty or vindictive enough to toss homelessness on top of heartbreak, so I offered to let her stay in the master bedroom (previously our bedroom) until we finished turning the second-floor office into a bedroom for her. In the meanwhile, I offered to sleep in my office in the attic, which happens to have a large mattress-sized nook with an attractive set of glass French doors. I put up some semi-sheer curtains to give myself a bit of privacy without making the room feel too claustrophobic. The curtains gave the room a regal feeling - like my own royal palanquin.
The next few days were a mixture of awkward encounters and fighting back big emotions. As cathartic as taking passive swipes at each other, we had been in love, and underneath all the pettiness was a throbbing ache for that toxic romance. Acting around each other as though we hadn't spent the last few months of our lives sleeping in the same bed was a tricky new fit, and very often we would slip into those old habits and call each other by our cutesy nicknames for each other. This was immediately followed up with profuse apologizing, and usually, the offending party would self-banish themselves to their respective section of the house to allow the embarrassment to dissipate. As much as we both tried to downplay our hurt over the breakup, we were both starting to miss what we had.
One day, I returned home from work to find Danielle sitting at the dining table with a chessboard. She bought a cheap set at a thrift store downtown because she thought it might replace the air of tension with a bit of playful competition. It was a cute idea and not a bad way to reestablish normalcy in the household. I neglected to mention that I used to take chess lessons when I was in middle school and I remembered a handful of openings and middle-game strategy. Far from being an expert, I was confident that I would be able to beat her.
Poor girl. She didn't even know how to castle. Or that a knight can move
over
pieces in its path. She confidently chalked her beginner's mistakes up to the fact that she was playing by "the old rules" she was taught by her father. I had met her father, and he didn't look a day over seven hundred, so I sincerely doubted he played by medieval rules. I simply nodded my head rather than challenge such a baffling white lie.
She was right about one thing though, playing chess did make living together easier. We made it a nighttime ritual, just before bed, we would set the chessboard up on the dining room table, play two or three games, and then return to our respective rooms for the night. For the first time in months of our relationship, seeing Danielle didn't fill me full of anxiety and dread, and for some reason, spending time playing an inconsequential game of chess made it easy to see her past the heartbreak.
We were even having conversations again, interesting conversations, not just the routine "how was your day" that we had fallen into. We had friendly, non-serious conversations about books and shows we finally committed to in the quiet hours that had once been occupied with figuring out where to eat or what to do over the weekend. And even though we still lived under the same roof, there was a greater air of mystery to her now that we weren't constantly in each other's lives. The time we spent playing chess gave us just enough time in each other's lives without lingering so long that we remembered why we couldn't be together in the first place.
Tonight, Danielle is playing a worse game than normal. Something is clearly on her mind. Her eyes are entirely glazed over as she stares blankly through the board. Agonizing minutes pass between each turn as she moves aimlessly, failing to present any intention of endangering any of my pieces. As she ponders each move, she plucks a piece from the board and fidgets with it, tapping one pointed nail on its plastic surface with a satisfying click. We continue playing wordlessly except for the occasional "check."
She had been making small improvements lately, and I was sure my winning streak was about to end until tonight. Instead, she ends up sealing her doom by making the dumbfounding decision to back her king into a narrow corridor.
"I don't think there's any coming back from this," her words are barely voiced as though she didn't even know she said it. I'm startled by the abruptness of her silence being broken. There's a strange alien quality to her monotone. There is usually such lively animation in her cadence, her words bounce gleefully along with childlike whimsy. This is a different Danielle, one whose youthful energy has been scooped out of her and replaced with cold, robotic circuitry. She looks like she is on the verge of tears. Or falling asleep. It's hard to tell by how little she is expressing.
"You're right," I don't know how to comfort her at this moment, or if she even wants to be comforted by me, so I try to bring her attention back to the game. "I have checkmate in two moves."
Danielle's eyes widen as though she has just snapped out of a hypnotic trance and suddenly her torpor is replaced with urgency as she scans the board desperately, but it's all unfamiliar to her, she hasn't been playing this game at all.
"What? Oh no!" And just like that, she's back to her familiar self. We end up playing the game out, despite the inevitable outcome.
As we're putting the pieces away, Danielle's hand touches mine and I instinctively pull away, we both apologize to each other. We continue to put the pieces away in absolute silence, both unsure of what to say to break this terrible silence.
We decide on nothing and she doesn't bother to say "good night" as she turns to walk back downstairs. But as she takes her first step, she hesitates, and chews on a thought, then turns back around to face me.
