28
Ifelt as though I was going to blow my fucking lid at any moment. It had been a week since she’d come back, and she’d stuck to her word. No emotion, no romance, and certainly no sex. And it was starting to drive me up the fucking wall.
Life before she had left hadn’t been this way. I knew that for damn sure. It hadn’t always been easy, fair enough, but it had been interesting and fun and the two of us had actually shared something together. I still wasn’t sure what it was. She seemed to think it was love, but I wasn’t certain it could be categorized that easily. Whatever it was, it had to be better than the shit we were dragging ourselves through right now.
She would come home from work and just sit there. I was pretty sure that was the hardest part. It was the look on her face, unreadable and impossible, and the fact that she would just plonk herself down in the seat opposite mine and nod and smile and be polite. Where was the Amaya who would tease me, would call me an asshole, would remind me I didn’t need to play the big man when I was at home? Where was the woman I had married, the one I had wanted to stick around and play the part for a year? I had only gotten into this because I thought I could bear to put up with her for the next ten months, and now she seemed to have shut down, playing robotic, nothing but the barest minimum of anything escaping her mouth. She would retreat to her room as soon as we’d eaten, and I would have to fight the urge to take the door off its hinges and storm in there and ask what the hell was going on.
But then again, I’d agreed to this. That was nagging away at the back of my mind. But I had imagined it was going to be the same kind of agreement we’d come to before, where we’d ended up giving in and accepting there was something more. I didn’t need a wife, but I needed Amaya, the Amaya who had existed when we’d started with this whole thing in the first place, not the shadow of her I got these days.
It had been the sex before. That was what had unlocked things for us. It was what had landed us married in the first place, in case she’d forgotten, but it was also what had pushed us into something different before. It had changed things and it seemed like from then on out she had barely been able to look me in the eye, but I knew that sex was our way of finding each other.
It was how we’d connected for the first time at that gala when we’d locked eyes across the room, and I’d known for damn certain that I was going to get that woman right there into bed, no matter what it took. And it was there now when I glanced at her as she passed through the living room on the way to work and I felt that familiar zing of desire. But I had agreed to let her set the pace, and even though it was driving me crazy, I'd stick to it. For as long as I could.
But it was only a matter of time before I bubbled over. I wasn’t great at keeping my emotions in check. When it came to anything other than love, I found myself rocking out of control quicker than I would have cared to admit to. And I was frustrated. I had wanted this woman back in my life on the assumption that she was going to be the same woman I had invited into it before, but this Amaya had nothing on the one who drank beer and watched movies and helped me hang up pictures all over the place to defuse an argument. If this was how it was going to be, I wasn’t sure I wanted it in the first place.
She came home from work that evening, and she floated into the apartment the same way she always did, with a polite “Evening, Kristo,” in my direction before she went to her room to get changed and take a shower.
“Evening, Amaya,” I called back as she made her way into her room, but she had closed the door behind her, and I couldn’t tell whether she was choosing to ignore me or if she just didn’t hear me. Either way, I felt that flurry of annoyance once more. She had been this way since that trip to visit my family, like she could barely get through this unless she kept her mouth firmly shut and pretended none of it was happening. Was she already dreaming of being back in her tiny condo, all by herself? Was that life preferable to this one? I had suggested the two of us take a trip out to see her sister, but she had been vague and dismissive and didn’t seem that interested in following up on the suggestion. I was at my wit’s end, trying to work out what I could do to get her to react to me, some way, any way.
“Dinner’s nearly ready,” I raised my voice. I was making a curry, nothing fancy, just something I could throw together to show her I still gave a shit, that at least one of us still did.
She emerged about five minutes later, face scrubbed clean and in a pair of jeans and a shirt. She took her seat opposite me at the breakfast bar and watched silently as I finished up dinner. I wanted to turn around and grab her by the shoulders and see if that would be enough to get a reaction out of her, but I had to keep my cool. She was playing me, that much was obvious, pushing me away for some reason, maybe in the hopes that I would figure out I had feelings for her after all this time. I did have feelings for her. I just had no idea what the hell they were or what the fuck they meant.
I served up and took my seat opposite her, grabbing myself a water from the fridge.
“You want a drink?” I asked, and she shook her head and took a spoonful of the curry, blowing on it softly.
“No, I’m fine,” she replied calmly. That tone of voice was the thing that was driving me the wildest because it seemed so removed, so uninterested, so bored. Like she couldn’t wait for me to shut up and stop talking already. I sat down slowly, letting out a long breath as I did so, trying to get a hold on my annoyance. It had been a long day at work, that was all. I could handle myself.
“How was your day?” I asked carefully, and she shrugged.
“It was fine,” she replied. “And yours?”
“It was kind of stressful,” I replied, eyeing her, waiting for her to respond with something, anything. But she just nodded.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied mildly. She took a bite of her food.
“This is nice,” she remarked. Everything had suddenly become so bland with her, as though she had shaved the rough edges off herself in the hopes that she could keep herself safe.
“I’m glad you like it,” I replied, and I leaned back and eyed her for a moment. I needed more than that. She glanced up at me, chewing slowly.
“What?” she asked, and then, I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Suddenly, the feelings I had been doing my best to keep down all this time welled up and over, and I got to my feet, appetite forgotten.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” I slapped a hand down on the counter, sending the dishes shaking and clattering in front of us. She furrowed her brow but didn’t react.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you can barely even look me in the fucking eye,” I snapped. “About the fact that this is the most conversation we’ve shared since you came back.”
“And?” she asked, infuriating me further.
“And it’s not what I wanted this to be,” I shot back. “I just want some emotion, Amaya, anything. You’ve just been sitting there or in your room, pretending nothing is happening, but it has and it is and—”
I stopped myself as she reached to place her fork carefully back down on the table, and I noticed that her hands were shaking. I felt fucking awful right away. I had never intended to scare her, but I couldn’t stop myself, not when she drove me up the wall like this.
She got to her feet slowly, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. Her body was tense, almost painfully so, as though it was taking every single part of her not to lash out against me at that moment. I found myself craving that, despite myself. It was stupid, and it was childish, but I wanted her to yell back at me. I wanted her to lash out. I wanted her to come screaming at me, telling me that I was wrong and that she hated me or she loved me or something.
Instead, she made her way toward me, walking around the counter until she was a few inches from me. I was heaving in breath sharply, my body tensed from top to bottom as I waited for her to say something to me.