Page 65 of On Dry Land

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and if it weren’t for the way his hands are clenched into the bedsheet, I’d probably believe he was calm. I stare at him, noting that the sweats he’s wearing are mine and letting that hurt just a little bit.

What’s wrong is I think I love him and that I feel almost exactly the way I felt when Dylan and I first got married. What’s wrong is that I cannot trust myself to recognize my own emotions, nor another person to care for them. Isn’t it obvious? I want to ask. You’re what’s wrong. I shouldn’t have let you in, and now I’m the one who has to make you leave.

“Spencer, let’s save time and assume that the answer to that question is always going to be nothing. I’m fine, besides being desirous of a little silence.”

I close the door to the bathroom without looking at him. There’s plenty of silence now, although it’s the sick variety, twisted with words that would be much better said. I pee, wash my face, and brush my teeth, imagining the ocean and letting the numbness roll over me like a wave. I can do this. If there is one thing I know how to do, it’s look after myself.

This time, Spencer very nearly is waiting on the other side of the door when I open it. He’s perched on the end of the mattress, facing me, back straight and body stiff as a board. He’s an emotional aerial, tuned in to the vibrations of others and the world around him. Words are the least of what Spencer will need to pick up on discontent. I can imagine just how many warning bells are ringing in his head right now. My attitude is probably scaring him.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks, the question as precise as a hammer striking a nail home. I look away from him and toward the backpack leaning against the wall. Poetic justice, I suppose, that his fear has kept him from taking the steps to stay, and mine will be what tells him he isn’t welcome to.

“No,” I reply with quiet honesty. No, I don’t want him to leave. But nobody ever gets what they want, and he’s going to go anyway.

Spencer frowns, shifting a bit on the end of the mattress. I’m not making sense to him, which is fitting, since I rarely make sense to myself either.

“Are you sure?” he asks eventually. An ache throbs in my ear, and I make an effort to unclench my jaw again.

I didn’t really think I’d have to be the one to push him away. From the start, I’ve thought it would be him making that choice. From day one, Spencer has balanced with a foot out the door, poised to disappear the moment his welcome expires. He agonizes over the value of everything, seeing dollar signs and his inability to produce them. He lives in a world where power is never balanced on his side of the scale, and I can see it in his eyes now, the fear that I’m going to try and tug a little more my way.

“You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not upset with you.” My voice sounds robotic even to my ears—blank and expressionless. I sound like a liar. “You don’t have to leave, but I am.”

A war of emotions flits across his face—consternation and stubbornness, confusion and hurt, worry. He doesn’t know why I’m acting like this, and he’s nervous about what it means. He wants to push me for something, but suddenly finds himself on ground too shaky to plant his feet.

“I’ll be back soon,” I tell him. “I’m just going to get out for a drive.”

He lets me get all the way to the door, the dead bolt loud in the sick silence of the room. I want to apologize for my foul mood and tell him it’s not his fault, see those pretty eyes happy again, kiss his cheek and crawl back into bed. I’d like to fall back asleep and wake up a different person.

“You have to tell me,” Spencer pleads softly. I close my eyes, hating how miserable he sounds. “You can’t expect me just to know what you want.”

I straighten, smoothing my features until I can face him with a blank expression. I think about the six years I spent married and trying to be someone I wasn’t, and the two after that learning every way I failed. I think about the night Shiloh and I played pinball for hours, and how he taught me to use a four-point bridle. I think about the shimmer of pool water on pale skin, a chipped tooth and gingerbread cookie eyes, how it felt to let go and trust tender hands and a soft mouth. I think about silence and solitude and how futile it is to care.

“I’m only tired, Spencer.” I look at him then, no longer sitting on the end of the bed but standing near the corner. The words I should say stick in my throat. I should tell him he’s overstayed his welcome, and that I’m tired of being forced into cohabitation with him. I should tell him he’s a leech on my time and money, that it’s been fun while it lasted, but every good thing must come to an end, and we’ve reached ours. I should tell any number of a hundred lies—hit him exactly where I know it’ll hurt. It’s what I would do if this were any other person.

“I just need a little space,” is all I can force out when what I really want is to beg him to stay. I don’t need space from anyone but myself.

“Have you ever been to the Aspen Bend nature preserve? Up north of here?”

I stare at him, the question nearly random enough to jar me out of the depths I’ve sunk to. Spencer takes a hesitant step toward me, eyes large on his pale, narrow face.

“No.”

“I’d like to go,” he says carefully. Softly. The way he speaks to Demon when he’s trying not to startle her. I frown, the realization taking seconds longer than it should. He wants to go now.

Only years of experience masking keep me from reacting. If I were being honest, my hope has always been that he would leave without saying goodbye. I wanted to stop at the animal hospital to pick him up from work and see the bench out front empty. I wanted to come home and find his backpack missing, all evidence of him gone from everywhere but my mind. I did not want to hear false promises and pretty lies about staying in touch or coming back.

“I see,” I say eventually, when the silence has become uncomfortable. And I do. This is what I expected would happen and precisely what I had been bracing for. It doesn’t feel good to be right.

“But…but once I explore for a bit, I’d like to come back,” he continues, voice just a bit firmer. The space between us feels impossibly wide—a distance far greater than what the size of the cottage allows.

I look at him, eyes the color of brown sugar, sweatshirt baggy, and hair flat on one side from the pillow. He’s got that look on his face he used to wear—the street-wary, slightly fearful, stubborn mask. He has no home, and has just voiced the possibility of leaving this one. He’s expecting the door to be shut and barred to him, were he to return.

“You can always come back,” I tell him, dragging the words painfully out through a raw throat. He can, but he won’t. I cannot help but add the closest I’ll get to a plea in my life. “And I hope that you do.”

I turn, knowing this is the end and I can retreat to safety. I wish I had never woken up this morning.

“Will that be enough space?” Spencer asks, voice closer, like he took a couple of steps in my direction. I think if he were to touch me, I’d beg him not to go. “If I spend a few weeks at the national park?”

Too much. Far, far too much space. If he goes, I’ll never see him again, and I’ll have ruined yet another of the good things I never deserved to have in the first place.