“Of course. We need to go. We’ll go. We must go,” he said resolutely, as though he were trying to convince himself. Then he lifted his gaze to mine and I felt better, seeing it was clear of conflict.
“By the way, why are you here? Obviously I’m not complaining, but how did this happen? I thought there were no breaks on this assignment.”
He walked backward to the door, checking his watch. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
“Oh! I also need to speak with you about Jack. Something happened yesterday—”
Greg stiffened. “Is he okay?”
“Yes, but—”
“I have to go, we’ll talk about it later. Speaking of which, when I return, it would be super great if you were still mostly naked, mmm-kay?’
“Mmm-kay.” I stood, giving him a goofy grin. “I’m sure the kids won’t mind their mother walking around the house naked. That’s not weird at all.”
“Good.” He nodded once, a smile brightening his eyes, then turned. I was halfway to our bathroom when I heard him open the front door then bellow at me, “And by mostly naked, I mean completely naked. And wet!”
This made me smile, until I heard Greg say, “Oh, hi neighbor Matt. I didn’t see you lurking there in the hallway. Awkward.”
And then I laughed.
Good Lord, I’d missed him.
CHAPTER 3
Dearest Wife,
I really thought love at first sight and soul mates were bullshit. But the second I saw you, nothing else seemed possible. How could I not spend the rest of my breathing moments with you? I needed to be with you. I was in love with you from the moment I saw you, and every time I see you now it's that same feeling of, “NOW I am complete.”
-Mark
Letter
Ohio, USA
Married 7 years
18 years ago
Greg
“She’s a six.”
Frowning at the class syllabus for English Composition 101, I endeavored to ignore the males of my species directly behind me.
“What? No. Look at that rack. It adds three points. She’s at least a seven. Maybe even a seven point five.”
This statement was deserving of an eye-roll. Thus, I rolled my eyes.
Barely functioning, hormone-addled cretins were my punishment for putting off first year English until my third year at university. I ought to have CLEP-ed out of the class—which was where one takes a proficiency test in lieu of three credit hours spent weekly in a classroom. This approach hadn’t come to fruition for two reasons.
First, I got drunk the night before the exam last summer and failed it. I fell asleep halfway through the essay portion.
I’m not a drunk, not yet at any rate, but I do enjoy a night of oblivion from time to time. I’m haunted, mostly by ghosts of blokes I used to know. Watching other people die requires turning off a switch within oneself. When everything was illuminated and yet still dark—shadowy with regret and the knowledge of true pain, true suffering—my ability to live and function in the present was compromised.
How I longed to scream at people, how I longed to wake them to the world around them, and not their petty concerns of TV dinners and the cancellation of their favorite TV shows . . .
But alas, no one likes a harbinger of truth. So I opted for infrequent periods of drunk debauchery in an effort to curb my killjoy proclivities.
The other reason I’d enrolled in English 101 was because I needed a boost to my grade point average. My humanities teacher had given me a C last semester. Note the distinction: It hadn’t been deserved. It had been given. Like a present. Or a sexually transmitted disease.
I’d had the audacity to call him an insufferable twat. He was an insufferable twat. But then what did I expect from a ponytail-wearing pacifist who spent five dollars on a cup of coffee, yet complained daily about his paltry adjunct stipend?
Also, he was a philosophy Ph.D. candidate. The most pretentious and worthless of all college degrees, where nothing was made or produced or accomplished, except endless discussion of feelings and thoughts. So, again, nothing accomplished.
In retrospect, I ought not to have called him an insufferable twat in front of the entire class. That was on me. My bad.
English Composition 101 was my penance.
Apparently the hormone-addled cretins behind me were part of that penance.
“She’s a six point five and no higher. Butterface. Put a paper bag over her head or fuck her from behind and she goes up a half point.”
I gritted my teeth.
Lord, give me strength.
“What about her?”
“Which one? The fat one?”
“No. The short one; she just walked in. I’d totally fuck her face to face.”
My attention flickered to the side, to the young lady at my left. She wasn’t the subject of their objectification, but she had obviously overheard their comments. Her youthful face was flushed and stricken, clearly horrified. From the looks of her, she was in her first year, likely fresh from some corn farm in Iowa.