Chapter 2 #2
I couldn't make myself leave. There it was, all my shame. I sat down on the bottom step of a stranger's staircase and began to wait. The way a dog waits for its master at the door. I don't know how long it lasted — every minute peeled the skin off me, strip by strip.
Past me, dressing in the entryway, the first guests trickled out. One couple glanced at me, whispered about something, and the man gave a stifled snicker. I stared at the floor.
Upstairs a door creaked. I raised my head.
Mark came down unhurriedly, buttoning his shirt as he went, with the lazy, sated face of a man who's just gotten what he wanted. Behind him, a little later — Nikki, flushed, adjusting a strap.
He saw me on the step. He wasn't surprised. He wasn't embarrassed. He took the glass from my trembling hand and drank.
— Still here? — He smirked. — And I thought you'd at least leave this time.
In the car he drove with one hand, scrolling his phone with the other, the glow of the screen falling across his calm, foreign face.
— Good party, — he said. — Did you like it?
I looked out the window at the rushing streetlamps and said nothing.
— Not talking? — He grunted. — Good. Keep not talking. It's much better that way.
— Do you at least… use protection with them? — I asked into the window, not believing I was saying it out loud.
— And what's it to you? — He didn't even turn his head. — That stopped being your business a long time ago.
And it was true. The most humiliating of all truths.
At home it broke out of me.
— How could you?! — My voice cracked, broke into a rasp. — In front of everyone, Mark! In front of Dana! In front of your friends! You took her upstairs and I stood below like… like…
— Like a wife, — he prompted, calmly unbuttoning his cuffs. — That's what you are. A wife. Wives wait downstairs.
— I hate you.
— No. — He shook his head almost tenderly. — If you hated me, you'd have left. But you're standing here shouting so I'll pity you.
I grabbed him by the sleeve.
— Look at me. Just look at me, for once!
He fastidiously shook off my hand, the way you shake off a stray hair.
— Don't hang on me. You'll stretch the shirt.
— You're thirty, Ariana, — he said suddenly, looking me over as if seeing me for the first time and finding me wanting. — Thirty. You think I run around because life's so good? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Faded, always tear-stained. Who'd want you like that, besides me?
The words went in under my ribs, more precise than any knife. Because it was true — I really hadn't looked in the mirror in a long time. I was afraid of what I'd see.
— So I should even be grateful? — I whispered.
— What did you think? — He shrugged. — Anyone else would have thrown you out long ago. But I put up with you. So don't play the offended innocent.
— Promise me it's the last time. — I heard my own pathetic "promise me" and hated myself, but I couldn't stop. — Please, Mark. I'll forgive everything. Just let it be the last time.
He looked at me for a long moment. And then he laughed — quietly, without malice, and that lack of malice was a thousand times more terrifying than any shout.
— The last? — he repeated. — And what will you do if it isn't, Ariana? Hm? Leave? File for divorce? Tell everyone what a bad man I am?
I was silent.
— Exactly, — he nodded. — You'll forgive me again. You always forgive. It's the one thing you truly do well.
And the most terrible part — he was right.
I threw myself at him anyway — clutched at the shirt, the very one that held a stranger's scent.
— Don't you dare treat me like this! Don't you dare! — I hammered my fists into his chest, and he stood and patiently waited for me to run out of breath, the way you wait for a tiresome rain to stop.
— Done? — he asked when my arms dropped on their own. He unhooked my fingers from the shirt, one by one, gave me a push — not hard, but enough that I sat on the edge of the bed — and went off to the shower. To wash her off himself. In front of me.
Behind the wall the water started up, and I sat there and understood: he wasn't even angry. You get angry at equals. And I had long since stopped being his equal.
I picked up the phone, found Dana's name — and didn't press. What would I say to her? "It happened again, and I stayed again"? She already knew that. Everyone knew. I laid the phone face-down, the way he did, and just listened to the water running behind the wall.
He fell asleep within a minute — easily, serenely, the way people without a conscience sleep. And I sat on the bathroom floor until dawn, pressing a towel to my mouth so he wouldn't hear me howl.
In the morning I got up first. I fried him eggs, made coffee — two spoons of sugar, the way he likes. Mark came into the kitchen refreshed, as if nothing had happened in the night.
— Oh, breakfast. — He sat down, unfolded a napkin. — See, and you were afraid we wouldn't make up.
His phone chirped. He glanced at the screen, smirked at something of his own, and turned the phone face-down. Silently I set the plate in front of him. My hands weren't shaking — I was used to it now.
— Thanks, — he tossed out, and started eating.
The phone chirped again. "Nikki" — I managed to read before he covered the screen with his palm, and a smile trembled at the corners of his mouth. Warm, living. Not for me.
And that everyday "thanks" hurt worse than a blow. That's how you thank a waitress. That's how you thank a piece of furniture that works reliably.
That was when I understood: last night he hadn't simply cheated on me. Last night he'd been testing how far he could go. And I'd shown him myself that there was no bottom. Which meant that from here on, it would only get deeper.