66. Rico
Rico
It’s been two days since I told Allie I didn’t love her.
Forty-eight hours of avoiding the house like it was rigged with explosives and booby traps meant to force me into an emotional reckoning.
And yet, despite my impeccable avoidance tactics, her face haunts me.
The moment still loops in my mind, like a cursed YouTube ad with no “skip” button.
I see it in my monitors, in the reflection of my coffee mug, behind my eyelids when I attempt to blink like a normal human.
The whole gutted expression, glassy eyes, lips parted in disbelief—I see it everywhere.
So now, I just don’t close my eyes. Problem solved.
Immediately after she stormed out of my room, I did what any relationship-impaired man would do—I went to my gym and beat the shit out of my punching bag until my knuckles split and bled.
Then, since I clearly possess the self-preservation instincts of a rock, I kept going, like a psycho reenacting a Rocky training montage but without the victorious ending or stellar soundtrack.
Then I showered. Then I went to work. And I haven’t been home since.
Two days.
Forty-eight hours of downing ungodly amounts of caffeine and working myself into a stupor, all to avoid going home and facing the fact that, for the first time in my life, I might actually owe someone a genuine apology.
And not just any apology—the mother of all apologies. The kind you probably have to Google how to do because you lack the sentimental range to figure it out yourself.
I don’t love her. I don’t even know if I can love someone.
But do I hate her? No. Do I see her as just a body to warm my bed?
Absolutely not. Sure, she’s all of those things—warm, tight, dangerously addictive—but that’s not all she is.
And yet, I basically told her she was nothing more than a human incubator and a decent way to pass the time before fatherhood. So yeah. I need to fix this.
The problem? I have no fucking clue how.
I’ve never apologized in my life. Not once.
I don’t even know what one sounds like. It makes me nauseous just thinking about it—like all the coffee I’ve been mainlining might make a sudden, dramatic exit.
Have I eaten anything? I take a sip of what’s left in my cup and grimace.
Definitely not. Judging by the sludge consistency, this coffee predates the fall of Rome.
I rub my eyes and glance at my phone.
No texts.
Nothing.
For two days.
That’s what finally has me gripping the phone tighter than necessary.
Allie, the woman who floods my phone with useless updates—about her day, what’s for dinner, the tragic state of her favorite coffee shop running out of non-fat milk—has not texted me once in forty-eight hours.
And I don't like how that makes me feel.
I’m not even sure what I feel. It’s not panic. Not sadness. Not even guilt. It’s something worse. Something foreign. Something gnawing at my insides like a parasite I can’t kill.
It’s absence.
She’s stopped pushing. Stopped trying. And now my body is not okay with this development.
So what do I do? I double down on being an idiot.
I decide to “fix” things the way I fix everything else in my life—by throwing logic at it. By solving the problem.
Which is why, in the middle of my self-imposed exile, I decide the best solution is to call and schedule an appointment.
With a therapist.
Allie has officially driven me to the point of needing to go backward.
That thieving woman has already stolen my time, my peace, my bed space, and now—now—she’s taken my ability to even find joy in my own work.
I need control back.
I need to get back to myself.
Because this? Whatever we’ve been doing?
This is not working.
I don't like this.
This itching, nagging, foreign sensation clawing at the edges of my usually well-ordered mind. It’s like an allergic reaction to human decency, and the only cure is avoidance.
I do not grovel. I do not bend my life around someone else’s feelings. And I sure as hell do not apologize for being exactly who I’ve always been.
Yet, here I am, sitting at my desk, debating whether I should go home and grovel.
Disgusting.
If Allie wanted some emotionally accessible, communicative, bend-over-backwards husband, she should’ve made better choices. Like not agreeing to this marriage. Her mistake. Not mine.
And yet—here we are.
Instead of basking in my hard-earned victory after finally outmaneuvering that hacker prick and keeping him out of our systems for over 48 hours, I feel…nothing.
Not relief. Not satisfaction. Not the usual, well-earned smugness that comes with obliterating someone else’s entire sense of self-worth via code.
No, instead, I have this.
This awareness—this irritating itch in my brain that refuses to be scratched—because my wife somehow stole my ability to enjoy my own fucking job.
My job is the one thing I have. The one thing I've always felt comfortable in.
If I felt any satisfaction in life, it came from the successes here.
Today I should celebrate, which really is a mental pat on the back and I get to work, but I can't do that.
Can't even tell Dom and Alex their headaches are over.
What the actual fuck.
This entire company merger—this billion-dollar acquisition that should be my priority—is being drowned out by the realization that I might have to go home and talk about my feelings.
And by talk, I mean apologize, which is possibly worse than being waterboarded.
To make it all worse? I already know that when this merger is finalized, the office will be overrun with California tech bros whose entire vocabulary comprises “dude,” “vibes,” and “let’s circle back.”
I’d rather jam my head into a wood chipper.
So, to summarize:
My company is being invaded by surfers in Patagonia vests.
I can’t even enjoy humiliating a hacker.
And my wife, the actual bane of my existence, has somehow made me feel guilty.
I dislike guilt.
It’s invasive. Suffocating. Makes your chest tighten. There’s a reason I’ve avoided it my entire life—it’s useless. And yet, here it is, wrapping around me like a noose.
Fuck that.
She’s pushed too far.
She needs a reminder of who she married.
I am not soft. I do not bend. I do not break. And I sure as hell do not let a woman mold me into something I am not.
I had structure before her. Order. Routine. Life made sense.
Now? I live uncomfortably. Everything is out of place. Out of sync.
And if I can’t even be happy at work, if my mind isn’t a sanctuary anymore, then what do I have left?