Point of View
The wind whistles outside and the door slams loudly behind me. I am late and he’s upset. I know because of the number of text messages and voicemails on my phone –which finally buzzes to life after I plug it in to charge. I half expect him to come racing down the stairs, frantic with worry. But he hasn’t.
His footsteps are calm as he comes down the stairs, ducking under the over-hang. I look up at him, silent. He’s not my keeper –I’m my own person. He can’t be mad at me just because I’m an hour or so later then I said I would be.
“Where’ve you been?” He finally says, crossing his arms over his chest, after getting comfortable on the couch. “I called. I texted.”
“I see,” I wiggle my charging phone at him. “My battery died. I would have called. You don’t need to worry about me all the time, you know.”
“But I do have to worry, damn it!”
He’s mad. It’s understandable. I’ve been late like this a lot lately. Once I had been in an accident, and now all he could do was fret. He was the type of guy who would lock the person he loved in a tower if he was able. And I guess I had somehow ended up being that person.
“Look, I have things to do. I can’t be exactly here you want, or think I should be all the time.” I shake my head. “I was at work and then I picked up some groceries. The bags are in the car.” I don’t mean that to come out as a challenge to my word, but it seems like it comes out at as one.
He sighs, “Do you see the weather out there?” He gets up from the couch, crossing the room. His hands feel heavy against my hips as he pressed his forehead against mine.
“It’s raining,” I say.
“Yeah. For all I know, you could have been struck by lightning or who knows what else.”
“Paranoid much?”
“I just care about you; why do you chastise me for that?”
“Because sometimes, I think you care too much,” I break his hold on me. His hands fall to his sides. I turn away from him. I can’t look at him anymore.
Now I’m mad. He’s so fucking clingy all of the time. He’s not controlling, but he’s got this habit of neediness. It pisses me off.
I stalk back to the kitchen and open the fridge. It’s kind of bare and I remember that all of the groceries I just bought are still out in the car. I sigh and the fridge creaks as I close it, shaking slightly on its base.
“You want help carrying that stuff in?”
His voice is soft now. He knows he made me mad. He’s not sure why, but he’s trying to make up for it. I’m not going to let him, though.
“I didn’t need your help getting it into the car, so why would I need your help getting it out?”
I try to ignore the wince at the corner of his eyes. He probably things I don’t notice that it hurts him, but I do. It was kind of the point of saying it.
“Okay,” he nods. “I get it. I’ll just go back to work then.” He turns around and I hold back my sigh. I’ve always thought he looked damn fine from behind. I don’t call him back. I don’t need him. I don’t like feeling like I need him.
The rain hurts as it pelts against my bare face. My hair flies into my eyes and I brush it away only to have it back where it was a moment later. My trunk is filled with plastic bags. I load up my arms with as many as possible so I don’t have to make two trips. I fail miserably and have to come back out for the gallon of milk.
I hear him walking around upstairs. He is probably pacing while on the phone with a client. We keep the floor between us for a couple of hours. After putting the groceries away, I putz around downstairs. I fold the laundry that has been sitting in the living room for the last two days. I watch a little television. I poke our little hamster awake and watch him zoom around the room in his purple ball.
I hear the door to his office open upstairs and I can hear him talking.
“Yeah, yeah. Well, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. I’m going to sign out for the night, man. It’s getting late…” His laugh is intoxicating. “That prolly means you deserve a break. –Yeah, have a nice night.” The phone beeps and a minute later, he is taking heavy steps down the stairs.
“Folding socks?” He ducks under the overhang again.
It’s a stupid question. He just wants to hear my voice. I don’t reply, just keep my eyes trained on the TV. My hands are busy with the folding. He sighs heavily when he sees that I won’t be responding to him. He sits on an empty portion of the couch and takes a pile of socks from me to help.
“Are you going to be mad at me all night?”
“I was never mad at you,” I lie. “You were mad at me.”
“Is it wrong for me to worry about you,” he asks. He tosses a mated pair to a basket across the room. It misses and rolls across the floor. It stops short of where our hamster has paused to wash is face. “I don’t get your attitude lately.”
“You’re fucking clingy and it drives me nuts –that’s my fucking attitude lately.”
“You don’t have to yell at me. I’m sitting right next to you.” His face is turning red and I don’t really understand why. I tend to be a little robotic when it comes to feelings. That’s why I don’t understand how I found such a great guy like him. Not when I’m just a soulless idiot. He deserves someone better. Someone who isn’t me.
He doesn’t agree with me though. When we fight, he tells me I’m just looking for an excuse not to be with him. He tells me I don’t have the right to decide if I’m the one for him. He tells me that he loves me.
I tell him he’s full of shit and if he knew any better, he would just run away from me. As far, and as fast, as he could.
The couch shifts as he leans back against the arm. We’re out of socks except for a few straggler “lost-in-the-wash” singles that will turn up the next time one of us does laundry.
“You want to do something fun tonight?” He asks. He folds his hands behind his head, like his cranium us too big for his neck to support.
“What did you have in mind?” I bite. He does this when I’m mad at him, Suggests something fun. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. But by the time we’re in bed, I’m not mad anymore.
“Arcade? You can take out all of your frustration on the gophers,” he teases.
The arcade does sound like fun…
“I don’t have any money. I just spent it all on groceries,” I turn away to idly watch the television again.
“Hello…who’s your sugar-daddy?”
“Baby, if I had a sugar daddy, I wouldn’t be here folding your stupid socks.” I throw one of the stragglers in his general direction. It lands haphazardly on his shoulder, and he brushes it away.
He sighs, “I’ll pay for the arcade. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t intend on paying. Now stop being a little bitch, go change out of your work clothes into something sort of slutty, and let’s go out.”
I look at him. I know he’s reconsidering what he has just said because of the way I am looking down at him. He starts to say something. Starts to say that he over-stepped his bounds. That I’m not a bitch. That I can dress however I like. But before he can, I nod.
“Okay, fine. Give me five minutes,” I get up, and hoist my clothes basket onto my hip. “Put hammy back in his cage.”
He watches me, his mouth slightly agape as I climb the stairs. I don’t look back at him.
Even through the bathroom door, I finally hear him move downstairs to do as I had directed. I take my time changing. No reason to make him think that I am doing this for him. I don’t dress as sluttish as he would probably have liked, but it’s enough to get a low whistle as I descend back down the stairs.
The arcade is loud when we walk in the door a while later. It is still raining heavily outside so it’s not busy as it might normally be, but it’s still busy enough. He goes to the counter and gets us tokens and puts fifty dollars on each of our gaming cards. I wonder where he gets all the cash he throws around.
“What do you want to play first?” He asks. His arm slides around my waist as we approach the games. I look around at all of the flashing lights and bright candy-like colors.
“Give me your tokens.” I’m not shy about reaching into his back pocket to take out a handful of the little gold coins.
“The token-slots? Really…”
“Easiest hundred tickets you can make, baby,” I tell him. I sit down in front of one of the machines. He shakes his head, kissing my cheek.
“I’m going to go play the claw machines. Back in a bit.”
I nod, watching the pile of gold coins fall into the slot. The tickets click as they begin their pile on the floor.
Half an hour later, I’ve only spent a fraction of his money, but I’ve won a few hundred tickets by now. I move to the redemption machine and put the tickets on my gaming card. I look around for him while I wait for the tickets to disappear back into the machine to be recycled.
I see him across the room, brushing off some girl trying to hit on him. She touches his arm and laughs, throwing off his concentration. I notice he’s got quite the pile of winnings from his claw machine –those are his favorite. He’ll present his toys to me later, like they were a breeze to win. But I know the truth. He works hard to uncover the item he really wants if necessary. The other winnings are just bonuses.
With my tickets redeemed, I make my way over to him, sliding my arm around his waist. He relaxes, knowing my touch across his back.
“Hey baby, win me something pretty?” I kiss his cheek as the machine dings, signifying a win. He turns to smile.
“I think I got some stuff you’ll like.” He kisses me back and his little friend, the flirt, looks surprised. Like a guy who hangs out in an arcade on a Tuesday night could never have a significant other. She scurries away like a cockroach after the lights have been turned on. “How’d you do?”
“About 500 tickets,” I shrug. “You want to play something with me? Free-throws or something?”
“Sure,” he nods. He takes my hand, linking my fingers with his.
I beat him twice, once very narrowly. We claim our tickets and move on to a trivia game which we fail at miserably. Then we try a couple of racing games and before we know it, we’ve only got a few dollars left on our gaming cards. Since we got there, I’ve forgotten that I was mad at him. I think he has too. I suggest we go to dinner before heading home and he agrees.
We leave the arcade and step back outside into the pouring rain. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be letting up anytime soon, but it feels…different. Before we had left the house, it was heavy. Now it feels refreshing, even though it’s the same amount of rain.
We choose a restaurant close to the house. Not for any particular reason other then that we both like the food. But even the restaurant is quiet tonight. No one wants to chance the rain. We are obviously a pair of crazies.
It’s a little strange having the restaurant to ourselves, but it’s also kind of nice. We don’t have a problem hearing each other over the din. We apologize for earlier. He was just worried. I was just being an idiot. I thank him for a fun time. He thanks me for being so damn cute, and kisses me over the table. His foot presses against mine underneath the table.
Later when we’re in bed, I listen to him breath against the back of my neck. He’s not quite asleep yet. I can tell because of the grip he’s got on my t-shirt, his fist placed against my hip. He is relaxing, and his breath is beginning to slow. Once his hand has relaxed against my shirt, and his breath is coming in shallow beats, I know he is finally asleep.
It’s been a trying day. I’m glad that it’s over. My hand reaches up and touches his. In his sleep, his fingers tighten around mine, and I can’t stop my smile. Even though we have our problems…and we’ve been fighting a lot more then usual lately… As soon as he’s asleep next to me, with his hand resting across the stretch of skin my twisted t-shirt leaves uncovered, none of that matters. For a few moments before I drift off to sleep, I remember that I love him…and that’s why I stay.
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