F*ck Marriage(61)

I thought they left last night, I text back.

Jules’ text comes back quickly and it’s just one word: delayed.

It’s a week till Christmas and the city has emptied out as New Yorkers make their pilgrimages home for the holidays. They’re letting Billie go home tomorrow, but she will have to have surgery on her ankle right after Christmas. She grumbles at that news and I have to make jokes about the doctor’s ear hair before she smiles again. I get my condo ready for her even though she doesn’t know she’ll be staying with me. The doctor gave me strict instructions that she’s to take it easy to allow her ribs to heal. No stairs. Since my building has an elevator and hers doesn’t, I made the executive decision to take her home with me. When I pick her up from the hospital the following afternoon, she’s wearing a pink Adidas hoodie and sweatpants. I toss my beanie at her and she gently pulls it over her hair, flinching when her fingers graze the cuts on her forehead.

“How do I look?” she asks jokingly. She still has two bruised eyes and a split lip, but her smile is bright and beautiful.

I answer her honestly. “Like beautiful hell,” I say.

Her laugh rings out in the hospital lobby, and heads swivel to find the source of joy.

Once in the cab, Billie stares out the window, her head propped on her fist, breath frosting the glass. Last-minute shoppers stream up and down the sidewalk, jackets pulled up around their faces as their gloved fingers grip shopping bags. When we stop outside of my building, she frowns.

“Why are we at your place?”

“This is where you’re staying for a few weeks,” I say, ignoring her sour look.

“Why? What’s wrong with my place?”

I list off the reasons she can’t go home yet and her frown only deepens.

“Doctor’s orders,” I say. “Besides, we’re both here for the holidays, so we might as well make the best of it.”

That seems to appease her. I carry her small bag into my building, walking slowly as she navigates her crutches over the cracks in the sidewalk. Her face is pinched in concentration and possibly pain, but when I ask her if she’s hurting she shrugs it off like it’s no big deal. My apartment is ready for her. I’d spent every moment I wasn’t at the hospital doing things like stocking the fridge and changing the sheets on my bed. When I lead her into my bedroom, she stops abruptly in the doorway, shaking her head.

“No way. I’m not sleeping in your bed.”

“Why not?” I ask.

Her face flushes and she mumbles something about Jules.

“You’re injured,” I argue. “Sleeping on the couch isn’t an option.”

She hesitates. “I can go home.”

“Not an option either,” I say. “Until you’re walking without crutches.”

She licks her lips, eyes darting around. She’s trying to think up another excuse, but I’ve already beat her out, anticipating her bullshit excuses. There is no other option unless she wants to rent a hotel room for a few weeks. I tell her so.

We both know how hotels jack up their prices around the holidays. The resignation settles in her eyes, and I can visibly see her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh.

“Does Jules know?”

“Yes,” I lie.

I haven’t told Jules yet, but I plan on doing that tonight when she calls. It’s a temporary win. Billie hobbles over to the couch and carefully lowers herself down.



Jules doesn’t take the news as well as I expected.

“Satcher, you’re my boyfriend. I know Billie is our friend, but you refused to come home with me for Christmas and now you’re spending the holidays with a woman who isn’t me.”

I’m making a run to the liquor store, and as Jules’ words hit my ears, I dart across the street to beat a cab.

“I didn’t go home to see my own family,” I say. “Billie has nothing to do with my staying in the city.”

“I didn’t say she did. I guess I’m just a little jealous,” Jules admits.

I soften even though I’m still annoyed. “Jules,” I say. “She’s just had a terrible accident…”

Despite the loud noises of the city I hear her sigh on the other end of the line.

“I get it, okay. Like I said, I’m just a little jealous my boyfriend is spending Christmas with my gorgeous friend.”

I see the liquor store up ahead and I don’t want to be having this conversation anymore. I picture myself tearing off the lid of a bottle of vodka and taking a long swig, the powdery burn crawling slowly down my throat. That can’t be a good sign. Wanting to chug liquor like a college kid when I talk to my girlfriend on the phone. I probably need to have a couple of deep thoughts about this very disturbing reality. The problem with thinking deeply about your behavior is that it has to be followed by personal accountability. Once you acknowledge you’re being an ass, you either have to stop being an ass, or you have to embrace being an ass, and both options are uncomfortable.

I tell Jules I have to go. I can hear the hurt in her voice, the wavering like she’s not sure what to say. Instead of feeling guilty, I feel irritated. My friends would say that I’ve been single for too long, and when someone comes along and tries to tell me what to do, I buck against it. But I don’t believe that’s the case at all. No, when you’re with the right person, they can tell you to dance like a duck in Central Park while wearing a tutu and singing Liza Minnelli and you’ll consider doing it. Love is a compelling drug.