Just My Type(3)

Brandon clears his throat, pushing his black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose with his finger. I stare in annoyance at his dark hair, slicked back away from his face with so much product a hurricane wouldn’t even be able to move it.

I have an unnatural urge to reach over and rub my hand as fast as possible against the gel-slicked coif, so he doesn’t look so much like a pretentious ass standing in our kitchen.

“I’m talking about us. I just… I can’t do this anymore. It’s not working. You and me.”

My eyes slowly move away from his stupid hair and focus on his face to search for any signs he’s joking. But Brandon doesn’t joke. He doesn’t even understand dad jokes. Lincoln once asked him what a fake noodle was called. And when he told Brandon is was an “impasta,” Brandon spent the next ten minutes teaching him how to spell the word imposter.

“I can’t do this anymore. It’s not working. You and me.” No smile, no smirk, no twinkle in his eye, absolutely no sign of life. This isn’t a badly executed joke.

This is the moment in movies when the wife will do one of two things: Sob uncontrollably and beg her husband not to go, or pick up something heavy from the counter and lob it at his head, all while screaming profanities at him.

I do neither of those things. It’s like someone shot my entire body full of Novocain and I can’t move. I can see and hear everything happening around me, but I can’t. Fucking. Move.

“Are you on drugs?” I finally ask after a few tense, quiet minutes.

Brandon shakes his head at me, his eyes wide with shock that I would ask such a thing.

“Am I on drugs?” I wonder aloud.

“No. Well, unless you count the prescription for fifty micrograms of Vitamin D because you had a slight deficiency in the—”

“Stop talking pharmacist to me right now! It’s not cute!” I interrupt, my voice getting slightly louder and a touch more hysterical.

“I’m sorry,” Brandon quickly replies, without any trace of actual remorse in his voice. “I’ll say goodnight to Lincoln then go stay at a hotel until we figure things out, like where everyone will live and that sort of thing. You know my company only offered to pay for this apartment for the first three months we lived here, and since that contract is up next week, I figured that would make everything easier.”

No, seriously. Am I on drugs? Did someone secretly shoot me up with meth when I wasn’t looking? Drop some Ecstasy into my glass of wine I had with dinner?

He’s been dragging his feet every time I showed him something I found online during all my searching for a new place over the last month. Is this why? Has he been planning this shit all this time? Every emotion I can possibly think of flies through me at the speed of light. Anger that he uprooted me and Lincoln and moved us here to this damn city, far away from everything we love. Pissed off that he didn’t even try to make the transition easier by actually spending time with us and helping me find my way around Chicago. Furious that he’s been planning this for at least a month, while I’ve been cooking his meals, picking up his dry cleaning, taking care of our son, cleaning this giant, monochrome apartment I hate, throwing elaborate dinner parties, and washing his goddamn underwear, all while hoping and praying and trying to come up with a way to fix us.

Okay, fine. So the only emotion I’m feeling right now is pure, white-hot rage. Whatever. It’s better than my legs giving out and me collapsing into a puddle of misery and tears on the kitchen floor.

“I’m sure we can both agree we want this to be as quick and painless as possible. You know, to make things easier.” Brandon shrugs nonchalantly, like we’re talking about what type of bread I should buy at the grocery store and not about our fucking marriage.

Even though things haven’t been perfect, I was still here, doing what I needed to do to be a good wife. And all this time, he’s had one foot out the door. I want to scream and rage at him. I want him to feel my wrath and like a complete asshole for doing this to us and talking so casually about things being easier, when there is nothing even remotely easy about ending a marriage. I want to show him that I am strong, and smart, and a good goddamn wife that he’s going to seriously regret leaving.

“If you pulled your dick out and flopped it down on the table right now, I would laugh. I would laugh sooooooooo hard,” I growl at him, knowing this isn’t exactly the strongest or smartest thing I could say to him at this point in time.

I’m not in the greatest frame of mind right now. Don’t judge me.

“I don’t know what that means. You know things haven’t been good between us for a while. It’s not like this came as a complete surprise, Ember.” Brandon slides his hands into the front pockets of his black dress pants and rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.

With what I’m assuming is—oh, I don’t know—complete fucking surprise written all over my face, Brandon slowly shakes his head at me.

He. Shakes. His. Head. At. Me.

Like he pities me for not seeing this coming. My brain is screaming at me to wake the fuck up. To say something, anything that makes sense and doesn’t make me look like the idiot he clearly thinks I am right now. Tell him he’s throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Tell him he’s making the biggest mistake of his life. Say something to make him feel guilty for doing this to Lincoln. Stand your ground, lift your chin, and let him see you are strong, and smart, and you’ll be just fine without him. Give him a parting shot that will make him weep and wish he could take back what he said, because you’re so amazing.