OBSESSED WITH MY EX-WIFE

LYDIAS POV

"David, you have to choose, your phone or me?…Your phone is the only thing you care about." 

He didn't look up from his phone.

I stood in the kitchen doorway still in my work clothes, my heels still on, my bag still on my shoulder. I had walked through the front door thirty seconds ago. I hadn't even put my keys down.

"David," I called again but he didn't move.

"David," I called once more, and this time he let out a breath. 

"Hmm." That was all he said. Just a sound. That sound you make when you hear your name but don't care who said it.

I set my bag down slowly and walked to the table. I pulled out the chair directly across from him and sat.

He was still glued to his screen.

"Look at me," I said.

He looked up. His eyes were tired or maybe that was just how he looked at me now. Like I was something that required effort he hadn't planned for.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." My voice was flat, my palms sweaty.

He put the phone face down, a small gesture meant to show he was listening but it still didn't feel that way.

"Lydia—" He rubbed his eyes.

"When did you stop talking to me?" I asked, the question throwing him off guard. 

He blinked. "I talk to you, babe."

"You talk at me. There's a difference." I responded calmly, keeping my voice level. 

I had rehearsed this in the car, at every red light from the office to our front door. I promised myself I would not cry. I would not shout. I would just say the thing I had been swallowing for months.

"I come home and you're here but you're not here. You stopped calling to check on me at the office. I try to tell you about my day and you nod without listening. I reach for you and you're already somewhere else." My voice was shaking now but still, he was quiet.

"Are you going to say something?" I asked.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he said, his face back on his phone.

"The truth would be a good start." I offered him a good suggestion, looking into his eyes, hoping this conversation might go somewhere.

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. He did that whenever a conversation asked more of him than he wanted to give. 

"I'm tired, Lydia. I work all day. I come home stressed. I just need to unwind."

I almost scoffed. 

"And I don't?" I pressed my hands flat on the table. "I leave before seven every morning. I sit in back-to-back meetings. I come home at nine, sometimes ten, and I still want to talk to you. I still want to know how your day went. I still want to be your wife!"

Something moved across his face. Not guilt, discomfort. The look of a man who had been comfortable with the way things were and didn't see the need to name them out loud.

"You are my wife," he responded flatly.

"Really? Then act like it."

My eyes were wet, but I wasn't going to cry.

Silence stretched between us, the refrigerator hum the only thing that could be heard. 

I looked at him across the table. The man I married six years ago used to reach for my hand without thinking. He used to save the interesting parts of his day to tell me over dinner. He used to know when something was wrong before I did.

I didn't know where that man went. I wasn't sure he did either.

"I feel alone," I said quietly, my head low. Just the truth with nothing around it. "I feel alone inside this marriage. I need you to hear that."

David looked at the table. His jaw moved slightly. I watched him, like someone standing at a ledge.

He stepped back. "I hear you," he said, his face deciding if he meant it. "I'll do better."

Three words — I'll do better, wrapped up clean and handed to me like a receipt. Like the transaction was complete.

I nodded slowly. "Okay."

I picked up my bag from the floor. Walked to the bedroom. Changed out of my work clothes. Washed my face. Looked at myself in the bathroom mirror for a long moment.

I had said my piece. He had heard it the way people hear traffic. There, but easy to ignore.

I turned off the bathroom light and climbed into bed. David came in twenty minutes later. He got in on his side. The distance between us in that bed was not physical. We were close enough to touch. But something had been growing between us for months. Tonight didn't help.

"Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight." I said... because I had to, not because I wanted to.

He was asleep in minutes. 

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, listening to him breathe. 

Six years of feeling lucky when he gave me the bare minimum. Six years of reading into every look, saving up the few times he was nice to me like they meant something.

I was so tired, not the kind that sleep fixes. 

I turned onto my side, away from him.

Tomorrow I had an early meeting, a new client, a stack of files I hadn't finished reviewing, a job that always had more to give me than the man sleeping three inches away.

But maybe that was the answer. Maybe I had been looking for something in this bedroom that only existed in that office.

I closed my eyes, and drew in a deep breath. 

I had found my answer, and tomorrow... I would make the call.