The Awkward Path To Getting Lucky. Summer Heacock

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СКАЧАТЬ the last few years. Our date nights are simple, but nice. He brings over takeout, we sit together and talk about our jobs and life and the world that happens around us that I rarely get to take the time to notice. We curl up together on the couch with a couple glasses of wine and watch Netflix or a movie or just keep chatting.

      It’s nice. These nights are the least stressful parts of my week. I love my time with Ryan, and I can’t imagine my life without these moments of Zen with him.

      But the more I analyze us, the more I realize there’s nothing here that screams “relationship.” I could be doing these exact things with Shannon or Butter and have that same feeling of soothing calm.

      As much as I’m racking my brain here, I can’t find the intimacy in what we’ve been doing. We have a familiar kiss hello when he arrives, we sit beside each other at the table and on the couch, but we don’t cuddle or make out anymore. I’m not even sure we touch each other much.

      A wave of sadness washes through my entire body. I miss touching. I miss the feeling of warmth from being physically close to someone. I miss the feeling of skin against mine. Cuddling up next to him used to be one of my favorite things.

      I remember when things started tanking in the nookie department, Ryan took a noticeable step back from almost all apparent physical intimacy. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t want me to feel like he was pressuring me for sex I couldn’t even have.

      At the time, I thought that was really sweet, and I appreciated his consideration.

      Now I’m just feeling guilty. Like I made him afraid to try to hold my hand. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m also a little resentful, because I really miss that part of our relationship.

      I hear my front door open and the familiar sounds of Ryan making his way through my living room to set take-out bags on the counter in the kitchen.

      I pull the brush through my hair one more time, set it back down by the sink and head out to greet him.

      I peek my head out of my bedroom and watch as he starts setting out containers and cutlery on the counter. He seems right at home.

      If I’d agreed to us living together, I wonder if we would have lived here? We never made it that far into the discussion. He’d been hinting at cohabitation for a month or two before our second anniversary, and I liked the idea a lot, but with the onset of trouble in Vagville, I’d always sort of dodged the conversation.

      I take a moment and stare at my boyfriend of nearly four years. He’s lovely, really. His green eyes are calm and content as he pops the lid off what looks like chicken makhani.

      He used to have the sexiest floppy black curls that I loved. It’s part of what made me notice him in the first place. Around the time of our first anniversary, Ryan buzzed them off after growing tired of a coworker constantly saying he looked like Sherlock Holmes.

      I would have taken this as a high compliment, but Ryan maintains that Benedict Cumberbatch looks like a bipedal lizard, and the comparison made him self-conscious.

      Three years later, it’s still cropped short.

      The anxious wave hits me again. If I’m longing for the warmth and touching and closeness, I can’t even imagine how he feels. Maybe he’s been suffering that wave for two years, waiting for me to get it together so he can have it again.

      He looks up from the naan he’s arranging on a plate and finds me lingering in the doorway.

      “Hey, babes,” he says with a smile.

      “Well, hello there, sir,” I say, leaving my place of reflection and heading out to the kitchen. I lean over the bar counter for our welcome kiss.

      It’s just like every kiss we’ve had for I don’t even know how long, but with everything at the forefront of my mind now, I can’t help but overanalyze it. My first thought is it’s quick. Perfunctory, even.

      It’s a takeout-on-Wednesday-nights-at-my-apartment-for-three-years kiss.

      Lady bits issues aside, it’s alarmingly clear to me now that Ryan and I are way past a simple rut. We’ve hit a relationship trench, and I’ve spent the last two years with a shovel in hand, digging us deeper.

      And I refuse to hit that two-year drought mark. I just can’t let that happen. Which means Ryan and I are going to have to talk about this. It’s time. I’ve put this conversation off for nearly two years for reasons I can’t sort out at the moment, but I can’t ignore it any longer.

      “So,” he says, grabbing glasses from my cabinet. “How’s life at the office?”

      “I think we should see other people,” I blurt out, to the astronomical surprise of us both.

       4

      “Excuse me?” he says, still holding the two glasses.

      Putting my hands on the counter for support, I blink awkwardly for a moment, trying to connect the words that just left my mouth to a fleck of sanity in my mind. “I think we should see other people,” I repeat, slower this time. “We should take a break.”

      “Are you breaking up with me?” he asks. He doesn’t seem shocked or hurt so much as he seems to want a casual clarification. His lackluster, almost accepting expression makes me suddenly confident I’m doing the right thing, despite the utter lack of forethought I put into this decision.

      “No,” I say calmly. “I’m saying I think we should take a break, and during that break, you should be free to see other people.”

      He sets the glasses down, and his face falls into an expression of confusion.

      He’s still dressed in his work garb. He works for an IT solutions company downtown, where the dress code is polo shirts and jeans at its fanciest. Belts are worn by those who want to put in the extra effort to shine.

      I look at Ryan in his half-untucked gray polo and beltless jeans and take a breath.

      “Look, I’m just going to address the sexless elephant in the room here.” I sigh, throwing up my hands. His eyes go wide. “We haven’t had naked time together in almost two years, dude. Did you realize that? In thirty-four days it will have been a full two years.”

      Ryan’s face goes blank, and he tilts his head ever so slightly to the side as he digests the information. “Huh.”

      “Exactly,” I say, crossing my arms. “And I don’t know about you, but that seems kind of not great to me.”

      His confusion returns. “So, because we don’t have sex anymore, you want to take a break? A break for what?”

      I shrug, feeling electrically charged and sort of sick to my stomach. “I need to get this sorted out, and I honestly can’t focus on what I need to do while feeling like the biggest ass in the world for not being able to fulfill my girlfriendly duties.”

      He rolls his eyes. “If it’s been two years, it obviously doesn’t matter to me if it takes some time for you to get better. Although it’s nice to hear you’re thinking about it. I figured you just weren’t into sex anymore.”

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