I stay with him because he loves me. He doesn’t expect much from me—dinner three times a week, phone call on Sunday, embody a plus-one at weddings—and I don’t expect much from him, except for the prying to stop. He always begs to see inside of my mind, but I prefer to stay here alone.
I am hoping that with enough time, I might fall in love with him. It has been two years, and my mother told me that everything good comes in the power of threes.
* * *
I find myself overcompensating for my lack of love by telling him a lot of jokes. He always doubles over laughing at them, and I hate him for enjoying them more than I enjoyed telling them. His presence in my life has been out of convenience and fear of living without companionship, and my presence in his has been to marry someone who tells good jokes. Or so I hope. Anything else would be far too much pressure.
* * *
He is ordinary. He has always been just ordinary. I would like to draw that word in the mud with a stick while accompanied by petrichor and then stomp on it with my bare feet.
We are set to have dinner together in approximately one hour and my mouth tastes like bitter bile. I have been numb to this bitterness for quite some time, but life loves throwing curve balls and I have always known how to catch them.
