I wrote this years and years ago, but for some reason never posted it on here.
Just a short one-short, nothing belongs to me.
We used to be Addison and Derek. Or Derek and Addison. I don't know what we are anymore. We're like two strangers who are struggling to keep their marriage alive. Two strangers who live together, but move in different circles and barely see each other. The brownstone, once a vibrant hub of activity has stalled into an empty space where the floorboards creak and echo in the dull space.
How it began I'm not quite sure. All I can say is that he just stopped noticing everything about me.
He used to notice everything, a new hairstyle, new clothes and shoes. Every week I'd go out and buy bags of new clothes and shoes and he used to interrogate me about each and every item. "How much did these cost?" he would say, lifting Choo's out of a bag and raising his eyebrows when I told him the price. Lately I've been coming home with bags of new clothes and a mind full of excuses of why I had to buy them and he just walks straight past me as if I don't exist.
That was the first sign; he stopped playing into the routines that we had grown into during our marriage.
We used to love hospital benefits. It was our excuse to dress up and be a couple. He would always wear a tuxedo and I would have a new dress. We would drink, and dance and he used to whisper naughty things in my ear, generally phrases about what he wanted to do to me when we got home. Then one day it all ended. The first few times I understood, you were tired and you didn't want to go out. By the fourth time however I began to feel wary, and worried that you were palming me off on Mark. It wasn't the same, going to the benefits with Mark. He would dance with other people and I would see him whispering comments in his partner's ears and I would think back to when it used to be me and you doing that instead of me standing alone, watching others having a wonderful time or making small talk with my peers. When I would return home I would find the brownstone silent, you hunched over in your study, studying medical journals whilst nursing a scotch. You would look up at me briefly to enquire about my evening but it would be all to short a conversation and you would quickly return to your studying whilst I went to bed alone.
There were other signs too, signs that he was slipping away from me. Signs that showed me that he wasn't as connected to me as much as he once was.
When I was having a bad day he would always know, and bring me juju to cheer me up. That all stopped when he began withdrawing from me. The evenings we used to spend with each other would be cherished, and always enjoyed. Now we don't spend as many evenings together, you preferring instead the quietness of your study and your medical journals.
You don't even notice when I open the second bottle of wine.
Bad colds always equalled hot water bottles and toddy's made of scotch and he never used to care about catching what I had. When I was sick last week he stayed away from me as if I had the plague, telling me that he couldn't afford to get sick.
It made me feel like he was choosing his patients over me.
We used to be Addison and Derek. Now I don't know what we are anymore. Derek's pulling away from me and I don't know why. We are so far away from the people we used to be and the empty brownstone reminds me of it everyday. As the weeks go by I find myself looking for any kind of sign that Derek is coming back to me but the more that time ticks away the more signs I see falling away.
All I can do is hope, hope that one day he comes back to me and we'll be Addison and Derek again.
Comments are good karma.