Andy.

To say things were tense with Allison was an understatement. The night of Claire's engagement party, we all decided to call it a night early, and nobody talked on the way home. John seemed to be mulling things over in the back of my car, and Allison just stared out the window. I decided not to test things with either of them. I figured John was still angry at me after things in the office earlier, and I was angry with Allison because of the show she had pulled that night, talking to those men about her art. I had watched them eye her the whole time, and I knew it wasn't just my imagination that they were looking at her like she was a piece of meat.

I glanced over at her, and I didn't blame them for thinking it. She was truly beautiful, her own work of art, but sometimes I wondered if she ever felt the same way for me. At night when I was in bed alone while she painted, I wondered if she was thinking about other people that weren't me. I was selfish, and wished that I would take up her whole mind.

Sometimes I would get up when she'd finally gone to bed, and I would watch late night reruns of old movies on our TV. The picture was fading and it was an ancient model, but I could still hear the sound. I watched films about high school romances, and older loves that fell apart. I wondered if that was the future for us. Sometimes I started to really believe in it.

I didn't notice until I had parked the car and Allison was getting out how tight my grip on the steering wheel had been. It hadn't made me feel any better.

She claimed she had been too tired to talk that night, an excuse she often used, so we just went to bed. I didn't fall asleep, though, and as she laid next to me I heard her fast breathing, knowing that she wasn't asleep, either.

I had to win her back somehow.

The next day at the office, I passed by Alec as he was walking through the halls holding binders and looking flustered, and I stopped him for a moment to talk. I didn't know who else to go to, now that John was avoiding me and seeing Brian would require going out for a drive when I never had time for that.

"Alec," I said, and he paused to look at me. "Great party last night."

He smiled, but it didn't go up to his eyes.

"Yeah, it was something, wasn't it?" he said.

"You organise those decorations yourself? They were impressive."

"Thanks, but I can't take the credit. It was all Claire's parents."

"Ah." I stopped, then moved in closer to him. "Listen, I hate to do this to you, but can I ask you something?"

"Sure, anything." He shifted the binders in his hands, and I took a few from him to prevent him from dropping any.

"What would you do if…" I tried to word my sentence carefully. "If you felt like… your love was fading?"

It sounded corny, like something out of one of the movies I watched, but he looked like he was thinking it over.

"I guess I'd try to get it back," he finally said.

"How does one go about doing that?"

"Why? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, absolutely. Just asking for…for a friend, see."

"John didn't put you up to this, did he?"

"Huh? No! No way. He doesn't even have a girlfriend."

"Oh. Well…uh… I guess I would be romantic, you know? Dinner by candlelight, an intimate setting. That kind of thing. Something that would make anyone swoon."

I nodded, mulling over my options. I wasn't a great chef, but I could cook a few dishes well. Allison had always said that she loved my risotto. I figured she'd have a few candles lying around somewhere in the kitchen drawers. That was the sort of thing she liked.

"Got it," I said, and Alec nodded.

"Anything else?"

"No, I think I'm good."

"Well, I hope it helps out your friend. Sorry I couldn't say more."

"I'm sure it'll help him out plenty. Thanks, Alec. Here."

I handed him back his binders, and he pursed his lips together as he tried to balance them on top of each other again.

"John?" I asked, referring to the large work load, and he nodded, then left.


I skipped going to the bar that night and decided to go shopping for groceries instead. I knew that if I timed myself just right, I would get home while Allison was still out and I could completely surprise her with my efforts. We didn't have many funds left for this week, but I wanted to treat her well tonight, so I spent the last of what we had on luxury rice and fresh vegetables, and a bottle of red wine to go with it.

I passed an aisle containing cookery books and stories about food lovers. I took some time to stare at all of them, suddenly intimated by the many different ways to make a dish. I ended up deciding against picking one up, favouring the family recipes I had in my mind instead.

I almost felt like I was younger again, trying to impress a fancy date who was way out of my league. But that was always how I felt about Allison. She confused me and she was complicated, which made her all the more intriguing to me.

On my way out of the supermarket, I had an afterthought to buy Allison a present she would truly appreciate as my form of apology. After being directed by an employer in the store, I found the canvases I knew she liked to paint on. Recently she had been stopping and starting new portraits every night, especially after we had fought. At least a peace offering of plain white canvases would suggest to her that I was supportive of her ever-changing mind and creative side.

Lugging myself up the stairs to our apartment with the brown bags of food in my hands was difficult, but I managed it somehow without breaking into too much of a sweat. I needed to go out for jogs more often. I had no time to think of that then, though, because upon checking the clock on the wall of the kitchen, I realised I only had a couple of hours before she would be back. Setting to work, I truly tried my hardest with my dish. I monitored the stove closely so as not to burn a single piece of rice, and didn't even open the wine, deciding to wait and offer her the first glass. Instead I had a beer from the fridge, a much cheaper option than heading to the Romany for a drink.

When I felt the dish was complete, I stared at my creation happily. I hoped she would love it. I hoped she would ask for seconds, then take me to bed and we would rekindle anything that she might have lost. It wasn't a last resort, but lately I'd been feeling desperate for some sort of improvement. Something to keep her from waking us both up to paint in the night with the light on.

I used the extra time to set our cheap table as fancily as I could. I used an old bed sheet as the cover, as it was all we had, and picked out the best cutlery I could find in our drawers. I set the risotto in the middle, then our plates and glasses around it, along with the wine and a few odd candles. I felt I had outdone myself. I finished my beer in congratulations, then sat in my seat, conveniently placed so I could watch the door. I wanted to see her face when she walked into our apartment and found my surprise.

I realised she was running late when it was getting on for 10 and she hadn't returned yet. On any other day I would've been worried for her, wondering if something had happened during her walk home, but tonight I was just growing impatient. I ended up opening the wine and pouring myself a glass.

I finished that, and she still wasn't home.

A second glass gone, and I was in the kitchen searching for any odd cigarettes I had lying around from the days when I used to smoke regularly with John. I glanced up at the wall clock quickly and saw that it was now almost 11, and I slammed the drawer aggressively, making the contents smash against each other loudly.

The food had gone cold, and the candles had burned out, and I felt like I had wasted it all. I had no way of finding out where she was, other than marching down to her school and demanding to know what time she had left and where she had gone, but Allison herself answered my question when she stumbled through the front door a few minutes later. She threw her keys down on the table as she always did, but this time she was more clumsy and she giggled at the sound they made against the wood. Allison never giggled like that usually. She was drunk.

She took a moment to adjust to the room, the wax on the table from the candles and the half empty bottle of wine. The crockery pot in the middle full of cold food that had probably gone bad now, and me sat facing her, gripping onto the edge of the table with resentment on my face. Her smile fell. I no longer cared.

"Where have you been?" I asked, my tone sounding more forceful than I had intended. I was trying to keep my temper cool, but I'd always had problems with it.

"Who are you, my father?" she asked, walking towards the table and grabbing at the bottle of wine before I could take it away from her. She opened it and started drinking from it like it was completely natural.

"Where have you been?" I asked again. She lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"At class."

"You don't come back from class this late. Where did you go after class?"

"Why do you care so much?" She rolled her eyes and started walking away from me, hiccuping as she went.

"I care because I made dinner for us. I got home early from work, and made us dinner, and then I sat here waiting for you like some sort of…some sort of idiot." I stood up from my chair, following her into the kitchen.

"Well, now you know how I feel." She spun to face me, her every movement exaggerated.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't think I wait for you to get home from work? Oh, I wait. But you get in every night late because you go out drinking. So I stopped waiting. You should stop waiting, too."

"Have you been out drinking?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Answer my damn questions, Allison. Where the hell have you been?"

"Out."

"I know that. Where have you been exactly?"

"Drinking."

I gritted my teeth, my jaw clenching.

"For fuck sake, Allison. Answer me properly."

"Fine, I've been out at the Romany, expecting to see you there, but you weren't there. Neither was John."

"So you were alone?"

"No."

"Then who were you with?"

She pressed her lips together, and moved passed me, skirting out of my way constantly. If I was going to get her to answer any of my questions tonight, I would have to practical tie her down.

"Tell me," I spoke again, turning to look at her as she separated herself from me with the couch.

"People from class."

"Who from class?"

"No one." She laughed again, like this was some sort of game to her. By now, I was seething.

"Who from class?" I repeated again, my voice louder now.

"Why does it matter? Why do you care? You go out every night to the bar with who knows and I never get to question you on it."

"Does that mean what I think it means? Are you kidding right now? I go to the bar with John, you know that. John is the only one I go with."

"Not always. Don't lie to me."

"I only ever go to bars with guys, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, well, so do I," she said.

"Huh?"

She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly distracted by a knot she found in it. I moved towards her and she looked up at me with wide eyes.

"Fine, if you must know, I was with Ricardo," she said.

I frowned.

"Who the fuck is Ricardo?"

"My friend from art class."

"And does Ricardo know that you have a boyfriend, Al?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Why does it…? Oh, you've got to be joking right now. Are you being serious?"

"What?"

"It matters, Allison, because I don't want you going to bars alone with other men. Who asked who to the bar?"

"He asked me. We finished our work and wanted to celebrate."

I shook my head at her, in disbelief.

"All this time, I've been going crazy thinking I've been doing something wrong because you barely touch me anymore. Is this the reason why?"

"Is this really still the same argument about me not having sex with you?" she suddenly yelled, her eyes now showing how furious she was.

"It's a valid argument!"

"No, it's not. Why does everything have to be about sex with you? Do you ever suppose it's because you're never home early? You always come home late when I'm tired and want to go to bed. I don't want to have sex then, that's all it is."

"You reject me as well, don't forget that. I'm not the only one at fault here."

"Oh, I'm so sorry I keep rejecting you, Andy. I didn't realise that the world's biggest crime was not wanting to have sex with you. I'm so terribly sorry!" she shouted at me, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"That's what normal couples do, Allison!"

"I don't know anything about normal. You bought into that when we started dating."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I wonder what the fuck I was thinking."

My statement hung in the air as Allison refused to respond to it, choosing instead to just look at me, wide eyed and tearful. She looked like she was red with anger, and I knew I probably did, too. I also knew that I couldn't stay here a moment longer.

"Go to bed, Allison. I'm going out." I went to grab my jacket and my car keys.

"To the bar?"

"Of course, because that's the only place in the world I can go according to you. Also according to you, I go with my many female companions and have a fantastic time while my girlfriend sits at home playing the victim and waiting for me. So in walks Italian-Stallion Ricardo to save the day and whisk her away. Isn't that just a fairy tale ending?"

I hastily put my jacket on as Allison took hers off, making it evident that no matter where I chose to go, she was staying here. I began towards the front door, looking at her for the last time before I turned. As I was leaving, I heard her speak from behind me.

"Ricardo isn't Italian. He's spanish!" she called.

"I don't give a fuck!" I yelled back, and slammed the door behind me.