Stop screwing with my life.
Leave me alone.
The words still bit.
Arthur nursed his beer, watching the after hour's crowd through a half open window. Twenty-something's flooding the sidewalks as if they owned them. Men in starched suits speed walking under a gray December sky. He pulled out his phone, texting a number he looked at often in his address book, but rarely called.
Merlin. I'm sorry. Call me.
Arthur had hoped that company and the cold kiss of a few drinks would kill his misery. But if anything, Gawain's drumming at the edge of their table was pulling him deeper into reality. The last place he wanted to be. Arthur scowled at Gawain through the dirty red light of the bar. "Do you have to keep doing that?"
"Can't help it," Gawain said, flipping his hair like a Vidal Sassoon commercial. "The DJ's on a roll. I say we prowl the floor. Lots of UCB girls looking drunk as hell."
"I'm not in the mood," Arthur replied, grabbing a handful of tortilla chips.
"Why are you such a downer tonight, Pendragon?"
Where to start? Well, I've been sneaking around to avoid having sex with my girlfriend. The man I'm in love with basically cussed me out, and worst of all I fucking deserved it. Oh, and a psychotic bitch has been bleeding me like a leech.
"Relationship problems," Arthur sighed, finishing his beer.
"Had plenty of those," Gawain said admiring a passing brunette. "The way I see it man, you got two options. Try to work things out with her or get hammered, so, which are you gonna pick?"
Arthur checked his phone.
No reply from Merlin.
He flagged down the bartender. "Take a guess," he said, taking a long pull on his fourth beer.
Arthur opened the door to a pristine white room that lodged nothing but silence. He slapped the wall for the light switch, giving up after three unsuccessful attempts. That morning he'd stripped his pajamas, emptied his backpack and, after dressing, bid Gwen goodbye from her nest in the covers. The floor was spotless now, the leg of his pajamas peeking from the wicker laundry basket. The textbooks from his backpack stacked vertically on Gwen's desk. He walked over to them, running his hands across the battered spines. Thinking of who had put them there.
Trying to forget the still empty room on the right.
An enamel frame caught his attention, or more precisely, the faces grinning behind the glass. He picked it up.
Halloween. He'd refused to be anything; still, Gwen and Merlin had dragged him into the Halloween store, loading his arms with neon cobwebs and poorly molded plastic spiders. The three of them spent a bottle of cider and three hours making their patio into a glowing spider web, only to have five trick-or-treaters show up. Together they'd finished a bowl of candy, Arthur's veins buzzing with sugar as if he were ten again. Plastic cobwebs glowing radioactive under the patio light.
They'd had a neighbor take the photo. He was on the right, dressed in a Hollister shirt and a two-dollar crown they'd forced on him. Gwen was in the middle, a curvy Cleopatra. And Merlin, who had taken Arthur's passing sarcasm into action, was in the white gloves and polyester cape of a hack magician.
Arthur put the photo down, feeling his guilt fester. What simple lives they'd had-before he'd gone and contaminated things with his cowardice. He collapsed onto the bed, cuts of moonlight streaking across his bare feet from the picture window. Gwen's childhood teddy bear stared at him from the headboard with crooked eyes. Arthur sat him up, looked at his lifeless expression and said sternly, "Gwen, we need to talk."
He adjusted the bear's drooping head. "You know that old saying, it's not you, it's me? I always thought that was full of it, but it turns out-hey, are you even listening?" he said, flicking the bear's nose.
"Gwen. There isn't an easy way for me to say this. I'm cheating on you. There, I said it. I'm cheating on you. And I'm so, so, so, so, so, so-"
The sound of keys startled him; he pushed the bear face down into the blankets.
Gwen walked into their bedroom. "Were you talking to me?" she sighed. "I thought I heard you say something."
Tell her, for Merlin's sake, and for hers! Arthur's intoxicated brain screamed. Do it now, you fucking pussy!
"I, um-"
"Hmm?" she said, slipping out of her work-pants.
"Forget it, nothing important," Arthur mumbled into a pillow. He could see the teddy bear scowling at him from the corner of his eye. He flung it across the room.
"Hey!" Gwen said, grabbing her beloved bear. "What did Roger ever do to you?"
"I don't like how the little fucker looked at me," Arthur huffed.
She put a hand on her hip, looking strangely authoritative for a woman in only a shirt and panties. "You're shitfaced, aren't you?" she said.
"That's a matter of opinion."
She jumped on the bed beside him, her bare legs a tangling into his. "Then it's my opinion you're shitfaced."
He rolled to the side. "It takes more then a few drinks to get me shitfaced. Gawain and I hung out after class. It was a bad day at school, I needed to unwind."
He could feel the fullness of her breast pressing against his spine. Her little hands massaging the knots in his shoulders. "You think you've had a bad day, try working at The GAP. People asking you how they look, for sizes you don't even carry-" she chuckled, kissing Arthur's jaw line. "You know, Merlin's out of the house, love. Just you and me-how about we take the opportunity to do some unwinding of our own? It's been a while-"