“We need to talk.” Silence. 

The emptiness on the other end of the phone line overwhelms me.  He mumbles something about a big project due, we can talk later, and hangs up his end of the conversation.  I struggle to submerge and bury, yet again, my unsaid thoughts and let my mind drift.

I stood on the sparkling shore with tiny ripples of water caressing my feet.  A hand rested over my eyes, shielding them from the too bright sun when he caught my eye.  Actually, it was his bright, yellow swimsuit that caught my gaze, but it was the rest of him that kept it.  Muscular, tan, dark hair and arresting blue eyes, he was stunning.

This is my first memory of him.  Sun-dappled.  Brilliant.  I guard it closely because it is all I have now to keep me company.

We speak only when spoken to, and then only from necessity.  He works late and so do I.  We live side by side, but a chasm separates us.  We are completely alone in our togetherness.  Neither of us can stand the emptiness of the house, our marriage, the hollowness of our dual lives.  Likewise, neither of us is willing to chink away at the walls we have carefully built up to protect ourselves.  These walls of protection are also our prison.  They shield us from hurt and vulnerability just as easily as they deny us love and laughter.

            Who can say when we cemented the first bricks in the wall?  Was it the year he forgot my birthday or was it one of the many times I rolled away from him in bed and said I was too tired?  Perhaps it began when he started working late.  Maybe it was when I got my promotion.  I was so thrilled with a new sense of “me”, I forgot to notice how he felt.  When did we start spending more time apart than together?  I can hardly remember, it happened so gradually.

            Every bit of resentment harbored, each angry thought, cements together the singular events.  Taken alone, they seem harmless enough, but collectively, now stand as a veritable fortress between us.

            I want to be brave, brandish my tools, and start chipping away at our differences, but always I am held back by the two false friends I cling to, weariness and apathy.  It puzzles me that the easy warmth and caring, a trademark in my other relationships, eludes me so perfectly in this one, the one that matters most.

            He comes home late.  Again.  For the first time in ages, I wait up for him, cradled in the softness of the bed.  Our bed.  A look of confusion and surprise crosses his face momentary and then…hope.