"Jesus fucking Christ, Simon, you've been on that stupid fucking website for at least five hours today. Give it a rest?"
"Never," he said. It was a joke. And yet, it wasn't. He didn't care how she interpreted it. He was slowly getting to the point where he would just *say.* When he first met her, every word was carefully crafted, every thought carefully honed before he spoke them to her. He used to raise his eyebrows nervously when they had conversations; he couldn't stop staring at her eyes, dark and brooding and yet somehow full of joy. Now he could look at her and only feel the fog of aloneness thickening, filling his gut, and it stilled him, made him lazy. It was part of the reason he had been on the online poker website for five and a half fucking hours. She had been at work all morning, had come home and said very little beyond a terse "hello" to him, and had stayed on the opposite side of the apartment in silence for about an hour. He'd had no idea what she was doing, and he hadn't gotten up to find out. This was the first full sentence she had said to him since she'd returned. He blinked, felt the glaze on his eyes separate and thin out.
"So I'm gone all morning and you can't do one dish?"
"Why is it a big deal?"
"Because," Marie said, "it is annoying to come home to something looking the exact way it did when I left."
The size of the sink always irritated Marie. It was deep, but not wide. Washing the dishes got water everywhere, and so there were always flecks of soapy scum and grease on the countertop. In fact, everything about the kitchen irritated her: the slightly moldy wooden dish rack, the sponges that never got squeezed out and were also breeding grounds for mold, the kitchen light that was always buzzing and flickering indecisively, the lack of space to place the cheap, mismatched collection pots and plates. She glared accusingly at the small orange cup and the stupidly huge Guinness glass, standing next to each other on the vinyl shelf, as if they were the root of every problem she had.
Sighing dramatically, Marie embarked on the dishwashing process, messy and stress-inducing as it was, and cleaned up the soap scum flecks and grease afterward, and put away her and Simon's laundry that had been balled up on the couch.
"Never," he said. It was a joke. And yet, it wasn't. He didn't care how she interpreted it. He was slowly getting to the point where he would just *say.* When he first met her, every word was carefully crafted, every thought carefully honed before he spoke them to her. He used to raise his eyebrows nervously when they had conversations; he couldn't stop staring at her eyes, dark and brooding and yet somehow full of joy. Now he could look at her and only feel the fog of aloneness thickening, filling his gut, and it stilled him, made him lazy. It was part of the reason he had been on the online poker website for five and a half fucking hours. She had been at work all morning, had come home and said very little beyond a terse "hello" to him, and had stayed on the opposite side of the apartment in silence for about an hour. He'd had no idea what she was doing, and he hadn't gotten up to find out. This was the first full sentence she had said to him since she'd returned. He blinked, felt the glaze on his eyes separate and thin out.
"So I'm gone all morning and you can't do one dish?"
"Why is it a big deal?"
"Because," Marie said, "it is annoying to come home to something looking the exact way it did when I left."
The size of the sink always irritated Marie. It was deep, but not wide. Washing the dishes got water everywhere, and so there were always flecks of soapy scum and grease on the countertop. In fact, everything about the kitchen irritated her: the slightly moldy wooden dish rack, the sponges that never got squeezed out and were also breeding grounds for mold, the kitchen light that was always buzzing and flickering indecisively, the lack of space to place the cheap, mismatched collection pots and plates. She glared accusingly at the small orange cup and the stupidly huge Guinness glass, standing next to each other on the vinyl shelf, as if they were the root of every problem she had.
Sighing dramatically, Marie embarked on the dishwashing process, messy and stress-inducing as it was, and cleaned up the soap scum flecks and grease afterward, and put away her and Simon's laundry that had been balled up on the couch.
