Collection of Small stories

[Zigspr]

Chapter Three

I heard the key turn in the lock just before one a.m.

I'd spent the last half hour pretending I wasn't waiting for it. I had tried sitting on the couch, then standing in the kitchen, then sitting again. I'd even turned the television back on, though I couldn't have told you what was playing. Every few minutes I'd find myself thumbing my phone open again, wondering how long it would take her to get home.

The door opened, and Shivani stepped inside, quietly closing it behind her. For a second, neither of us said anything.

She looked almost exactly as she had when she'd left, except for the little details. Her hair was a little messier; loose strands hung around her face, no longer sitting as neatly as they had when she'd stood in front of the bedroom mirror earlier, and her lips had returned to their normal shade.

She caught me staring.

"Hey."

I stood up. "Hey."

She smiled the same smile I knew she'd given when she was on the phone, and something inside my chest loosened at the sight of it. She looked happy. Tired, but happy.

"How was the taxi?" I asked

"Fine," she responded.

She slipped off her heels and left them beside the door.

"Sorry I was gone so long."

"It's okay."

She looked at me for another moment.

"You weren't worried, were you?" she asked.

I almost laughed. I had spent nearly six hours practically vibrating with anxiety, but I couldn't exactly admit that after everything I'd said to her.

"No. Not really." I responded

She gave me a look that said she didn't believe me.

"Really?" she asked

"I mean... I knew you were safe." That was true, at least.

She walked over and wrapped her arms around me.

I hugged her back automatically, burying my face in her hair. I had half expected her to smell abhorrent. Like sex and sin... Like another man. Yet, she didn't. Not really.

She smelled like her perfume, the same familiar scent she'd worn when she left, only softer after hours of wear. Beneath it was simply Lily. The warm, familiar smell of her hair and skin, slightly dulled by the long night. There was nothing abhorrent about it. Nothing that screamed that she'd been somewhere else with someone else.

Just her.

And yet, beneath the perfume, I caught something unfamiliar. Something I couldn't quite place. Maybe it was the restaurant, or the wine bar, or the smell of someone else's cologne lingering faintly in the fabric of her dress. Maybe I was imagining it entirely.

I held her a little tighter anyway, as though I could somehow reassure myself that she was still mine by the simple act of holding her.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

I'd spent years dreaming about her coming home smelling like another man.

"So," she said with an awkward smile. "You want to know about it?"

I'd spent hours imagining this moment and had thought I'd have a thousand questions ready. Instead, my mind went completely blank. I nodded and followed her into the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and drained almost all of it in one go. I watched her from across the counter, trying to read her expression.

"So?" I finally asked.

"It was good."

"Good?"

"Really good, actually."

Something tightened in my stomach. I reached for my own glass. "What did you guys do?"

"Dinner. Then we went for drinks."

"And?"

She laughed softly. "And talked."

"About what?"

"Everything, pretty much." She leaned against the counter and smiled. "He's really easy to talk to. He made me laugh a lot."

"That's good," I said, forcing another smile.

She studied me for a moment. "You really mean that?"

"Yeah."

And I did. That was the horrible part. I wanted her to enjoy herself. I wanted her to meet someone she liked. I'd endlessly imagined exactly this conversation, imagining her coming home and telling me she'd had a wonderful time. I hadn't understood how different it would feel when she was standing in front of me, smiling as she told me about another man she'd spent the evening getting to know. It was no longer just a fantasy.

"Did you kiss him?" The question slipped out before I could stop myself.

Shivani hesitated for just a moment before nodding. "Yeah."

Something in my stomach dropped.

"At the bar?"

"Just a little. It was when he asked if I wanted to go back to his place. I said yes, and... we kissed."

I stared at her.

I'd imagined it so many times that, in my head, it had become almost abstract. Just a fantasy I could enjoy because I could always control what happened next. But hearing Shivani casually tell me that she'd actually kissed Deepak made it horribly real.

"Did you like it?"

The question came out quieter than I'd intended.

She looked at me for a moment before answering.

"Yeah."

There was no hesitation this time.

I nodded slowly, looking down at the counter. I could still remember the message she'd sent me hours earlier: He asked me back to his place. I said yes. Love you. At the time, I'd been consumed by what those words might mean. Now I knew.

"Okay," I said.

Shivani reached across the counter and took my hand. "Are you okay?"

I looked down at our fingers intertwined. Forever, I'd wanted her to discover that she could desire someone else. I'd wanted her to come home and tell me she'd enjoyed herself. But sitting there with her hand in mine, I realized something I hadn't considered before: the fantasy had always been about us. This was about her. And I wasn't sure where that left me.

"I'm okay."

She squeezed my hand. "I really do love you."

"I know."

She leaned across the counter and kissed me.

It was familiar. Safe. Ours.The same kind of kiss we'd shared thousands of times since we were teenagers.

But as I kissed my wife, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that only a few hours earlier, she'd kissed another man.