Three’s Company

The clock high upon the yellowing wall ticks down another minute.

Tick.

Tick.

Its been atleast ten since he’s spoken a word.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I whisper through my tight jaw, feeling the tension in the air weigh heavy on my teeth.

“What more is there to say?” He doesn’t even look at me. No, those deep space lit eyes stay trained on the cracked wooden table between us. To anyone in this coffee shop watching, there’s only about two feet of space between us. In theory I could reach out and touch him. But the reality is, he’s so very far away from me. And I doubt he will ever come back now.

“It just happened, Auggie. I didn’t—“

“Don’t.” He shakes his mop of brownish blackish hair.

“You don’t want to know?”

”No I mean do not call me Auggie. Do not infantilize me while you sit there telling on yourself. I am a grown man. I am not your child, Genevieve.”

Genevieve? That’s like someone decided to rip a waxing strip right off the entirety of my face, peeling off each individual hair one by one.In the eight years I’ve known him, six years we’ve dated, I don’t think he’s ever called me by my actual name. Tears prick my eyes.

”It was over Summer—“

”That week you said you were visiting your Nana wasn’t it.” He nails me with a look that was meant to slice me to my core. It did. The tears flow despite me willing them to stay behind my lashes.

I nod.

“I fucking knew it.” His hands curl into fists as if he was trying to pinch off a piece of the table they rested on.

I glance down at my lap where my own hands are holding each other. My ring glints back at me. A new little accessory adorned to my left hand. He just gave it to me last week. A proposal to top them all.

So delicate and beautiful, it fit like a glove. Yet it feels like it’s cutting off my circulation right now as it crushes my finger.

“As soon as I did it I knew, I knew it was only you, August. It will always be you.” My voice cracks and breaks with the strain of guilt and desperation. But he had to know. He had to know what happened.

His mirthless chuckle sends a sick shiver through my spine. That’s not how Auggie, my Auggie, laughs. His laugh is brightness & sunshine, his laugh makes you remember that this is what it’s all about. Life. Living.

The noise he just made? Sounded like darkness had come to visit our conversation. Like he’d sat down between us to act as a mediator. It sounded too much like a death knoll, warning of impending doom. Our future? I fear it’s being eulogized.

I’m going to be sick.

“Please Auggie—August, you have to believe me. I wanted to tell you right away but your mom was sick and then we were finally back to a good space because of the baby.” My hands draw close, cradling my growing belly. Only two more months left.

The air shifts. He was barely moving before but it’s as if his entire body went frigidly straight.

“What month did you go visit your Nana?”

My brows slam together.

“Why does that matter?”

His wide hand claps against the table, startling me right back into crying. All this stress isn’t good for the baby.

”Damn it, Genevieve, what month was it.”

I rack my brain. It was after Independence Day, well after. I know because we fought that day while everyone else watched the firework display. Almost every event is marked by some argument. Even today, the day of our last ultrasound. We just heard his little heartbeat and came here to celebrate.

It’s almost like we enjoy hurting ourselves. We fight to get along. Otherwise why would he ask me questions like “is there anything you need to tell me before we get married” and why would I choose right now to answer honestly?

“The end of July, I think.”

His eyes grow darker.

“Are you 100% sure,” he says slowly, enunciating each syllable with excruciating intensity.

“Yes.”

He stands then, turning away from me to collect his rain jacket and umbrella. I hop to my feet too, haphazardly donning my own coat.

My set of keys skit across the table to me, stopping right before they fall of the edge. I wrap my fingers around the cold, biting metal, risking a glance at him. He still can’t meet my eye.

“I’ll drive,” I assure him, offering up a weak smile that I don’t even deserve to create. I know he needs a moment, he wouldn’t want to risk our babies life while he’s in this state.

He turns toward the door and I struggle to keep up behind him as we head into the downpour that awaits outside. For it being only February, we have seen so much rain already.

It’s not long before his long legs out pace my pregnant waddle.

”August please,” I call to him, “Please wait up!”

He turns the corner anyway, and I dash through giant raindrops that plunk and patter against the world around me.

By the time I reach the parking lot, he’s not there. Even as I walk up to the small SUV, I don’t see him anywhere.

I quickly get into the driver seat, pull out my phone & dial him. Over and over he sends me to voicemail.

Finally maybe the fifth time calling, the line connects so I know he answered though he doesn’t utter a word.

“Where are you, I’ll come get you,” I say.

His muffled breathing is my only response for a long while. I almost worry he doesn’t realize he answered.

“I’m not your concern anymore,” he says finally and my heart cracks in my chest.

”Don’t do this, don’t say that. What about us getting married? What about the baby?”

Darkness rejoins us, maybe he never left. Maybe he’s attached himself to our relationship. But I distinctly hear him in Auggie’s laughter once more.

“Go ask that baby’s father to marry you.” Then the line goes dead.

As dead as I feel.