Stuck

“Aaaand… we’re back in the Netherlands”, he says, and we both do a little cheer. We’ve been on the road for about 10 hours today, driving back from Italy. It almost immediately starts to rain. “It’ll be good to be back home, won’t it?”, he says. I nod, it will be. The weather will be worse, though, and I have to start work again on Monday. There’s a container of food I left in the fridge when we left for our holiday two weeks ago, and my stomach turns a bit thinking about it. Still, there’s a feeling of relief, I can tell that he feels it too, but I can’t put my finger on it. “It will be nice to sleep in our own bed again”, I say. On the radio, the pop song that’s been playing everywhere this summer comes on, and I put the music louder. We both sing along, we like to act like it’s ours.

The song ends, and the traffic is slowing down. He turns the music down again, and it feels strangely quiet. I try to think back to when we were on the way to Italy, whether it was silent between us then. It must have been, but this already feels longer than that. I remember feeling relaxed, like there was finally going to be enough time, so none of the words were urgent. “What are you looking forward to the most?”, he asks me now, like this is the holiday we’re going on. I start complaining about work for a bit, not answering the question. I’m boring myself.

The traffic has stopped at this point, and we both stare into the rain. I’m singing along to a slow song on the radio and he tells me I have a lovely voice. I don’t, I know I don’t. I also know because he told me I don’t, a thousand times. I look at his profile, he doesn’t look back. “I’m so glad we’re finally actually caught up again”, I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Just finally having had time for each other. We’re always missing each other back home, with my evening shifts, and your football.” 

“It’s not my fault how they schedule us. I told you I asked for Wednesday evenings off.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, it’s just good that we finally had so much time together again. I feel like I’m caught up on your life again”, I say, smiling. He frowns at this, “Right”, he says. I’m annoyed at him for challenging this, and I can feel the silence sneaking back between us. “Are you also so tired?”, I ask. “Yes, definitely”, he says.

It’s been 30 minutes, and we moved about 10 meters. It’s about an hour away from home and I’m trying to calculate how long the walk would be. We’re halfway through an economics podcast when I suddenly lean over and put my tongue in his ear. He laughs at this, giggles his low laugh, like a child hearing a dirty joke. I’m kissing his neck, he smells like himself, a bit of cologne from yesterday and like car. He keeps laughing and kisses me chastely on the mouth. “Not right now, okay?”, he whispers. “Why not?”, I ask, trying to sound sexy. “People could see us!”, he says.

 “So what! Come on, we don’t know any of them. We never do anything spontaneous like this.” 

“We were just in hotels for two weeks, we had plenty of opportunity! Don’t act like I’m the prude now.”

“You know I was on my period.”

“Not the whole time”, he mumbles under his breath. 

“I was tired. We had a busy schedule. And you know how work has been. Don’t act like I don’t want you. You know I want you.”

I remove my seatbelt and take off my cardigan. As I start to manoeuvre onto his lap, I sit back, realising the amount of work and give up. I don’t even know that I do want him. I look at his face, he hasn’t shaved in weeks. It’s his holiday habit, for some reason, but it feels like he’s just not putting in effort when it’s just for me. His hair is greasy and a bit too long. He looks at me so seriously, with his frown where his eyebrows almost turn upside down. A sadness comes over me as I remember how I used to feel about that frown. How I would kiss his eyebrows until he’d smile. 

“Do you?”, he asks, his voice thin.

“Well, we’re happy together, right? We should be having sex, I think. What would it even say about us if we didn’t?”

“Right, of course. It’s just the stress of going on a holiday, isn’t it? We’ll be back to normal in no time. We just need to get home. We’re so happy together at home.”

We smile at each other. It’s a polite smile. I suddenly feel tired, sinking back into the chair. We are happy, I suppose, it’s true. We are a perfect match. 

He honks, and as a response, a few other cars honk too. I sigh, but he doesn’t react to it. I sigh again and I can see him clench his jaw. “Didn’t help, did it?”, I say. We’ve been stuck in traffic for about an hour at this point, and the rain is pouring. “Don’t start”, he says. “Maybe I should take over driving soon”, I say. “Right, convenient”, he says. It doesn’t make sense but I let him have it. “We have that dinner at my mom’s tomorrow evening, remember. Remind me to bring her those books she left last time”, I say, changing the subject. “Oh, can we not do that dinner? Jan and the boys wanted to go to the bar and I haven’t seen them in ages now.” 

“We’ve set that date for months. It’s to celebrate my promotion from last April.”

“Come on, we’ve celebrated that plenty by now. You prefer to have some alone time with your mom anyway right?”

I do, actually. “Are you kidding me? Can you really not do this for me? You know my mom wants to see you too.” I feel a wave of nausea coming on.

“Your mom prefers time with you, I don’t know why you’re always pushing this. You know Roy will be there tomorrow, at the bar. I haven’t seen him in months. Why can you never just let me do what I want?”

“You always do what you want.” I roll open a window, the nausea is creeping up my throat. He doesn’t say anything. 

“This car is driving us crazy”, I say. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to come.”

He’s silent. “We just need to get home”, I say.

“Do you think this is normal?”, he asks, and I jerk awake. I dosed off, but it must have been only a minute because the car hasn’t moved. 

“What is?”

“That we can’t spend a few hours, actually together? I’m trying to think of the last time we had to do that.”

“On the way to Italy it was fine. We had fun.”

“Did we? We just listened to podcasts, didn’t we? I don’t think I really remember fun.”

I’m picking at the skin of my nails. The nail of my index finger is about to break, and I rip it off. “We can put on a podcast now, if you want”, I say. 

“I do want that. I really want to be home, too. I keep thinking I long to be in bed, on my phone, or on the couch watching TV. You know, occupy my brain. But I also think I should be able to be okay, just sitting in the car, with my girlfriend, whom I love. But I’m not.”

“What are you saying?”, I ask. My nail is bleeding now, and I’m sucking on it to make it stop.

“I’m saying that I want you to be there in my life, but maybe what I actually want is for you to just be available. To have someone to talk to about work, to check in about my day, even to share the household tasks with. And I love you, so maybe that’s why it needs to be you. But we don’t even really want to spend time together, do we? We don’t even really want to take enough time to realise this.”

The streetlights turn on and cast a yellow light on his face. I feel a strong urge to check my phone, look away. He’s really quite beautiful from the side, he has a strong nose. The frown is back, too. I know he’s right. It feels so intimate, suddenly, to hear him put words onto my feelings, too. He turns and looks at me, and I look back. 

We both jump at a horn behind us. The traffic has started moving again, and the rain has stopped. It’s like the world widens again around us, jerking us away from each other’s gaze. We start to drive again, in silence, for the rest of the way. As we pull into our driveway, we sit still for a moment.

“We came quite close, this holiday, didn’t we?” I say, and he laughs.

“Damn traffic”, he says, “damn car.”

“Damn rain, damn nothing-good-on-the-radio.”

As we go in, the first thing I do is go to the container in the fridge. The leftover pasta is green, and a bit hairy. As I throw it away, I smile. It feels good to face it. And it feels good to move on.