[MikeFuentes] I Want to Burst Into Flames

01

A hand touches my shoulder, and my eyes open immediately, my heart racing quickly as all the horrible possibilities of who is in my bedroom run through my mind. Turning to my side, knowing that if someone is here to kill me I'm not strong enough to stop him or her, I bite down on my lower lip and find myself pissed off to see Mike standing beside me. Knitting his eyebrows together at my reaction, he tilts his head to the side. “You're on my side. I need you to roll over.”

I chew on my lower lip, fighting against the horrible things that I want to say to him, I find myself rolling over to let him have his side of the bed back. Honestly, I don’t even remember falling asleep, and I certainly don’t remember how I ended up on his side of the bed. He doesn’t get to have a side of the bed, though. He’s barely home. I get the whole bed and he gets to sleep wherever I'm not. That’s how this should be going. He doesn’t get a say. And he certainly doesn’t get a say when he comes home at, what time is it? I lift my head up to look at the clock on the bedside table, growing even angrier with the fact that it’s already 3:30 in the morning.

He lies down on the bed, I know because I feel the weight of his body move the mattress, not because I'm facing him. I wouldn’t face him. I don’t want to see his face. It was yet another night that was supposed to be spent together, but instead he went out with his friends to yet another bar. Who the hell cares? He’s gone most of the year anyway. I should be used to it. It’s really not a shock that he isn't there to cuddle at night. And to think that I was horny and would have had sex with him if he had gotten home at a decent time.

Without hesitation, he rests his hand on my side, but I push his hand off of me. “What the hell, Syd?” His voice is stern and rough, it’s loud and I know that he’s pissed off with me for not wanting his touch, but there’s really no reason why I would want it. I go without it for so long and he deprives me of it when he’s around that it’s weird to have him touch me. “Are you seriously not letting me touch you? What the hell is the problem?”

Flipping over to look at him, I realize that I can barely see him. I can see the outline of his features, but it’s dark, in the room and outside. It’s the middle of the night and he wants to start a fight simply because I don’t want his hand on my side while I attempt to go back to sleep. “Mike, it’s almost four o’clock in the morning. I'm tired and I just want to sleep without your hand awkwardly on my waist.” I'm not about to go through everything with him at this time in the morning. Hell, who knows if I'm even going to tell him ever.

“Fine,” he grumbles, flipping over and tugging at the covers until they're covering his tall, lanky body. Rolling my eyes, I find myself mimicking him silently as if I'm a child, and I realize that I'm beyond mad at him. I'm furious with him. Fine. I didn’t expect him to fight with me to let him touch me, but he just, he doesn’t do anything right anymore!

Marriage is shit.

But, I also need this marriage to get me a child. While I make money, he makes most of our money, and I need that on the application to get a baby.

It sounds horrible. I do love Mike. I'm with Mike because I love him. I just couldn’t live like this if it wasn’t for a possible child blessing my life.

“Goodnight, Mike, or should I say good morning.” I assumed he was asleep, but his groan tells me that he’s actually not. Taking a deep breath in through my nose and slowly releasing it through my mouth, I wait for him to respond, to fight back about it, but he doesn’t. He lets it roll off his shoulder as if I didn’t say anything, and part of me is happy that he did. I didn’t mean to say it. I wanted to think it and leave it in my thoughts, but I found myself saying it before I could stop myself. The only thing that makes it somewhat okay is that I didn’t sound harsh like I did in my thoughts; instead I sounded upset.

I am upset. It’s a mixture of sadness and anger. I feel so stupid. I shouldn’t have expected him to come home early. It never happened before. It’s silly of me to think that he would start coming home early and choosing me over his friends when it’s never really happened before.

My marriage was good. It was perfect in the beginning. And eventually, Mike just fell back to his old ways, without the drunkenness and the rest of his stupid shenanigans.

It’s nice that he came into the bed tonight, though. Usually he’ll fall asleep on the couch. He doesn’t want to wake me up when he gets in, and he knows that I freak out whenever I hear noises at night. In a way it’s sweet of him. But, sometimes I just want to know that he’s around, physically and emotionally.

“I love you, Syd,” he whispers, so low that I barely hear him.

Sighing softly, I bite down on my lower lip, my heart soaring at the three simple words; I can’t really remember the last time he told me that he loves me. “I love you, too, Mike.”