desiderium | m. o'hara

one

Just yesterday Miguel was his normal self; cracking his cool, sarcastic jokes, spinning me in a circle while listening to music from our youths while cooking dinner. He'd never forget picking up Rosalina.

But now he can barely look me in the eyes. Now, he sleeps on the couch in the living room instead of beside me. His guilt is so potent that I'm choking on it.

I roll over onto my side and clutch the pillow he usually rests his head upon. It smells like him, so I drink up the scent and close my weary eyes. Confusion keeps me up. A flight of stairs separates us.

In the morning he flounders around, lost in his own kitchen. Our cat, Pookie, hisses at him and flees with his fur raised. Miguel leaves for work with a kiss to a sleepy Rosalina's forehead and a nod in my direction.

A nod.

The hurt I feel is palpable. It consumes me entirely until it's all I can feel, until it's my entire world. What caused this sudden distance? It's like he's on a totally seperate island than I, split by shark-infested waters.

"He's cheating on you," my co-worker, Alicia, says after I fill her in. She leans against my desk and eats yogurt out of a plastic cup. "I've seen it a million times, honey. Check his phone."

"Miguel's not like that," I defend. "He would never. He loves me."

But his nod in my direction from this morning says differently. Alicia notices the doubt on my face and raises her brows.

"Check his phone," she repeats slowly. "For your peace of mind, if anything."

I hesitantly return to my work.

Maybe a fourteen years with someone is enough to get tired of them. But I'm not tired of him, and the imbalance - if it is true - crushes me from the inside. How could I live without him? It's not that I couldn't; my job pays well. It's just that I really, really don't want to. I don't want to have another morning where I wake up without him.

I spend the rest of my day doing no work and a lot of thinking.

"Can we talk?" I ask when Miguel gets home late. Rosalina, unaware of the tension, stirs a wooden spoon in a bowl of brownie mix.

Miguel smiles at the sight of Rosalina before hesitantly looking at me, and another spike of hurt spears me through the chest.

"I can't, sorry," Miguel says. He hoists his messenger bag over his shoulder and heads for his home office. "I need to catch up on work."

He leaves without another glance my way. I stare after him until the door closes. I stare at it until my shocked stupor is distracted.

"Mom, look!" Rosalina calls. She's modelled a moustache out of brownie batter and has it pressed over her top lip. I force a laugh.

Miguel stays in his office all evening, denying a call for dinner and only poking his head out to kiss Rosalina good night when she comes knocking. After I tuck her into bed, I go to confront Miguel about his recent attitude, but pause outside the door when I hear his voice.

Curious, I press my ear against it.

"I can't just leave," Miguel says. "Do you know how much that would hurt them?"