When I hear Caleb stumble in I glance at the clock, it's three in the morning. I huff a sigh as I hear him knocking things over in the kitchen. Things were not always like this, when we first met we were going out every weekend, closing down the bar and then talking until the sun came up.
I was a girl obsessed, I couldn't get enough of him. I was calling our mutual friend every night to see if Caleb would be there. If he was I was there. If he wasn't coming I made time for Finn. I knew that I was in love with him the first night we snuck away from a party to talk on the balcony. By the time we went back inside everyone had gone home and it was just us left.
We had our first kiss in a crowed bar, the music was loud and the beer was free until 11 and the smoke was thick in the air. When his lips met mine everything fell away, the people, the music, the smoke. It was just us.
We had kissed, sure, but we were friends. In fact, he was my best friend. We texted from sun up to sundown, I wanted to know everything, and we never ran out of things to talk about. If I'm honest, we still haven't run out of things to talk about, we just spend our energy in different places now.
I brought him to meet my friends for a weekend camping trip. I lost my shirt on a canoe trip that weekend, and I got to see someone I wanted to spend my life with bond with my friends. I wasn't worried that they'd get along, or that he would say something stupid. I knew everything with meld together.
I got violently ill after that trip. I didn't see Caleb for three weeks, and that was a big deal because I had been seeing him once a week for several months at this point. When I was finally feeling up to going out, we met at our usual spot. I had arrived to find Caleb with another girl. I wasn't jealous, in fact we had both spoken about having lots of female friends and male friends.
I had never been jealous of another girl in my life. I had never had any reason to feel insecure, I was attractive and didn't have any body image issues. I talked and joked with this Leslie. I befriended her, and genuinely thought nothing about it.
Until I went to the bathroom, and came back to find her in his lap. He hadn't done anything wrong, we were friends who kissed sometimes. However, I had never felt betrayal like that before. It took all of my strength to not cry in front of him, to cry in a crowded bar.
I picked myself up and found some friends that weren't friends with him and I managed to make it through the night. I met another guy, I pretended to forget about Caleb. I stopped all contact with him and our shared friends. If he didn't want to be with me, that was fine, but I couldn't just be his friend. Also, my pride was hurt.
I didn't speak to him for another month, until I broke down on his birthday and told him happy birthday.
Caleb was a different guy after that. He only paid attention to me, and spent months making up for hurting me. He knew, even without my telling him how I felt about it.
I knew he slept with her, but it was okay because he chose me.
Caleb chose me. And I chose Caleb.
Caleb and I had only officially been together a month when we decided to move in together. We lived pretty far away from each other, him being on the north side of Nashville and me being on the south side.
I'm not exaggerating when I said no one was more in love than us. We held hands, and kissed in public. Leslie was still around but it didn't matter, because I was with Caleb. And it was never about winning him, it was about being with him. I knew I loved him from the beginning.
We moved into a small apartment in Nashville, central to our jobs. Caleb finished school, and then I finished my degree. We were this incredible team and we could always lean on the other for support. We moved into a bigger, downtown apartment before the market blew up. Things started to change. Caleb worked late, and went in early. He's always here and I'm always there. We can't get on the same page.
Caleb doesn't hold my hand anymore, or kiss me. He doesn't see me when we are in the same room as each other, we are two ships passing in the night. He doesn't tell me he loves me when he leaves and I barely get more than a closed mouth kiss when he doesn't acknowledge me. We haven't had sex in two months, and he doesn't look at me when I get undressed.
He doesn't look at me the way I still look at him, the way I still beg him to just see me.
I've never been insecure until Caleb.
I know we can be who we used to be if we just put the work in.
I slip out of bed at seven the next morning, I've always been an early riser. I move to the kitchen and whip up some waffles. I leave a plate in the microwave for Caleb and wash the dishes. I drink a pre-workout drink and head down to the apartment gym.
I've just finished my workout when I see Caleb dragging himself to the kitchen. We don't speak to each other as he warms up breakfast and I go to take a shower. I put on leggings and one of Caleb's large t-shirts.
"Did you have fun last night?" I ask, sitting down on the couch beside him. He's got the race on and he's desperately checking his social media.
"Yeah, Dusty needed me to be his wingman," he says, and he gets a funny grin. A grin that used to be reserved for me.
I don't think about the possibility that Caleb is cheating on me. We both talked about this in the beginning, he had been cheated on in his past and he assured me that he would never do that.
"Did you talk to any girls?" I ask, if I don't ask the right questions I won't get the right answers.
"You know you are the only girl for me," he says, then plants a kiss on my forehead. I try not to gag as he dodges the question.
"That's not what I asked," I say, he still hasn't looked up from his phone. I try to ignore the red numbers in the top right corner.
"I talked to a couple of girls, but just to talk Dusty up," he says, finally putting his phone down and giving me his attention. I don't press the issue any further, mostly because I just don't give a damn anymore. It's not worth the fight.
"Let's go on a date tonight," I suggest, just like the kisses and the sex, the dates don't happen anymore. It seems like a trivial thing to still want, when we see each other all day every day, but we never do anything with just the two of us.
"I spent too much money last night, why don't you just cook? You know I like your food better than any restaurant," he says, easily. His attention is back on his phone and the race.
"Sure," I say, not surprised by his answer. It's not flattering that he wants me to cook. I hate cooking, he knows it, but I'm good at it. It's not like we eat out all of the time and he never gets a homecooked meal. I cook all of the time, unless I'm sick and physically can't cook.
I don't bother telling him I'm going to our spare bedroom, where I keep my computer. I have a pretty rad job, writing my own blog. I need to let off some steam, and I need to be productive.
I've successfully avoided Caleb all day, and I leave my office around 6 to start dinner. Caleb comes up behind me as I'm chopping vegetables for the fajitas I'm making.
"Do you mind if Dusty comes over?" Of course, I love when your friends come over last minute when I haven't had a chance to clean the apartment and you'll both ignore me all night. However, if I say no I will be a bitch.
"Sure," I tell him and let him kiss me on the cheek. I pour myself a glass of wine, so I can deal with this night.
"Hey!" Dusty shouts, as he lets himself into our apartment.
I don't mind Dusty so much, he's a relatively nice guy. However, he's loud, he stomps his feet through our apartment and he chews with his mouth open. One night the stomped a beer can flat on the rug in the living room.
"Hey, Dusty," I greet, as he puts his beer in our fridge and grabs one. He leaves his bottle cap on the counter, so I throw it in the trash can. Caleb and Dusty take over the TV, and put on a hockey game. Normally, we'd be cheering the Predators on, but we were knocked out of the playoffs first round this year.
I finish the fajitas and call the guys to come eat. I wait for them to fix their plates before I fix my own plate and sit at the bar in our kitchen while the guys go back to the couch. I take a long drink of my wine and my phone dings. I don't check it, and finish my plate.
I wash the dishes from dinner and join the guys on the couch. I try not to take offense when I sit next to Caleb and he scoots farther away from me. I check my phone, it's a friend request, from Noah Sebastian. I roll my eyes as I accept.
The three of us chat easily, and Caleb lays a hand on my knee. I smile at the contact. I crave him, his touch, his attention.
Dusty finally leaves once his 6-pack is gone, around midnight. Caleb and I head to the bedroom to get ready. Caleb changes his clothes, while I brush my teeth. When I exit the bathroom Caleb goes in and I slip off my leggings and crawl into bed. Caleb has stripped down to his boxers and gets in bed next to me.
Caleb used to lay on his back and make me lay my head on his chest. He would wrap and arm around me and I would listen to the erratic beats of his heart. We would talk, and joke about our day. It used to be this intimate thing.
"Wanna mess around?" I ask, crawling on top of him. I lean down to kiss him, and he kisses me back, but gently lifts me off of him.
"Babe, I'm really tired," he says, punctuating his statement with a yawn.
"Okay, goodnight," I tell him and roll over. I keep my mouth closed as the tears run down my cheeks.