The pillow cradles his narrow pale face.
Nicey places a pillow to shield her view of him.
A morning ritual to avoid accidental eye contact.
He hates the idea of being watched in his sleep, that was the first mistake she ever made with him.
One morning she woke up face to face. Her eyes opened, his too.
"How handsome he is with his shaggy brown hair..."
She smiles at him.
His expression morphs from sleepy to complete displeasure. His forehead folds into three distinct lines, puffing out. His light green eyes once glassy from waking are sharp and cutting, his mouth forms a deep frown.
"Is that what you've been doing? Just fucking watching me? Are you a fucking weirdo?"
His deep voice filling the room, growing louder and more venomous.
Baffled, Nicey attempts to explain.
"No, I wasn't staring at you! I just opened my eyes...then you opened..."
"I fucking need to sleep! Why doesn't anyone understand this?"
He cuts her off.
Back then in the "honeymoon,"stage, that never quite existed for them.
Then they had had a few explosive incidents over her either waking him or "staring" at him. She was definitely not a perfect celestial being but she never meant to upset him at all. She would remind herself that "intention does not dictate impact."
So she capitulated to this request, it seemed benign enough. Not an unreasonable request. Maybe the reaction was arguably extreme, but she did not want to "police" anyone's tone, right? It was the first of many shifts of behavior she would learn. The first evidence of her stupidity, the first sign that this man was a fool.
Each morning she woke she remembered that day, when she cursed herself to this.
A prize!
A skinny tanned leather skinned man twelve years her senior. Dark brown hair framed his face, almost coal colored spidery thick eyebrows moved upwards then downwards, with lashes that extended past the under eye skin.
His nose resembled Christian Bale, no bump, slender and straight, with large oval shaped nostrils pulsing with each breathe. His mouth was agape as his throat wheezed and crackled.
Human feedback noises.
As his cupid's bow of a top lip vibrated, his full bottom lip pouted.
Once so attractive to her, now, after a decade she only saw a Perrault's fairy tale troll.
She needed to vacate the bed before she started to move around too much, he would rouse.
No energy for that.
She never did.
The thought of waking the sleeping bear made her wince with her entire body. Too much motion in the bed had been a problem in the past. Nicey would snuggle too close to him, accidentally fire her foot; dreaming , often she would cocoon in the many blankets.
He would respond to this by unleashing a slew of curse words. Waking her, as he ripped the pillow and a blanket from the bed.
Stomping out of the bedroom to seek refuge on the couch.
She would mumble,
"I'm sorry."
But it never mattered. She was guilty. A "denier of rest."
Tears, thick and silent, would follow, she would squeeze her eyes, to halt them.
She would fail.
Weeping is noise, weaponized to make him feel bad.
Crying was visual complaining to him about him. Which he could not stand.
People complaining about him to him.
With the leopard print pillow perfectly placed. Nicey slips out of bed to begin her third favorite thing.
A bronze medal for the day.
The gold medal was him away for work, the sliver when he went out on errands, and this; the Canadian gold medal (bronze), she is awake while he is not.
Today they are driving to the bush to spend the weekend with his famous friend.
An inventor who owns land and a small luxurious yet utilitarian cabin, deep in a forest.
She had been there before, the look of the place matched the owner, a mix of quaint things, flashy things, practical things, modern things and boyish dream things. She was grateful he even let her enter his secret location, this was really the only place that the sleeping man and she ever went together. Dates were not a thing. Nicey going out with her friends was not really a thing either, it usually caused conflict; she choose her events carefully with this in mind.
Hoping that he was in a good mood, before informing him.
Wondering ...
"Is this worth the headache?"
Worth the litany of cruel texts that would eventually rapid fire during her night out.
Whenever he had decided it was time to guilt her into returning.
Her fun would be ruined, anxiety would coarse through her sympathetic system, she would return defeated, a vicious verbal attack would be executed.
She did not cry much anymore, sometimes she would even verbally counter, but that would just escalate things. Now she rarely went out anywhere, with or without him. The invisible chains shortened.
Once in the bathroom, Nicey ponders whether she should close the door.
"Hmmm, well the door sometimes makes noise but peeing with an open door is also loud."
Morning debate.
She gently turns the doorknob as she ever so slightly closes the door. It makes a light metal scraping wood sound, due to the hanging rack that clings to the top of the door.
The best she can do.
Really.
Nicey flips on the light and cringes.
She looks so haggard. After two bouts of sickness she has lost weight. According to the man on the bed, this is something to be proud of; weight loss achieved by near death, but Nicey just feels weak.
She has heard him boasting on the phone to any random person he knows, as if they would even care that his girlfriend lost weight.
"Oh my God, she has lost like seventy pounds or something. She has an hour glass figure now."
Icky.
But she knows better than to say anything about it.
Sure, she was trying to lose some weight, naturally, not as a result of sickness.
Thinner, yes but with much dryer skin now. Her usually brown complexion was so much duller, ashen, even grey.
The upkeep of self had degraded significantly these years. So many grey hairs had sprouted on her curly kinky natural hair. Getting sick did not help either, she had become so dehydrated that her hair became brittle and felt like a rough piece of fabric. The curl pattern had mutated with some strands changing colors; burgundy hues, honey yellow shades, so many greys, even some near translucent hairs emerged.
So peculiar.
Large obsidian eyes lacked shine. Eyes that rarely widen with neither wonder nor shock anymore, instead they were cast down, especially when navigating through the condo. Especially in the hallway on their floor. Fort, the man currently in the bed, had either threatened the residents or charmed them.
To those who were menaced reserved the bulk of their scorn specifically for Nicey. Laser sharp glares penetrated hot in her direction in the elevator.
She did not begrudge them for feeling how they felt. She had tried but failed to explain to Fort that his outbursts were terrifying, even traumatizing for most people. Even if he perceived them as rude or unfriendly. Calling a complete stranger a "stuck up bitch!" or promising to "break their fucking teeth!" for not wanting to engage with him or trying to enter the elevator without waiting for those inside to exit, where indeed inconsiderate...but these reactions were extreme!
Fort did not agree with these observations. He did not see the problem. After all, he had told her she too was a stuck up bitch whom deserved a punch her in her teeth as well. She wished she could tell this to the emotionally scared residents in the elevator.
She said nothing.
Enduring the death stares on the way down or up.
Who knew that hell was multi-directional.
While the pro-Fort residents fawned over him.
The property manager, the penthouse sorts, the condo owners, finance guys in their early thirties, horny single 'girl-boss' types, graphic designers, and art enthusiasts. All idolized him, he flashed his charm, they rewarded him with attention.
She withdrew from these people, because it just proved that he could behave when he wanted to, when he deemed the people important enough or useful.
Sickening.
These honored residents, some of them, would just ignore her. Assumed she was a miserable psycho bitch who did not know how lucky she was.
"He is so nice, so friendly, so talented!"
"He loves her so much, she looks messy all of the time."
" Not a superficial bone in his body."
Some would whisper as she passed.
Both reactions made her want to shrink away completely.
But that is not possible.
Nothing she could do about that anyway, so her eyes remained custodorum occulorum, to the floor.
Back in the bathroom, safe from outside contempt she gazed straight ahead at herself.
Dark circles under her eyes, her tiny brown button nose with the even smaller nostrils were filled with crusty matte , her full lips dark from smoking.
"How distant we are."
She thought.
She can hear him take a sip of water then plop back onto the pillow.
"Okay if I need to poo I gotta do it now, before he wakes up and needs to."
Now on the couch she sits quietly staring longingly at the highway.
So cliche but also her life.
A tragically stupid cliche.
Two hours pass.
He rises, hair matted in every direction.
As he stumbles to the bathroom with his phone for his royal shit he stops to regard her on the couch.
"You're so funny, with the pillow, don't like my face or something?"
She smiles.
It is easier to just smile through the mocking.
Or what seemed like mocking.
The bathroom door closes loudly.
There is only room for certain noises made here.
She can hear his phone vibrate.
"Yo, something something."
She cannot hear much when the door is closed, but she does hear one statement clearly.
"Nah sorry, I'm not available, it's date night, can't disappoint the wife, if you know what I mean."
He laughs.
She laughs; silently.
Looks out of the window at the cars heading eastward, rolling westward, while she sits still.