It becomes wearing. I can’t get a decent night’s sleep. My priorities are warped, my responsibilities are neglected. I’m tired, tearful. Unreasonable.
And so, after six months I try to end it. I try to leave.
I force a row, behave brutally, spit out hurtful truths that every couple knows about each other, but they manage to suppress, to curtail, in the name of harmony. I pick at the scab. Make us bleed. I finish it. Or he does. It’s nuanced. Unclear who finally ends things as it happens so quickly. In just minutes I tear us apart, which suggests we are only paper thin. I give him an ultimatum, it is in temper and frustration and he probably knows I don’t mean it even as I issue it, but I chose a time when he’s under pressure at work, rushing between meetings. He hasn’t got time to debate or think.
“Meeting up once a month is pointless. How can we have a relationship when you live in another country?” He is confused because haven’t I always given the impression that I like the casual nature of what we have? “You are just stopping me having meaningful relationships elsewhere. You’re not thinking of me in this at all. You are spoiled and selfish.” I pull the thread that stitches us together. The space, his absence makes us possible. My words wound, and I’m certain he’ll want to bleed out alone.
“We can’t discuss this over the phone,” he says stiffly.
“But I want to.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m sick of doing everything your way.”
“I wish you would stay calm, be rational, Kai.”
“You are so cold. You are incapable of real feeling,” I snap accusingly. I imagine his upper lip quivering. Not because he is close to crying—not the sort—he is angry with me for exposing him. For exposing us both. The telephone is a cruel way to end a relationship. He stays silent. “Haven’t you anything to say?” I demand.
“Let’s talk about it when I see you next.”
“I want to talk about it now.” Because I can’t let there be a next time. Every time leads to another next time.
“It’s better face-to-face. It’s better if we wait,” he insists, firmly.
“Now!” I all but stamp my feet. “Now or let’s just call it a day.”
He sighs. I hear his breath. Imagine I feel it. “Then we should call it a day.”
“Fine.” I hang up and relief whooshes through my body, almost knocks me over. I reel.
After the relief comes the agony. I miss him so much. I hadn’t expected that. I hadn’t realized how quickly he’d been absorbed into my daily routine, my consciousness. The words, while being the ones I was looking for, cause me to wander around as though someone has beaten me. I hurt. I feel like I am being ripped apart. Split in two. If only. I call work and say I have the flu. I go to bed, pull the duvet over my head. It feels like a sickness. My heart, my back, my head aches. I do not cry. I am too sad to cry. It surprises me how much he matters.
The world becomes duller, as though someone has dropped down a shade. Cut off the light and warmth. I can’t find any joy where I found it before, which makes me ashamed. Meeting friends for coffee is melancholy, not uplifting, attending book club is dull rather than stimulating. It feels like I am encased in an impenetrable mist. I can’t concentrate at work as I check my personal email account repeatedly, obsessively, every fifteen minutes, every ten. Every three. I recall the things I said. Harsh and impossible to retract. I told him not to contact me: no phone calls, no emails, no messages.
It takes a week for him to decide to ignore my dictate. It feels like a month, a year.
I cry when the text comes. Awash with relief, again. A total flip-flop of thought. Which makes no sense. I had deleted his number but not blocked him. It reads, Come to me.
I can’t not. I text back within seconds. Where? When?
When I arrive at Sushisamba, a Japanese–South American fusion restaurant with stellar views and dreamy interior （because Daan never sacrifices style, not even during times of emotional turmoil）， he seems different, changed. Dipped in pain and self-knowledge. Has he missed me too? He must have. Why else get in touch?
“I’m sorry,” we blurt, simultaneously.
“You don’t need to be more committed. I’m rushing things,” I add, because I’ve had time to think about what I can cope with, what I can manage. What he might throw my way. If it is just once a month and there is no contact in between, maybe I won’t drive myself wild with jealousy. Maybe it will be enough. I don’t want to be that woman, but I don’t think I have a choice anymore. I could be her.
We talk. We smooth it out as best we can. I try to explain my insecurities but can’t explain everything to him. I probably should. This moment of clarity and honesty would be the time to tell him everything about myself, to shine a light on what we actually have going on here. But I don’t. I hold part of myself back, it’s habit and now necessity. What if he walked away from me once he knew all about me? I know now I can’t lose him. The early lunch stretches into the afternoon. But I should be at work, I’ve taken so much time off recently—though what harm can one more afternoon do? I’ll give some excuse about needing a blood test, I’ll imply that they are investigating a potentially serious health issue, then people won’t pry. I might not be asked for a doctor’s note. I’m shocked at how fearlessly I lie to secure time with Daan. I had thought we were meeting for more sex. I imagined him dropping to his knees, pulling my knickers aside and licking me out. Maybe not in the restaurant but back at his apartment. Or I would drop to my knees. Take him in my mouth. Tongues and fingers. Sucking, flicking and fucking.
He does drop to his knees. In the restaurant. “Marry me.”
“What?” I feel the proposal roar through my body—it doesn’t reach my head.
“You are right, once a month is not a relationship. I’ve requested a transfer. It’s all been agreed. I’m moving here to London. There is something about you, Kai, that’s different from any other woman I’ve ever met. You ooze independence, self-containment. I love it. I love you. Marry me?”
I try to process what he’s saying. He wants me because he thinks I don’t want him as much as other women have done, or do. Just six months, six or seven encounters, his gesture is rash, vain, attractive.
He is holding out a ring box, which he opens, quite clumsily, his hands are shaking and in that moment I feel something so powerful, so tender, it has to be love. I want to stop his hand shaking. I want to make him happy. He’s irresistible to me. The pause between us, the expectation, is painfully potent. “I’m thirty-nine years old, Daan.”
“I know that.”
“Children. There might be—Well, it’s most likely to be harder, if at all.”
“I don’t want children. They have never been part of my plan.”
“You say that now, but you’re young enough to change your mind.”
“I want you.” His green eyes, framed with long, thick lashes, bore into me. Insistent, almost impatient. “Will you marry me, Kai, my beautiful darling?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”