a short story by Sophie Gould
Photo: “The #unmade #bed” by bluedoor
I gaze over Sawyer’s head to our bedroom window. Swallows plant themselves on a stringy birch tree across the street, sitting stoically in groups of three. I wonder if they’ll move before Sawyer wakes up. If they don’t, I could tell him they’d been there since six. I turn over, my back leaning weakly against Sawyer’s. Our duvet, baby blue, stained from sex and age, hangs over my side of the bed. Sawyer runs hot when he sleeps and I tend to go cold. He learned that about me the first week we met; I was so nervous that I regurgitated indiscriminate facts about myself to fill the empty space. It was a hopeful emptiness, then. Not as much now. Sawyer sighs, rustling the covers as he searches sleepily for my hand. I don’t pull away when he finds it. The swallows had disappeared.
I close my eyes again, forcing out unwelcome morning light, until Sawyer has gotten into the shower. While I make coffee, I notice our neighbor pushing a baby stroller on the uneven sidewalk.
“I swear, she’s been pregnant since we moved here,” Sawyer says, making his way into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Seems like there’s no more than a two month break in between,” I respond.
I silently beg him to say anything else, offer up a witty joke to flaunt his intellect, force me to feel interested in him again. Instead, he only nods, taking a mug out of the cabinet. Before turning to leave the room, Sawyer flashes me an unassuming smile. He looks so gentle, standing under the door frame without even demanding a kiss goodbye. Suddenly, I’m fighting the urge to cry; a single, gasping sob.
I pull on my coat and head to therapy.
Lina, my therapist, has a small office above an expensive Greek restaurant. She didn’t feel comfortable doing meetings in her own home, so she’d settled on a dimly lit one-bedroom with a leather recliner and an armchair with a side table. Last week, when Lina watched me break down over my name being misspelled on my coffee cup, she asked if perhaps it wasn’t about the coffee. It’s never about anything other than Sawyer these days. I hadn’t really spoken to him in weeks, though not for a lack of trying; I just didn’t want to tell him about my days anymore. Sawyer works and makes more than enough money for the two of us——so how would the conversation even go? (“Well, honey, I bought some new fridge magnets and waited for the second coming. You didn’t miss it.”) Lina asked if I had an extra hour for our next session.
“It might be helpful,” she’d said, “to weigh your options by recounting it all.”
“Weigh what options?”
Lina didn’t meet my gaze.
“That’ll be up to you, Ella.”
Checking my watch, I see it’s eleven thirty five now; I’m a few minutes late. I stand reluctantly in the dark hallway of Lina’s office, knowing that I’ll love telling her about my relationship more than I’ll love returning home to it. Stomach flipping at the thought, I lift my hand to the bronze knocker. Lina opens the door before I reach it and beckons me inside.
“What are you, psychic?” I ask.
“So I’ve been told.”
I cross my legs awkwardly, as though I’ve never stood before. Lina watches me closely while settling into her armchair. She wants me to sit, but I won’t sit. I’m not ready to sit. It’s a whole ordeal, getting out of that recliner once you’re down.
“Take your time,” Lina says, unprompted.
◯ ◯ ◯
We settled in Chicago about three years ago when Sawyer received a generous offer from a top law firm. At the time, our relationship had recently exited the honeymoon stage. We hadn’t been fighting or bored of one another, even after a year in our supposed prime: the carefree mid twenties. I had an aunt who lived in Aurora and Sawyer found us a large apartment with lots of potential——or damage, depending on whether or not you’re a real estate agent. Our friends from Montana, where Sawyer and I were living when we met, insisted on a last lunch the week before we left. All seven of us sat around a circular table, exchanging wistful glances that were far from genuine. Jenna, an overly chatty nurse who was only part of the group peripherally, chose the moment that our waiter arrived with food to comment on renovating a home in a new relationship.
“It’ll either make you or break you,” she said.
The waiter stared at Sawyer. I think he must’ve been pretty perceptive, because Sawyer doesn’t openly display annoyance.
“Who had the Cobb?” he asked.
“Ella,” Sawyer said, rubbing my back as he answered.
Jenna took a generous swig of her white wine and puffed out her lower lip.
“See, this is what I’m talking about! Always touching her, right, Sawyer? You’re in a good place now, but just wait until you have to pick a rug. I’m not saying anything will happen, of course, it won’t because you two are solid, I’m just saying this so you know. Red rug, yellow rug, no rug, who really cares? You have each other.”
I recall feeling an all-consuming urge for Sawyer to throw our dishes to the side and fuck me on the table, right under Jenna’s dinky little nose. He had put his hand on my thigh instead, gripping it tightly. It was enough for me to get the message——we’d be fine. Sawyer began poking at my salad, picking out the bacon with his fingers. Our waiter, still standing with full plates in his hand, interrupted Jenna’s one woman show.
“I’m sorry, did you want that without the bacon? I can take it back for you.”
I looked over to Sawyer, still munching on tiny pieces of meat like a little mouse. I just didn’t like bacon.
“He’s got it,” I said.
Sawyer looked up suddenly, as though returning from a dream, and beamed at me. He used to be so easy to please.
By the time we finished dinner that night, Jenna had demolished a full bottle of Chardonnay and needed to be driven home. Sawyer tucked her into the back seat and opened the passenger door for me. We blasted the radio as we drove her home, a fifties station, in a desperate attempt to cover our spontaneous bursts of laughter. Burnt orange mountains blurred out the side of my window, the last shreds of sunlight kissing their peaks. I felt certain Jenna’s warning would be purposeless——and it was. The apartment didn’t break us. I’m not sure what did, exactly.
Our luggage got lost on the flight to Chicago. We arrived in our apartment, an open square space with one bathroom and no isolated bedroom, empty handed other than small carry ons. Every corner of the room was drowning in dust, leaving us sneezing all over the floor. I began to cry, as I did when I first arrived in any location I’d never been before. Sawyer was unvexed and began to pet the top of my head. It wasn’t particularly romantic or comforting, so I moved. He just stood there, arm outstretched with nothing underneath it, looking hurt. Realizing my tantrum had nothing to do with Sawyer, I slowly crawled back over to him, sliding back underneath his hand. He smirked, dragging his fingers through my hair and down to my hips.
Sawyer made a point of treating my body delicately during foreplay, as though there was a risk of it shattering before we got to a bedroom. When he kissed the side of my neck, I felt a drop of sweat seep through his t-shirt onto my back. I spun around, electrified, ready to kiss him properly. He caught me by my shoulders and pushed me away.
“We don’t have a vacuum,” he said.
I sat down on the floor dramatically, crossing my legs.
“And that’s what you’re thinking about right now?” I asked.
Sawyer crouched on his knees so that his nose was on level with mine. He inched closer to my ear.
“I’m thinking,” he whispered, “that if we don’t get a vacuum to clean up these floors, we’re going to be doing more sneezing than…”
I shoved the strings of Sawyer’s sweatshirt between his teeth before he could finish. He surveyed the room, gagged and silent. Across from us, there was a set of two towering windows that were caked in grime but still allowed spots of yellow light to trickle onto the wooden floorboards. Sawyer spit out the fabric in his mouth and spun me into a tight hug.
We let each other go gradually, taking our time until we were no longer touching.
Our meet-cute with the apartment was cut short when renovation reality set in. Stanley, our contractor, criminally ripped us off, extending his hours beyond what we’d planned or pausing work at random to convince us we needed a sink with a pasta handle. Sawyer and I were fed up with him only one month into his contract. We sat on the couch together, a modern maroon piece shaped like an L that wrapped around the room. Sawyer didn’t think we should start the termination email with hello, it was too friendly. I thought that starting with hello would be less aggressive.
“Why are you worried about being kind?” he asked.
“He knows where we live, Sawyer,” I said. “Who knows what he’d do with that information.”
Sawyer cackled.
“Return of the Contractor? Contractor’s Vendetta? Is that what you had in mind, Ella? I think the worst he could do is knock.”
I shot him a warning look. He stood up from the couch and locked the front door.
“Plus,” he added, returning to sit even closer to me than before, “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
For a moment, I noticed the blue veins pulsing in Sawyer’s hands and believed him. He was just strong enough that I was protected but not so strong that I felt overpowered. It was a comforting balance. We sent the email to Stanley, flirting through faux-arguments about phrasing, and decided to tackle making some cabinets of our own. I gave him a handjob while we drove to Ikea.
Sawyer likes instructions, so he was a natural builder. He gave me the job of sorting screws——because if I were in charge, our cabinets would only be wooden slabs. I sat on the ground as he crouched, screwdriver in hand, underneath what would soon be a bookcase. Standing up, I went to hook my hands around his waist. He turned to me, holding his hammer weakly at his side and looking disoriented.
“You look good doing that,” I told him.
“And you’d look even better than me if you kept sorting those screws.”
“Maybe. I’m clocking out, though.”
It was getting late. I sauntered over to the kitchen, opening our drawers and fridge to see if there was anything left. Sawyer had a much smaller appetite than I did, so he could manage skipping dinner, but I had an awful attitude when I was hungry. I decided to spare him the sass and suggested that we go out for dinner. He dropped the screwdriver to the floor and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I have to finish this project now that I’ve started it. You can go without me; I’m not hungry.”
I’d eaten with Sawyer for so long that the concept of a meal was no longer a solitary one. I felt embarrassed at the idea of eating without being admired——and subsequently, embarrassed at my own discomfort. Turning away, I began to shove random items into my purse so I looked like I was doing something: old mints, uncapped lip-balm, a movie stub. When the bag was halfway full with junk, I decided to give up the act and be hurt.
“You don’t have to finish now. We could do it tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah, I could do it tomorrow. But I’ve got briefs piling up and I know you can’t manage this on your own.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“That’s not true,” I said. “I’d figure it out.”
Sawyer beckoned to the room around us, empty other than our couch and a mattress in the corner.
“Like how we figured all this out? It’s been a month already, Ella, and this place isn’t anything. We need to move on from this stage, grow up a little.”
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized we were having a fight. I just didn’t want to eat dinner alone. His company was second nature to me, sheltered and unsurprising; I’d developed a dependence on it. Suddenly, I felt insecure about the pillows thrown hastily in the corners of the room. I couldn’t remember which one of us did that. Moving slowly toward the mattress, I started to pick each one of them up and line them against the wall. Sawyer came up from behind me, moving my hair to one side of my neck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing my cheek.
◯ ◯ ◯
Lina sets aside her notepad and leans forward to look closer at me——I figure it’s a therapist tactic so I mimic her movement to make her laugh. She doesn’t. Instead, she stands up and begins pacing around the room, mumbling the timeline of my story to herself without actually asking if she had everything correct. When Lina returns to her seat, she tells me I look stiff.
“Lean back,” she says.
I oblige, begrudgingly.
“I may fall asleep,” I tell her.
“You might be more truthful half asleep than you are right now.”
I wasn’t actively lying. It was presumptuous of Lina to assume that I was glazing over crucial details—presumptuous and correct. Giving in, I shut my eyes and shove my hands into my pockets.
“When Sawyer and I started dating we made one another a list of our pet-peeves.”
Lina scribbles something down. I’m sure it doesn’t matter, but the pencil scratch makes me anxious, so I begin to frantically explain myself further.
“It wasn’t neurotic I promise, it was romantic. Sawyer didn’t want to lose me over loud chewing or knuckle cracking; he just wanted to know everything necessary to love me correctly. In advance of actually loving me, that is.”
“In advance?” Lina asks.
“I mean, we made those lists two weeks into dating. Love wasn’t exactly in the cards yet. I thought it was sweet how curious he was about me, so I played along and answered every question he could come up with. Having someone know your breakfast order can be nice but Sawyer… it was beyond that; it was like he wanted to remold himself for me.
Outside Lina’s window, the clouds are turning purple. I lay motionless for a moment, thinking about Sawyer eating dinner alone. Lina gestures for me to continue.
“Sawyer didn’t ask for my coffee order because he was curious, he asked for my coffee order so that he could bring me that drink everyday. He’s forced himself to like showering in hot water because I shower in hot water and how else would we shower together? I’m not just Ella anymore, not after someone has put in so much effort to align with everything I am. I’m still Ella, I guess. I’m just…”
“Ella of Ella and Sawyer,” Lina says.
◯ ◯ ◯
Decorating never really ends. We’d lived in the apartment for a year and I still felt there was work to be done. Sawyer insisted we were finished, everything looked beautiful. There was an emptiness that lingered, but it had nothing to do with the space itself; no corner was left untouched or unfilled. I started waking up in the middle of the night, shooting upwards stiffly and stumbling into the kitchen. In the dark, the room felt unoccupied; like Sawyer and I didn’t live there and no one ever had. Darkness rested comfortably over the curves in our furniture, blurring out all the details of the work we’d put in. With every passing evening, I’d wake up more gently, sliding out of bed in an oversized T-shirt to sit in the black. In early hour daydreams, I’d wander around our living room and pretend we’d never moved in——pretend we were new, still feeling nervous and learning where to kiss each other.
During daylight hours though, I’d made some friends. Kathy, the stocky blonde woman who lived across the street from us, bought me a coffee within the first week of our move-in. She had three kids (“we’re trying for another though”) and thought I’d get along well with her babysitter, Amira.
“Well, Kathy, I’m actually perfectly safe on my own. I promise I won’t use the oven when Sawyer isn’t in the house,” I’d joked with a patient smile.
Kathy nearly spit out her coffee when she laughed. It sounded like plastic—and I didn’t think my joke was so funny.
Amira and I did find each other eventually, though. She liked to drink a lot, and I took pleasure in watching drunk people. When we first met up at a skeevy dive bar around the corner from the apartment, Amira asked if I would ever get a tattoo. Her arms were full of them, cartoon characters and flowers marked permanently on her skin in ink. I decided to say that I would.
“Kathy showed me a picture of your boy,” she said expectantly.
I notice often that people not in relationships are unapologetic in requesting confidential details about those who are in relationships.
“He’s easy on the eyes. And a redhead! Does the carpet match the—”
“Yep!” I cut in.
Amira laughed excitedly. Her attraction to Sawyer didn’t bother me much. It was nice, though a little draining, to have someone who I could teach about Sawyer. Retelling all his idiosyncrasies with a girl who’d never known them before almost convinced me that I didn’t either. Amira got to live vicariously through me and I through her. When I came home that night, Sawyer and I broke what was almost a month long dry spell. He’d been busy with work. I thought about how thankful I was to have met Amira as he flipped me around on the bed.
◯ ◯ ◯
“I’m curious what event you’re avoiding,” Lina says out of nowhere.
I sit upwards defensively. She doesn’t make eye contact, keeping her head at her papers.
“From what you’ve told me so far,” she continues, “you’re experiencing a sense of identity loss which is a common crisis in adult relationships. It’s manageable, if you love each other enough to work on it. But it seems that you’re hovering around what made you realize your relationship with Sawyer wasn’t fixable.”
It was black outside now.
“I’d like to get to that,” Lina said.
◯ ◯ ◯
Sawyer and I had a big, oak dining room table in the far right corner of our apartment. It was an exorbitant purchase, but he was being promoted to senior associate at his law firm and we couldn’t think of anything to spend the money on. Each side of the table could be pulled underneath itself to adjust the size, and we said that we’d throw a big party solely to enlarge it. The guest list wasn’t actually huge: a few of Sawyer’s work friends, Kathy, Kathy’s husband, Jack, Kathy’s kids, Amira. Most of the guests were somehow connected to Kathy, which bothered me. We hired an obnoxious caterer who told us our plates were too small for the food and cleaned the apartment top to bottom. I pulled some chilled cocktail glasses from the freezer, suddenly feeling anxious about the smudges my fingers made on their edges. Kathy was the first to arrive, her whole crew stumbling behind her like ducklings, and brought a bottle of red and quinoa crackers. I saw Sawyer trying not to laugh when he put them away in the cabinet. Kathy’s children, a set of three year old twins and their six year old sister, were not nearly as irritating as their mother. Sawyer seemed to lighten as he watched them running around the apartment, bumping into corners and jumping right back up as though nothing had touched them. Amira planted herself on the ground during our dessert course, trying to quiet the six-year-old, Grace, when she was told she couldn’t have a macchiato. Sawyer bent down with her, dropping his napkin onto the floor.
“I have something better,” he told her.
Grace’s eyes widened; every adult at the table smiled at her tenderly.
“Ella and I have a special hot chocolate packet in that closet,” he said, pointing around the corner, “it’s like coffee but sweet.”
Kathy wiped her mouth to cover up a grateful laugh. Jack put his arm around her back. When Grace scuttled away, Kathy turned to Sawyer.
“Well done,” she told him.
Sawyer shrugged his arms and sat back next to me. There was still a small piece of souffle on his plate, which he picked up daintily and fed to me. I didn’t ask him to do it——but he knew I liked P.D.A. and made a point of reminding me I told him that. Honestly, I don’t care for it much anymore. Candles on the table were starting to burn low, leaving a mellow glow on everyone’s faces. Sawyer took control of the conversation, making sure that I was only in the spotlight when I wanted to be. A few hours passed by this way, wine bottles emptying and laughter getting louder, until life began draining from the evening. Jack had made some witty jokes and Amira kept her drinking to a minimum, which I appreciated. Midnight came around quickly and the guests began to leave.
When Sawyer and I were alone again, he made a point of attending to my needs. He turned down the bed for me, knowing that I would only ever sleep on the left side, and ran a bath with lavender salts. I was exhausted by too much social interaction. After every party or office event, Sawyer would baby me as though he felt awful I had to go out at all. But I should’ve tried harder to socialize with people that night, he should’ve forced me into the conversation more. I was just as complacent in this routine as he was, though. As I glided into the tub, salts crumbling against my skin, I realized that there were benefits to his awareness of me—but it couldn’t go on forever. Sawyer sauntered into the bathroom in a pair of briefs.
“Care for some company?”
“Always.”
He got into the tub as gracefully as possible, trying not to splash water onto the floor. Laying on top of him with my feet just above the water, I pulled his arms around my bare chest. Sawyer leaned his face on mine drowsily.
“I think I’d be a good dad,” he said under his breath.
My heart began to race. It felt like the water temperature had dropped.
“I don’t disagree,” I said. “But we’re not even married.”
Sawyer sat up straight.
“I know but… It’s been on my mind a while, actually. Seeing Kathy’s kids tonight sealed the deal for me a little. I’d be ready whenever you are.”
I surveyed the bathroom absentmindedly, trapped in the image of our living room after dark. Sawyer wanted a life with me, I knew that, but I wasn’t sure that there was a me anymore. I was an extension of him, more counterpart than lover. I got out of the tub, letting water drip off my cool body, and put on a threadbare robe.
“I’ll keep you posted,” I said, anticipating a chuckle.
Sawyer sat in the tub dismally, staring down as the water began to drain.
◯ ◯ ◯
“Can I sit up now?” I ask.
Lina nods and I push the recliner firmly.
She passes me a box of tissues from her side table. I don’t even realize I’m crying until dots start forming on my jeans.
Her office looks fuller than when I had arrived. The tall lamp flickering in the corner takes up more space, its off-white gleam touching every corner of the room. Lina’s papers, now strewn across the ground sloppily, decorate the floorboards. Everything feels more real, like I hadn’t actually been in the room until this very second. I wipe my nose and shove the dirty tissue into my jacket, watching as Lina waits for me to speak again. She seems sharp, surprisingly so considering how late we’d gone, with anticipation twinkling in her eyes.
“I think our time is up,” she finally says.
Lina stands up evenly and makes her way towards the door, turning the knob. I leave before I feel ready to go.
When I arrive back at the apartment, I notice that Sawyer has gone out but left a plate full of food in the fridge for me. I turn off the lights and eat it in the dark, waiting for him to come home.
