The Awkward Path To Getting Lucky. Summer Heacock
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he asks. He doesn’t seem shocked or hurt so much as he seems to want a casual clarification. His lackluster, almost accepting expression makes me suddenly confident I’m doing the right thing, despite the utter lack of forethought I put into this decision.
“No,” I say calmly. “I’m saying I think we should take a break, and during that break, you should be free to see other people.”
He sets the glasses down, and his face falls into an expression of confusion.
He’s still dressed in his work garb. He works for an IT solutions company downtown, where the dress code is polo shirts and jeans at its fanciest. Belts are worn by those who want to put in the extra effort to shine.
I look at Ryan in his half-untucked gray polo and beltless jeans and take a breath.
“Look, I’m just going to address the sexless elephant in the room here.” I sigh, throwing up my hands. His eyes go wide. “We haven’t had naked time together in almost two years, dude. Did you realize that? In thirty-four days it will have been a full two years.”
Ryan’s face goes blank, and he tilts his head ever so slightly to the side as he digests the information. “Huh.”
“Exactly,” I say, crossing my arms. “And I don’t know about you, but that seems kind of not great to me.”
His confusion returns. “So, because we don’t have sex anymore, you want to take a break? A break for what?”
I shrug, feeling electrically charged and sort of sick to my stomach. “I need to get this sorted out, and I honestly can’t focus on what I need to do while feeling like the biggest ass in the world for not being able to fulfill my girlfriendly duties.”
He rolls his eyes. “If it’s been two years, it obviously doesn’t matter to me if it takes some time for you to get better. Although it’s nice to hear you’re thinking about it. I figured you just weren’t into sex anymore.”
I gape at him. “What?”
“I don’t know,” he says defensively. “You never bring it up, so I just assumed.”
“Well, you never bring it up, either!”
He throws his arms up and says loudly, “Why would I bring it up? It’s your problem! What am I supposed to do? Be the jerk who asks for sex you can’t have?”
My jaw flops down and I stand up a little taller. “Excuse you,” I snap. “My problem? If I recall, I tried to get you to work with me on the stuff my doctor told me to do, and you didn’t want to because it was too weird.”
Looking a little embarrassed, he regroups. “Look, I’m sorry, but sex isn’t supposed to be that complicated. And you told me she said the therapy was stuff you were supposed to do. You said you’d take care of it and let me know when things were okay again.”
Now I feel my face burning. “Well, things aren’t okay.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath that is irritatingly shaky. “What I’m saying is, I’ve gotten so caught up in life and work that I haven’t been able to make it a priority, and I want to take the time to focus on everything now.”
His eyes shift to the side. His trademark confused look. “That’s...good?”
Calmly I continue, “But I don’t want to feel like I’m keeping you on some sexless leash any longer. That isn’t fair to either of us. So let’s just call this a break. You go off and do your thing for a few weeks, and I’ll be here doing mine, and then we’ll regroup and see if we can’t get back to where we’re supposed to be.”
“For how long?”
I square my shoulders. “Until our anniversary.”
He stares at me, and I can’t tell if he’s just contemplating what I’m saying or preparing to argue again. I walk around the counter and close the distance between us. Reaching out, I put my hands on his forearms.
“I love you,” I assure him while silently missing his floppy curls all the same. “And I know I told you I didn’t want to live together until I got this vaginismus nonsense under control, and I meant that. But you said you’d keep asking on our anniversaries, and I really, really want to be able to say yes this time.”
“For the record,” he clarifies, “I love you, too. And I’ve always been okay with us living together, with or without the sex.”
“I know,” I say with a smile, “but I’m not. I need to fix this—for myself, and for us. I’m ready to move on to greater things, Ryan. This holding pattern isn’t good for anyone anymore.”
He looks frustrated, but doesn’t pull his arms away. A little calculator in the back of my head announces that this is the longest we have touched in months.
“And you want us to see other people?” he asks.
My eyebrows involuntarily twitch. “Yep. I mean, that’s more for you than me, as I’ll be involved in independent activities, but yeah. Go out. Get laid. You’ve waited long enough. And then on our anniversary, we’ll meet back up and get to where we should have been this whole time.”
Now he does move away from me. I awkwardly let my hands drop to my sides. “You’re actually telling me to go have sex with other women. Are you drunk?”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “No, I’m not. And yes, I am serious. I mean, I’d appreciate it if you were careful with protection and didn’t, like, actively seek to bang your way up and down the Midwest, but yeah, if you’re in a place where an opportunity arises naturally and you want to sleep with someone, I say go for it.”
He looks floored. “And you have no problem with that? With the idea of me having sex with someone else?”
I consider this, wanting to be as honest as possible. “It’s not my favorite, and I’m not going to go into great thought imagining you in whatever situations may arise, but yeah, I’m okay with it. I can’t stand the guilt hanging over me anymore, Ryan. You have needs that I’m not meeting, and it just makes sense to let you live your life while I’m getting my shit together over here.”
Ryan gently shakes his head, but seems very calm. He places his hands on the counter by the plates, and his fingers start tapping. Whenever he’s deep in thought, they tap out little non-rhythmic signals. He works with computers all day, so I like to imagine he’s subconsciously working through things by tapping out binary code or something.
“This is sick.”
I give him an encouraging grin. “I like to think it’s practical. And it’s only thirty-four days.”
Ryan stares at me for a long moment, fingers still rapping out a beatless sound, and I can’t read his thoughts in the slightest. He looks down at the food he was setting out before I came in and dropped a giant bomb of what-the-fuck.
“I got that veggie korma you like,” he says with a sigh, pointing to a tray of yellow sauce. “And the garlic naan.”
I’m familiar with this form of acceptance. Ryan is very go-with-the-flow, which is generally a good yin to my yang. Part of me feels a little bad for steamrollering him, but the rest of me knows I’ll be able to make it up to him with sweet, sweet lovin’ in thirty-four days.
“It smells awesome,” I say with a smile.
He seems to easily fall back into our comfortable Wednesday date-night routine as he hands me a plate. “So,” he says, spooning rice out onto a plate of his own, “how was work?”
I grab a fork and quietly let out a deep breath. This is going to work. I’ve totally got this.
Hell, I bet I won’t even need all thirty-four days.
“You what?” Shannon