Page 8 of Untying the Knot
Why can’t he be the man I once knew and fell in love with?
Why can’t our life be like it used to be several months ago when we were the only things that mattered in each other’s lives?
Why can’t I see myself lasting here even when I once thought Ryot’s love was all I needed to feel complete?
* * *
RYOT
Four weeks later . . .
“What the hellis wrong with you, Myla?” I shout as I shut the garage door behind me and toss my keys on the kitchen counter.
“Wrong with me?” she asks, spinning around to face me. Her piercing blue eyes slice right through me. “If you don’t know the answer to that question, then I can’t help you.” She takes off toward the stairs.
I follow.
“I don’t know the fucking answer. I can’t read your goddamn mind.”
Fresh from my good friend JP’s engagement party, where I had to deal with her cold shoulder and tight-lipped attitude, followed by a magnificent display of the silent treatment in the car, I’ve just about had it.
Myla pauses at the top of the stairs and says, “Then I can’t help you.” She spins back around and heads into our bedroom.
I’m going to have a fucking coronary.
Charging up the rest of the stairs, I plow into the bedroom, where Myla is slipping off her dress. “Uh, excuse me, a little privacy, please?”
Through a clenched jaw, I say, “You’re my goddamn wife. There is no such thing as privacy.”
“What rulebook are you reading? Peeping Tom, Edition One?”
“Enough with the sarcasm, Myla.” I tug on my hair, my patience nonexistent at this point. “Just tell me what the fuck I did that has put you in this shit mood.”
“Like I said, if you don’t know—”
I grip her wrist and spin her toward me. Only in her bra and underwear, her body presses against mine. I wrap my arm around her waist.
“Now, Myla, we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”
She rolls her eyes. “What are you going to do, Ryot? Fuck it out of me? Pretty sure we’ve figured out that sex doesn’t get us anywhere in our arguments.”
Realizing this might be more serious than I first assumed, which was some way I’ve annoyed her again, I say, “Then tell me what I can do. Tell me what the hell is going on so I can fix it.”
“Why do you even care?” she asks as she presses her hand against my chest and attempts to get away.
“Why do I care? Uh, because you’re my goddamn wife, because I love you, and because I don’t want to live in this constant state of anger that we’ve been living in. Hell, Myla, it’s been a month of this cold shoulder bullshit.” Off and on. More angry days than not.
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not. Ever since we moved out to California, you haven’t been yourself.”
“Oh, so this is my fault?” Her expression morphs into disbelief. “Are you really going to blame me?”
“No, Jesus. I’m just trying to have a conversation.”
She pushes away from me and steps toward the bathroom. “Yeah, well, communication has never been our strong suit, now, has it?”
“Because you won’t fucking talk to me,” I say. “You won’t communicate with me. You just shut down. And when I do try to have a conversation, you turn everything into sex.”
