Circling the Drain

She knew it was coming. It had been coming for a while. All those late nights at work, the way he didn’t seem to talk to her any more. They drifted around each other like leaves in the wind, both taking their separate courses, living their separate lives.

She could smell the secret on him. It was as potent as any perfume, although he hid it well. Perhaps that’s how she knew. He never used to hide anything from her; she’d been able to read him like him a book, touch his innermost self with the tips of her fingers. Now, they were just two people, living in the house they had bought together, surrounded by pictures of happier times.

The pictures were dusty now. Gilded frames turned grey. Somehow, these memories had been left behind, forgotten. As she packed, she picked up each one, her fingers brushing across their faces. They had tackled life together; the pictures were testimony of every experience they had shared, the holidays they had taken. Rays of sunlight danced around beaming faces. Happy. They’d been happy.

She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped being happy. It had been such a gradual process; she didn’t notice it was happening until it happened. She looked at him, at the secrets he carried like a shroud around him, and she realised she didn’t know him anymore. They were stagnant, circling the drain. She was still young enough; if she found someone else she could have the white wedding, the children. She could move forward, rather than wandering around her empty house, wondering when everything had become so cold.

The clothes were the last thing she packed. Maybe it should have been the first thing, but they shared a wardrobe, and stripping it of all her clothes was the hardest part. Back when they had first moved in, she had insisted on it. The mirrored doors took up an entire wall. She looked at herself, at the tired eyes, the sharp cheekbones. He used to think she was beautiful, he used to tell her all the time, but lately he’d stopped. Maybe that meant he didn’t find her beautiful any more. She knew that she couldn’t compare to all the sleek females at his office, layered in makeup and self-confidence.

Maybe she should have tried harder, tried to keep the spark alive. Maybe it was her fault that he had slowly slipped away.

It didn’t matter now. She folded the summer dresses mechanically, trying not to look in the mirror. The first thing she’d do when she left was work on herself, work on what she wanted. Maybe she’d find a way to be beautiful again.

The front door banged, making her jump. She hated the way he banged the front door, just as she hated the way he always dumped the keys on the kitchen table, even there was a key hook right there. He slowly started walking upstairs and she frantically stuffed the last of the clothes in the suitcases.

“Honey? Are you there?”

She left the room, coming to stand at the top of the stairs. He had one hand on the bannister, looking up at her. There was a small, bald patch on the crown of his head, one that he insisted didn’t exist because he couldn’t see in. There was almost nothing of the boy she had first loved in the man before her.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” he said. She knew what he was going to say and her heart began beating faster, sweat slicking the palm of her hands. She didn’t want to hear this, how she had been usurped, how he had found someone else. She didn’t care, she knew she didn’t care, but somehow it broke her heart.

“Me too,” she said, wishing she could have left before he came home, wishing that they both could have been spared this moment. There was too much they had thrown away, too much they were leaving behind.

“Jenny, it’s been a long time.” He stopped, mid-sentence. The emptiness reached up and filled her, until she thought maybe she’d drift away. “We’ve been together a long time now.”

“Fifteen years,” she said. “It’s fifteen years today.”

And he’d forgotten. She thought maybe this moment, celebrating this moment, would bring them together, but he’d been so wrapped up in himself, he’d forgotten them.

That was when she’d known.

“Yes,” he said. He looked at her, shook his head. “Come on down, love, it’s silly doing this on the stairs.” The endearment dropped from his tongue, the word as dull as habit. She followed him to the sofa, sitting down because she thought maybe her legs wouldn’t be able to stand after he said what he needed to say. He sat down next to her, leaving just enough space between them for her to notice that they weren’t close enough to touch.

She closed her eyes, hands trembling. All she had to do was sit and let him tell her that it was over. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t the one to break things off. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want her anymore, because she didn’t want him. She didn’t.

“I know things have been difficult, Jenny, and I think that we should—”

“I’m leaving.” The words burst from her like fireworks, their explosions leaving silence in their path. She could feel the way that they ripped everything out of her, these words, these fireworks. What she had felt before was not emptiness. This, this hollow, throbbing pain in her chest, that made it difficult to breathe, this was emptiness. “I’ve packed my things. You know this isn’t working, Mark, you know it as well as I do.”

He didn’t move, he didn’t say anything, he just sat and watched her as she got up, hurrying from the room. He wasn’t even there when she came back downstairs, dragging the suitcases behind her. She went from room to room, calling him, her sadness turning to anger when she found he had fled. It felt wrong, everything about the situation felt wrong. He should have stayed, he should have wished her goodbye and good luck. Her breath hitched when she imagined him kissing her on the forehead one last time, paying homage to the relationship that had formed their entire lives.

She hauled the suitcases through the kitchen, her anger increasing when she saw he had hung up his keys. There was just a crumpled piece of paper lying there instead, which she swooped on in bitter victory, to place in the bin. One last triumph.

Only it wasn’t a piece of paper, it was a note. And inside it was a ring.