“Can anyone explain the plot to this movie?” I ask as we watch the mafia boss fuck his new wife for the thirteenth time in thirty minutes.
Becka throws a piece of popcorn at me, her eyes never leaving the television screen. “There is no plot.”
“I’ve seen porn with more plot than this,” Tamsin says, and Becka and I both swing our heads to stare at her, our mouths parted but curling up at the edges as we both fight back smiles. Tamsin notices and says, “What?”
Becka huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “Miles corrupted you quick.”
“Oh, like you and Trent have never watched porn together?”
She shrugs a shoulder, but her cat-that-ate-the-canary smile gives her away.
“Jolie, help me out here. It’s totally normal to watch porn with your significant other, right?” Tamsin asks.
I shove a small handful of popcorn in my mouth and pretend I can’t answer. The truth is, I don’t know. It’s not something Robbie and I ever did, but the idea does seem kind of hot.
There are a lot of things Robbie and I never tried that I was always curious about. He seemed more than content with the few basic positions we always used, and we both got off so there didn’t seem any point in changing things up.
Resentment and guilt plague me. Resentment that he seemed content with the status quo of our relationship and guilt for the resentment. Robbie treated me great. He loved me in such a pure way. I never had to question his honesty or loyalty like several of my girlfriends growing up. But I can’t deny our relationship felt stagnant. We’d become complacent, which I suppose is normal when you’ve been together as long as we had. After a certain point, you have to work a little harder to keep the spark alive, to realize that marriage isn’t always about fanning a flame, but sometimes tending to the low burning embers.
“Jo?”
“Hmm?” I pull myself from my thoughts and focus on Becka, who’s staring at me intently.
“Did you want another drink?”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
Becka stands up and grabs my glass and Tamsin’s, then heads to the kitchen.
“You doing okay?” Tamsin asks.
She may be only nineteen, but she’s wise beyond her years and has become a very dear friend since she and Miles got together over a year ago.
“I’m fine.” It rolls off my tongue with so much ease I don’t even question it.
She tilts her chin down and looks at me meaningfully. I break our eye contact and stare down at the bowl of popcorn in my lap.
“How are you really?” she asks.
“Some days I really am fine. But others…No one tells you what a mindfuck grief is. Maybe no one can because we all experience it differently, but I wish I’d had some kind of heads-up that it could be this way. That I would be at war with my emotions and held hostage by the whims of my grief. Some days I start to feel like maybe I can move forward, like I could actually follow through with what I know he would want for me. And others…other days I’m so weighed down by how much I miss him I can’t breathe.
“But then there are days that don’t fit in either of those boxes, and those days make me feel so much shame.”
She frowns and scoots closer, occupying the space where Becka had been sitting. “Why?”
I look up at her, tears in my eyes as I confess. “Because some days I’m so mad at him for things he did when we were together, or annoyed at things he wouldn’t do. Or irrationally mad at him for leaving me, when I know it wasn’t his choice.”
“What things are you mad about?”
I shake my head. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Hey, this is a safe space. Circle of trust.”
I open my mouth to speak right as Becka comes back in the room, a tray in her hand holding all our drinks. My mouth snaps shut.
“Alright ladies, refills are here. And there’s plenty more where these came from and guest rooms if you want to get trashed—or crash from your sugar rush,” she says with a smile to Tamsin as she sets the tray with Tamsin’s flavored water and my gin and tonic on the coffee table. She glances between us, and her carefree smile falls off her face. “Okay, what did I miss?”
“Nothing,” I say at the same time Tamsin says, “Jolie was about to tell me about things Robbie did or didn’t do.”
Becka sits down and gestures for me to carry on. “I’m all ears.”
I shake my head again. “I can’t. It’s got to be some kind of bad karma or something to speak ill of the dead. Besides, it’s stupid. He was an amazing husband and he loved me. Nothing matters more than that.”
“Well, if it’s still bothering you, then I’d argue it’s not nothing. So spill it, Jo,” Becka says.
I glance up at the screen, paused on the hero with his head between the heroine’s legs while her back is arched and her head is thrown back in clear ecstasy.
I point at the screen. “Fine, if we’re being honest, Robbie never went down on me. He didn’t like oral.”
Becka’s mouth drops open and Tamsin’s eyes are wide.
“Wait,” Becka says, holding up her hand in a stop sign. “You’re telling me he never ate you out?”
“Well, it wasn’t never. He tried once when we were in high school, and it was super awkward so we didn’t try again for a long time. But then a few years ago I told him I wanted him to go down on me, and I could tell he didn’t like it, which made me feel like something was wrong with me down there, so I stopped bringing it up and we went back to just having regular sex.”
Becka stares at me. “I have so many questions about your sex life now.”
I stare at them both, frozen to my seat, while internally, regret starts to nibble at my insides, steadily increasing until I feel like I’m being eaten alive for even implying my husband was less than amazing. He may not have been a stallion in the bedroom, but he loved me unconditionally. He loved me when I was insecure, confident, strong, weak, irrational, composed, and everything in between. He loved me as I was, with no qualifiers or things he felt needed to be improved for him to love me fully.
I was enough for him. Always.
And now I’m repaying his loyalty by suggesting I wasn’t satisfied. I feel sick.
Without saying a word, I clamp my hand over my mouth and shoot up out of my seat on the couch and dash to the bathroom, frantically closing and locking the door behind me. I hear Becka and Tamsin’s concerned voices on the other side of the door, but it’s as if they’re talking through a tunnel. I can’t hear a word they’re saying. I can only rush to the toilet and fall to my knees, dry heaving as silent tears stream down my face and guilt eats me alive.
When I’m convinced nothing’s actually going to come out, I sit back against the wall and bring my knees to my chest. The tears continue their soundless trek down my face, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to keep the sound of my sobs from escaping.
By the frantic jiggling of the handle, I know I’m failing.
I’m failing everything.
I knew how to be a good wife. But I don’t know how to be a widow. I could occasionally complain to my girlfriends about Robbie when he was alive and not feel riddled with guilt because I knew I was just venting frustrations. But to speak ill of him now—it feels like the worst kind of betrayal.
I sit there until the tears subside, but the sinking feeling in my stomach remains. I don’t know how to navigate this path I’ve been forced down. And underneath it all, I worry that if I can’t even handle thinking badly about one aspect of our life together without crippling guilt, how will I ever be able to move on?
How can I love Robbie and the ten years we had together and find room in my heart to love someone else? I don’t see how it’s possible. But most depressing of all, I feel like I’m letting him down either way.
“Jo, talk to us. Are you okay in there?” Becka’s voice finally breaks through the fog of my head.
“Jolie, please come out. We don’t have to talk about Robbie. We can just watch the movie. Please come out so we can see you’re okay.”
Am I okay?
I don’t think I’ve been okay since I woke up to Robbie’s slack face lying in bed next to me and realized he wasn’t breathing.
But it’s not fair of me to drag my friends into this well of grief I can’t seem to get out of. I push myself up on shaky legs, and after splashing some water on my face, I open the door to two very concerned faces.
Becka speaks first. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked or said anything about your sex life. It’s your business and to each their own. I didn’t mean to sound judgy.”
Taking a fortifying breath, I reply, “I know you didn’t. And I know it might not be the norm to stay with a man who won’t do oral, but it didn’t really matter. Because at the end of the day maybe things weren’t perfect, but I loved him and he loved me. And I would have kept on loving him for the rest of my life, through thick and thin, because that was the kind of love we had—the kind where you’re loyal to each other and steadfast, even when things get hard.”
My friends nod, their eyes shining with understanding, and then we walk silently back to the living room where Tamsin turns the movie back on and we all watch without commentary for a while. Then Tamsin says, “Could you imagine having two men as hot as these guys fighting for your affection? Hot damn.”
Becka lets out a relieved laugh, and I look at Tamsin with gratitude for fixing the mood I so abruptly killed earlier.
“You interested in a threesome now, Tam? I don’t think Miles is into those anymore, but I’d pay big money to see his reaction when you ask him to share you.”
Tamsin’s cheeks blush and she says, “Miles is more than enough man for me, and he definitely would never let another man have me.” There’s something in her voice that makes me think she likes how he is possessive of her.
Becka and Tamsin continue chattering about the hot male leads, while I sip my drink and wonder if Robbie’s hold on my heart will ever release enough for me to love someone else.