2:34 p.m.
Regie’s girlfriend would be at work for another 3 hours or so. He gripped the wheel as if he were bracing for impact as he crossed the intersection of 65th and 3rd. That’s 3 hours or so until the expected proposal. It plays on loop in his head at this point,
”Regiiie! When can we get married!?”
Her sweet voice echoes over, and over, and over. Pounding, as if it’s trying to escape, clawing a tunnel through his skull. She held such a kind tone asking such a loaded question.
Regie had always believed her voice to be nearly angelic. The type of voice you’d want to wake you up in the morning, at least for a while. But through repetition, even the hymns of an angel can sour. The slight tonal shifts become noticeable, then the screeches within the excited squeals. Not annoying, per se, nor irritating really. Just there.
There like the mountain of adult colouring books that had overtaken his left bedside table. There like her peanut butter knife in the sink. There like the slightly scungey facemask residue on their shared bathroom vanity, and the strands of fallen hair on the shower tiles. There like the ‘good morning’s and ‘good night’s, and every issue of ‘Martha Stewart Weddings’ from the past six months stacked nicely on the coffee table.
There… like her.
Just like all of the things he had gotten used to, he would get sick of them, and soon silently disdain them. He had always known that they weren’t kind thoughts, not thoughts to be expressed—rather, to be absorbed. The dismissed and hidden resentments had become quite the monster for Regie to contend with. It was never necessarily a battle, moreso a force hidden deep inside of him, judging him for being so evil.
2:47p.m.
That judgement… that deep, gut wrenching feeling, grew heavy in his stomach as he veered off to his right to an open parking space. 65th has always been “the spot” for any romantic rendez-vous. The string lights and copious amounts of cafés and ice cream shoppes put up a beautiful front for the tragedies that would begin there. First dates and honeymoon phases, as far as the eye can see. One may begin to ponder about the number of folks within walking distance of Regie at that very moment whose first dates would last forever. Forever. Forever.
“Regie, I want to marry you! I knew it since the day we met.”
It was getting louder. That time, as if she were in the car with him. There is something so perplexing, sickening, some may say, about yearning to bring someone happiness at the cost of your own. It’s barbaric, really. A masochistic desire meant to serve who, exactly? To imprison oneself in a legally binding agreement with a person whom they no longer desire.
Regie’s heartbeat slowed. The pulse in his neck radiated through his jaw in a way that brought his head to his hands. They were right to say that admitting it was the hardest part. He sat in a defeated silence. The rushing sounds of traffic appeared to soften under the memory reel that played in his head.
Every smile, every kiss, every laugh. He watched it all unfold. Fights and arguments, the feeling of her in his arms. It was an ache akin to grief, but for someone who was still alive. Someone he would return home to at the end of the day. Someone whose ring was ready to be picked up.
2:59 p.m.
With a strong exhale, Reggie lifted his head and began going through the motions of getting out of the car. It was as if he had exhonorated himself from any prior feelings. Everything returned to the status quo. Phone? Wallet? Keys? With the mere crack of the car door, the sound of the city amplified by a dozen.
A quick jaunt across the road, and he was stood outside the jewelers’.
