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Relationships were a Hollywood projection. Just like flawless figures, wrinkle-free faces, and straight white teeth after chainsmoking. Hollywood romance was packaged with a shiny red bow and placed on store shelves, tempting down payments on diamond bands and ruffled wedding dresses with bustles like ten stacked tea tables and lace trains longer than the Nile River.
Parsley wouldn’t venture far enough over the line to call relationships a sham. Maybe they were. Maybe they weren’t. Just because all of his relationships had fallen through didn’t mean the entire concept was shaky. Right?
Plenty of people were in relationships so tightly laced, healthy, and brimming with love that they were real-life testimonies of soulmates. Some people were made for each other. Or they could have fooled him, anyway.
Every jut and socket of their personality clicked into place with that of someone else. Seamless. A half plus a half equals one whole. But he’d been crunching numbers all day, and accountant or not, maybe his math was screwy.
Historians or paleontologists or something say that, long ago, all the land in the world was locked together like that too, into one giant continent. Pangaea or Gaia. Whatever. Over time, stress made rifts and cracks until the continent split. Broke up. Went in separate ways. And the rest was boring history.
God, he was a sap. Laying in bathwater that had gone cold half an hour ago and thinking about continents and things he couldn’t change.
It wasn’t Jerafina’s fault he was spending the evening this way. Jerafina was so happy with Lulia that the happiness splashed out and onto everyone she came across. Just like her key lime coolers. She could prattle on for hours about Lulia-this and Lulia-that, and even if she was ever sober she wouldn’t stop gushing.
Parsley was a bad friend.
He should’ve found it easy to echo Jerafina’s enthusiasm. He should’ve been delighted that she shared her excitement with him. He was her best friend, after all. But he’d halfheartedly façaded his way through some laughing congratulations and forgeries of interest.
He should’ve been happy for her, but he left the lounge feeling like the pits. The absolute utter pitch-black slimy cold pits.
He was a bad friend. Just like he’d been a bad husband.
He slipped deeper into the tepid water until the ripples hit his chin. The thinned-out suds crackled and fizzed next to his ears.
He’d been warding off the thought all day. It’d been there ever since Jerafina sashayed off and left him slumped at the counter over his half-empty mojito. He’d felt it. Heavy and creeping as it rolled in, like a storm cloud easing closer. A pressing sensation of dread that something bad was nearby and getting closer by the minute. Just like the days when Mama would grab his arm, feign a smile for the public, and say through her gritted teeth that he was going to get it when they got home.
Well, he’d gotten home. And the thoughts hit harder than anything else.
Why had a puppy-dog crush from middle school left him like this?
He’d been twelve years old. Still wearing those big black velvet bows and glossy penny loafers. Just like Mama wanted. He looked stupid and he knew it. On midterms day, the stress had boiled over like a forgotten teakettle and he’d sat in the library in the empty economics section and cried like his cat had been run over. And Martin—quiet, thoughtful, dreamy-eyed Martin from social studies—had found him.
Parsley stared at the beige shower tile. It’d been thirteen years since Martin found him. The memory was so crystalline that it felt like last week, but at the same time foggy enough to be ancient history. A dream. A story he’d heard from a friend of a friend and barely remembered.
Martin had been a beanpole of a kid with glasses like the bottoms of glass Coke bottles. He could’ve stood atop a hill of powdered sugar and not left a footprint. But at that time, not even a six-foot-tall brick wall of a rugby player could’ve made Parsley feel more safe from the rest of the world.
Martin crouched beside Parsley behind the laden book cart. With those goggles, he looked like an owl. A frightened, concerned, scrawny plucked little owl.
“Are you okay, Paisley? You’re not hurt, are you? The exam is in fifteen minutes.”
“It’s Parsley.” No gratitude. No courtesy. It blurted out like jelly from the other end of a doughnut after a too-big bite. He’d always been a brat.
Martin faltered. “Oh, gosh—Parsley. What’s going on?”
How was he supposed to explain it? To someone he’d spoken to only once or twice before, even?
Mama twisted my arm before I left for the bus and told me if I don’t make an A this time she’ll make sure I can’t sit down for a week because she works too hard to raise a deadbeat of a son and Dad probably agrees but he’s too scared to say either way and Mama says if I ever cry one more time before school about the bows she’ll turn me out and I’ll have to buy my own clothes somehow and I’ll wish I had been grateful for her because she does everything for me even though I don’t deserve it—
So how’s your day going?
But the only words that he could manage just squeezed out with a couple more goopy tears. “I forgot to study the last section of Chapter Eight.”
He’d stuck a gob of grape bubblegum between those pages during the first week of class after being reminded that he couldn’t chew gum in class. But Martin didn’t need to know that.
“Oh.” Martin drew a breath through his teeth that sizzled. “Would you want me to go over it with you? Really quick? We still have time.”
“You’d do that . . . ?” Martin was just a watercolor smear through Parsley’s flooded eyes, but even through the fog, his smile dazzled, full of all the light in the world sparkling off his braces like a city skyline at midnight.
They’d spent the next ten minutes huddled together over the textbook. Parsley couldn’t remember a thing they’d studied. All he remembered was that those ten minutes were the most comfortable ten he’d ever had in his life.
Martin read the two pages. His voice barely cracked. His head bent over the book, close to Parsley’s. So close that Parsley felt puffs of breath tickle through his hair.
They belonged there. Side by side. Parsley could have fallen asleep that way, bedraggled from crying and exhausted and soothed by Martin’s monotone, with his head against Martin’s shoulder, as though they were a couple at a nine-’o’-clock movie showing and not classmates cramming minutes before an exam.
But the minutes skipped by on delicate ballerina tiptoes, and Martin squinted at his clunky wristwatch.
“A couple minutes to spare. How are you feeling?”
"Better." His heart was melting, dripping through his ribs, gooey and hot like caramel straight from the saucepot. "Thanks."
"I'd love to study with you anytime, if you want." Martin smiled again. "You've got this, Parsley. I can tell."
He'd almost started crying again.
They’d both been just kids. Saturday morning cartoons and catching up on seventh grade gossip and sharing a table with friends at lunch should have been the biggest concerns of their lives. The future was distant. After all, even high school graduation was years away and wrapped in mystery. Adulthood was a fantasy of no curfews, convertible cars, and maybe getting married. But it was far away.
Middle school crushes were ripples. Plunk goes a stone in the water. Plunk goes that first heartthrob. Out scatter ripples. Out scatter the waves that rock the world. And then they’re gone and forgotten.
Parsley watched the ripples that skittered over the patches of water between the mounds of suds when he breathed.
He’d never thought a shy infatuation that bloomed from a few minutes of leaning over a book together would become anything more.
But the middle school crush led to high school dates. Study dates at first: at the table in the corner of the library, books stacked, sneaking glances at each other and always noticing but pretending they never did. Sleepy hours, rolling by like cotton candy puffs. Hands brushing, accidentally, then deliberately, then clasped together beneath the table while their free hands fumbled with pages. Quick awkward hugs before they left for class, or kissing in the dusty corner of the history section and leaving the library as rumpled as if it’d been gym class.
Study dates blended into real dates—the kind that made Parsley’s friends gasp with astonishment and delight. Martin wasn’t celebrity material, and might not have been a solid ten across the boards, but he had his share of attention even if he seemed to be a regular bonafide Mormon and had no reputation of being wild or scandalous.
But who needed wild dates? Marty took everything in a slow, easy way with slow, easy grins. Lunch dates were sharing sundaes and watching cars zip by and laughing at license plates. Movie dates ended with Parsley never knowing what movie had played because he’d fallen asleep in Marty’s arms. Sultry summer evening dates were waving away mosquitoes, tangling on a picnic blanket next to the lake, kisses tasting like cold lemonade.
Prom. The first time Parsley had ever worn a suit. Fresh from the thrift store, still smelling of mothballs, and two sizes too big, but Marty must have told him a dozen times that he looked amazing. Incredible. Handsome.
Even then Parsley knew he was the shortest kid in school; gawky, awkward, and out of proportion in all the ways a seventeen-year-old can be, cuffs rolled up in big chunks over his wrists and his belt needing some thumb support to stay hitched on his hips—but for the first time, it didn’t matter. That evening, he was the best-looking guy in the whole school. Maybe even in the world. Every time Marty said it, Parsley believed it more.
Graduation. Eighteenth birthdays. Making use of the spacious backseat of Marty’s hand-me-down Porsche. Applying for part-time jobs at the same office, so they would never spend a day apart. Sneaking Dad’s bottles of stale pilsner from the fridge and popping caps together for the first time. Marty held back Parsley’s hair when he puked, held it back just like those stupid velvet bows used to.
University applications and entrance exams. Weeks of waiting and gently squeezing hands for reassurance. Celebratory bottles of crisp lager and driving under neon club signs past midnight when they’d gotten the acceptance letters. Dismay when they’d learned that roommates were chance assortments. They didn’t share classes. If they lived apart? They’d never see each other.
Marty insisted that he wouldn’t settle for anyone other than Parsley sleeping in his room at night. He’d leaned against the wall, forehead in his hand, while Parsley paced the room in long nervous strides.
“I’m going to make it work, Pars,” he’d said. “We’ll make it work.” And a kiss sealed the promise. Malt made it bitter.
They’d put off moving for another semester while they scraped up pennies. Rent wasn’t cheap. Renting an apartment on the campus border was the opposite of cheap. Un-cheap. They’d been so stupid. Stupid kids. Stupid and in love. So, so stupid. Why had the idea of being apart been so scary then?
Maybe if they’d let go of each other’s hands, they could have found the space to breathe. Maybe they could have learned more about themselves separately before they tried to learn what they were together. The last time they’d been apart was middle school. They’d been different people then. If only they’d stepped back, maybe the novelty of love wouldn’t have become sickening, like cramming down chocolate cake for every meal.
Maybe things would’ve worked out differently.
The stress of growing up mixed with the stress of campus life and the stress of making a fragmented budget work when the math just didn’t add up. All three flavors of stress stayed in a pot that was always boiling; a sloppy, foaming stew rolling with galloping bubbles and ready to spew onto the stove at any minute.
First they stopped eating dinner together. Parsley’s class ended at nine-thirty, and even if it hadn’t been too late for dinner, he would’ve been too exhausted to raise a spoon to his face anyway. He started flopping onto the sofa to sleep as soon as he got home, without even changing clothes. All his shirts needed ironing. Marty never mentioned the cold space in the bed next to him.
Parsley forgot to pick up a paper bag of groceries. They both went to bed hungry. He agreed to meet Marty for lunch at the café on campus, but by the time he glanced up from his books, it was after two.
“I’m sorry!” he’d yapped. “I told you already. I can’t help that I need to focus. Double majoring isn’t easy, Martin. I’m distracted, okay? I admit it. But my classwork is important.”
He’d sounded so loud when he said it. Had memory amplified it, or had he really sounded so tart and sardonic? Had his words really twisted like that, with a tang so sharp it was as though he were snarling about Mama instead?
He loved Marty. They were meant to be together. Dating had been easy as teenagers. But as adults, there were different problems to handle. Different challenges. That’s all they were: challenges. Every relationship has issues. Theirs wasn’t exempt. Overcoming disagreements would forge a stronger bond. It’d bring them closer.
Marty didn’t seem to think the same way. In effect, he closed the bedroom door. Parsley had always found it hard to clock Marty. To gauge his thoughts. As Parsley drifted in and out of classes as if caught on a breeze, sometimes half-asleep and still walking only by the grace of God and espresso, he saw less and less of Marty.
He should’ve had foresight. Parsley squeezed his eyes shut until something deep in his skull rumbled. He’d been an honor student and the biggest idiot imaginable.
Work had been too important to him. It’d always been. Proving himself, outdoing competition, kicking to be the best at everything. He couldn’t slide that on the shelf and leave it to collect dust while he fawned at Marty’s heels. He just couldn’t.
Marty was the same way. Maybe that had been part of what drew Parsley to him and enthralled him and made him feel so understood. Marty was what teachers called an “overachiever.” Just like Parsley, competition fueled him to push far beyond his means.
They didn’t have a bond that could withstand stress. It was papier-mâché. They thrived on neon diner dates with the jukebox blaring ‘80s hits for hours and ice cream-flavored kisses under street lamps and fogging up the Porsche windows on nights when they’d drank until the last call. But life wasn’t built on a foundation of dates and ice cream and slobbery drunk kisses.
He should’ve accepted that. Expected it. Anticipated it. Every sign had been waved in his face. They just weren’t ready for a committed, mature relationship. At least not until they’d graduated and gotten jobs. Maybe even longer.
The thought wiggled at the back of his mind, but even from a distance it was enough to make his stomach churn like a butter barrel. When the realization came fully into focus, he’d had to bulldoze his books off the table and into his backpack, grab his keys, and bang into the restroom before he puked up black coffee, toast, and half a boiled egg onto the nice gray library carpet.
He crouched in the corner of a stall with his forehead pressed against his knees. His brains swam like runny pudding through his head.
It had to be the stress overwhelming him. Right? Things would work out. Early twenties are a hard age for anyone. It was understandable to have spats here and there. The occasional bicker. A disagreement cropping up every once in awhile.
But life without Marty? Parting ways? Maybe dating other people in the meantime? No. No way. Driving Marty from his side would be worse than hacking off one of his own arms with a pair of craft scissors. He’d drop out before he’d let their relationship crumble.
He could still remember staring at the crumpled poster taped to the inside of the stall door. The words had been too blurry to read, grainy over the green cardstock, but the heavy bold header jeered: “Need Help With Stress Management?”
He’d cried in the bathroom stall with his face against his knees, oozing tears and snot over his gray pants and feeling as lost and small as he did in seventh grade with the bow in his hair.
He’d make up for how he’d pushed Marty aside and let him fall to irrelevance. He vowed it, to God or anyone else listening, that he’d fix things. He’d fix everything.
It’d been a spiritual sort of moment. A turning point. If he’d been in a movie, that would’ve been the point at which sunlight beamed from behind the boiling black storm clouds. But he was crouched on the floor of a dimly lit bathroom that reeked of pot and cheap sandalwood cologne. Soggy toilet paper hung in dripping streamers from the spool. Parsley wiped his face on his sleeve instead.
He left class early to dart to the convenience store on 23rd Street. He cracked open his wallet and shelled out enough money for a sushi box, two chocolate bars, and a trio of pink roses bundled up in purple tissue paper.
Like a kicked puppy creeping up to lick shoes in penitence, Parsley made his first attempt at recompense. Marty accepted without hesitation. They spent the rest of the evening feeding each other sushi and laughing when clumsy pokes sent jasmine rice tumbling. The books remained on the table, untouched, next to a mason jar of water that held three pink roses. They slept together that night.
Parsley’s work fell with a clank to second place. After that, it became even easier to let it thud to third place. Fourth. Fifth. Did it really matter that much? Parsley skipped class once a week to have lunch with Marty. Any time Marty smiled or laughed, Parsley got a little kick in his ribs, a flutter, as if he’d scored a point.
His grades might have been sinking into quicksand, but Marty still loved him. That was more important. He could get through anything with Marty by his side, holding his hand and giving him that smile that was like a sunrise on an Arctic morning.
Parsley eked out passing grades. Barely. The honors program wasn’t for him anyway, he’d decided. The disappointment of losing eligibility faded as soon as he curled up beside Marty on the couch to have an arm tucked around him and his hair stroked. Marty balanced his math textbook on his knee, as he did every night, and studied while cradling Parsley against his side.
College became the backdrop. A crushed velvet stage curtain. Keeping Marty happy was the priority.
And he must have done a fair enough job of it. One night in the fall semester, with the wind cracking branches and hauling snowflakes outside, Marty brought up the subject that hadn’t been mentioned in ages. He’d put his hand on Parsley’s cheek, smoothing his thumb along his jaw in that soft, tickly way.
He’d been quiet for awhile. Marty didn’t tend to be quiet after they’d spent an hour wrinkling the sheets. He’d always fumble for a cigarette and then he and Parsley would talk. About school. Family. Friends. That night, the cigarettes stayed in the box on the nightstand, and Marty fondled Parsley’s sweaty curls while searching his eyes. The silence stretched long and comfortable until Marty finally spoke.
“I want to have this to look forward to all my life,” he said. “Going to bed with you right here, and waking up to see your face before anything else.”
Parsley smiled just enough to scrunch his eyes shut. Marty’s thumb slid along his cheek, tracing the outline.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Marty said. “For awhile, I was . . . afraid. I was worried that maybe this wouldn’t work out. We did so well for so long, and then to have you seem to lose all interest in me—it scared me. But since then we’ve gotten closer than we’ve ever been.”
Parsley forgot to breathe while Marty spoke. Before he could protest that he’d never lost interest, and how could Marty ever think such a thing, Marty shifted closer and said,
“I love you, Pars. I always will.”
All Parsley knew to do was fold his arms around Marty’s neck and cling to him as though he might be taken away in a wisp of a dream at any moment. His effort had paid off. Marty loved him. Marty wanted this—them—to last forever.
They’d discussed the future in hushed voices under the orange lamplight. After graduation next spring, they would be married. They agreed on it. It was the best idea Parsley had ever heard.
He couldn’t sleep that night. He whittled away the hours by tossing from one side to the other in bed until Marty sleepily dropped an arm over him to tug him close and pin him in place. Locked in the embrace, Parsley stared through the ceiling, his mind packed and straining at the seams with thoughts of next spring.
A picturesque wedding. He’d ask his closest friends to choose the colors. Dogwood blossoms, hanging off the trees like popcorn. Big white roses the size of softballs, everywhere. Crisp white suits that shone like glaze under the candles, and saddleback oxfords polished until they glowed in the dark—maybe rented, maybe his own. Delicate glasses of shimmering champagne.
And what happened next? A honeymoon? Looking for a home that was built for two? Or what if they considered kids?
Nothing mattered anymore except for the promise of next spring. Content as a kitten full of warm cream, Parsley wedged his head between Marty’s chin and shoulder and slept.
If only every night after that had been the same. He couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened between that night and the following spring.
He’d fumbled through the rest of the semester. It’d been too late to try scrambling to improve anything in that regard. But again, how much did it matter? He was inches away from living a fairy tale.
Marty graduated magna cum laude with a gold fraternity emblem emblazoned on the diploma. Parsley graduated. He could still feel Marty’s searing stare, electric with shock, and hear the incredulous disbelief when he asked, “What happened, Parsley?”
He didn’t have to say the rest. Parsley knew already. What happened, Parsley? You were an honor student. You were studying business and law. You were headed for grad school with flying colors. You were supposed to be smart.
Maybe it had stung a little. Just a little. A little creeping itch of unease with a hint of that same old dread of what would happen when they got home.
But it was over. He could tuck that diploma away in the bookshelf and never think of school again. He had the rest of his life—their lives—to look forward to.
And they were married in a courthouse with no dogwood blossoms, no champagne, no shiny white three-piece suits, no huge snowball roses. It was quiet. Bare. It was as though they’d come to discuss a parking ticket.
Marty had insisted on a quiet affair. The budget didn’t have room for tuxedo rentals and cakes and catering. He hadn’t invited any friends. Parsley wondered why. Was he embarrassed? Ashamed? Was he keeping Parsley shuffled aside like some secret? They mumbled some things, signed some papers, and left. There wasn’t a ring on his finger, but he was married. And it didn’t feel any different.
Back then, he didn’t know how it felt. It’d been vague, like streetlights deep in the fog, hazy and chilly and buried deeper than an Egyptian tomb. But since then, he’d learned the name of that feeling that crept into his gut and wrenched it and made him wake up sick in the middle of the night.
Cheated. He’d felt cheated.
They pursued the careers they’d studied so hard for. Martin was hired first, snapped up like a steak dunked in shark water. The apartment was quiet when he was gone. The walls closed in, edging closer every time Parsley opened his eyes. Eventually he kept them shut, sleeping away the hours on the couch.
One day blurred into the next and the weeks dragged by, like water spilled over the desk calendar and smudging the dates into gray blots, with only the faintest outline of color.
Parsley sank deeper into the bathwater. His cheeks burned. The cold water lapped softly around his face. Why had he wasted so much time? Those days were locked up in a little box of memories and he had nothing to show for it.
What had been wrong with him? He’d gotten everything he’d ever dreamed of. No contact with his family. A tidy place to call his own. A life shared with the only one he’d ever loved. But he’d been empty as a bubble.
Slept all the time. Forgot to eat. Got sick when he remembered. He’d sustained himself with coffee and saltine crackers, and in the sweltering summer heat curled on the couch beneath a blanket and ached with cold. He hadn’t felt angry or sad or wistful. He hadn’t felt anything.
How could he? Martin skirted the house and stayed out far longer than any shift begged. He never told Parsley where he went beyond “work.” He’d kiss Parsley’s forehead at the breakfast table and stagger back in at midnight.
Parsley overheard him on the phone sometimes. Parsley would pretend to sleep, and Martin’s laughter made his stomach twist like a wet rag wrung between two fists. He never told Parsley who he called so often.
God, what had happened between them? If Martin was happy, he was happy. He just had to remind himself of that until it was true.
But then he’d gotten the job. An application he’d forgotten about had gotten him reeled in for an interview. He’d put on his suit that he hadn’t worn for ages and fluffed his hair and buffed his loafers. Something about having a newfound purpose was rejuvenating. His briefcase weighed half as much as he did now, but he didn’t want to ever let go.
Being out of the apartment was more refreshing than an escape from prison. He wasn’t slogging his way through the days anymore, waiting for Martin to come home as though Parsley were a loyal puppy laying by the door. He didn’t have to lay on the couch and count flowers in the wallpaper and wonder why Martin didn’t answer his calls even when his shift was over. Parsley was fine now. In fact, he was better than he’d been in ages.
Work was the best analgesic he’d ever had. He was too busy picking up the phone, scrawling messages, typing documents, and meeting clients to have a spare moment to be sick or wistful. Was he even sick anymore?
People at work complimented him. He was efficient. He knew what he was doing. He was innovative. His ideas were met with roaring approval. He was a delight to work with. He did his job so well that it made everyone else’s job easier. Had he really only ever relied on Martin to feel as though he were worth anything?
“Thanks, Parsley! Hey, this looks fantastic. You condensed the case better than I could have.”
“You already filed everything? If everyone did their jobs like you do, I’d be running the best company on the planet.”
“Hey, Parsley, that mockup you sent me was great. The last one I got wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. You’re really cut out for this.”
Well, what do you know. There were people in the world besides Martin who appreciated him.
Maybe that realization gave him too much of a push. Inflated his ego a bit too much, like an overblown tire, ready to pop when it struck the next bump.
He hadn’t flirted. God, no. The attention was just satisfying, since Martin hadn’t had time for him lately. Nobody could blame him for enjoying lunch with a coworker, right? They’d just talked about things. A cordial chat. Parsley hadn’t intended anything to happen. It felt nice to have someone enraptured by every word he spoke and lean closer and closer just to share more space with him.
Lunch together didn’t mean anything. And going out for drinks was nothing more than a friendly gesture. Martin went out with his friends every week. Why couldn’t Parsley? It wasn’t as if sharing a few martinis with someone spelled infidelity.
Parsley couldn’t help that he’d never held his liquor well. He only had snippets of a memory of ducking into the blacklit restroom, pulling on a loose necktie, scuffling to get on his knees on grimy tile and not caring that his shirt was halfway unbuttoned—it might not even have happened. It was as much as a dream.
And it’d definitely been a dream, because he’d never do that. He loved Martin, after all. But the aftertaste of moscata kept coming back, bringing with it the ghosts of hands wrapped in his hair and clutching beneath his belt.
Then came the second job. It was addicting. Stress was like smoking. It might have been eating him away, but in the moment, it was everything he needed. A rush of adrenaline. Satisfaction. Excitement. Was he punishing himself for something? Of course not. This was what he was meant for.
More work yielded more praise. He was contributing. He was important. He was a necessary part of things. If someone needed help, he lunged in. Maybe he was begging to be taken advantage of. Used. But did it matter? Everyone valued him. Everyone needed him.
Stacks of paperwork rustling. Ringing phones. Droning conversations from a few cubicles away. The wheels of a desk chair scrunching carpet underneath. A third espresso at lunch or he’d fall asleep at his desk.
An invitation to dinner. Grab a drink after work? Sure! He didn’t have anything better to do. One daiquiri. Ice rattling. Are you seeing anyone? No? Me neither. Maybe one more daiquiri. Oh—you’re paying? Maybe something stouter. A hand trailing up his leg, following the seam of his pants. Time to go home? Absolutely. Waking up in a rumpled bed with fingerprint bruises in a fan over his hips and a torn foil wrapper crunching beneath him in the sheets. Glancing at his phone. No missed calls.
Rinse. Repeat. Exhilaration.
Martin was a handsome stranger he didn’t see anymore. Their schedules didn’t fit. Maybe they made sure they didn’t. Martin didn’t call on the nights Parsley didn’t come home. But that was fair enough. Parsley didn’t call him either.
He worked three jobs. He didn’t have time. Days off? What a joke. If he took a day off to spend with Martin, it would hurt like getting split open from spleen to sternum. It'd kick up dust from when they were kids and holding hands on the bus and trading kisses between bites of cherry snow cone. And if he closed his eyes during a clinch, he'd think of half a dozen other names. The memories of a dozen other different hands would fill his head, mixed with sour cigarette smoke and washed out with dying neon lights and flooded with the taste of lime and vodka.
Their first anniversary crept up and Parsley only noticed when it pounced like a lion on a deer. A red circle on the calendar had a little heart doodled inside. Their first wedding anniversary. He hadn't even thought about it. But Martin didn't need to know that.
After work he visited the florist. A kid watched him from the corner in silence, tracking his every move like a snake trained on a mouse. He tried to ignore the penetrating stare as he talked with the florist. What kind of bouquet are you looking for? Flowers have meaning, you know. Tell me what you want to say, and the flowers can say everything for you. Parsley bought a bundle of six yellow carnations.
They exchanged flowers and hastily signed cards and ordered cartons of udon and sashimi for dinner. Parsley got up twice to answer calls. Martin answered one at the table, talking about a conference between mouthfuls of salmon. It was like sharing a table with someone he'd just met on the subway.
The evening was warm. A documentary about historic stock market crashes was playing on Channel 6. Parsley sat beside Martin on the couch, legs tucked to the side, only his shoulder against Martin's with their sleeves barely brushing.
Halfway through the film, Martin draped his arm around Parsley without saying anything. Parsley leaned in. Martin's hand played in Parsley's curls while the narrator recalled soup kitchens and starvation. Gentle twisting, making his way down Parsley’s neck. For a few minutes, they were teenagers again—comfortable company, quiet contentment. Then the phone rang.
The yellow carnations stayed on the table, swaddled in orange paper and growing limp.
How had they ever managed to get so far? Parsley watched light glint off the skeletons of bubbles that sat in husks atop the water. How had they lasted so long together when all they did was chip away at each other?
They really had wrung everything out of their relationship years ago.They’d squeezed it too much, like the last lemon half over the pitcher, until it was crumpled and dry and empty. He hadn’t seen it then. Why hadn’t he seen it?
They’d staggered on a few more weeks before it happened.
Parsley trudged through the door after second shift. He held the knob so it wouldn’t click and left his shoes by the mat. He’d butter a piece of toast and drag himself to the sofa to sleep three or four hours without waking Martin, just as he did every time he came home after midnight.
That night, the kitchen lights were glowing before Parsley peeked in. Martin was at the table. His ankle was balanced on his knee, and he jostled his foot while scanning yesterday’s newspaper that lay on his lap. One half-empty mug of coffee was at his elbow. Another mug was centered on the placemat in front of Parsley’s chair.
“Martin! What’s up . . . ? Couldn’t sleep?” Parsley dropped into the chair and sighed when the weight off his feet sent a pleasant ache spreading through his muscles. He cupped his hands around the mug. The ceramic was hot.
Martin watched him over the rim of his glasses. “I had things on my mind, I suppose. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to catch you when you came in.”
Something deep in Parsley’s head throbbed. He raised the mug to let the curlicues of steam caress his face, just so Martin couldn’t see when his smile faltered. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Parsley, I know you’re tired, but we should talk.”
Parsley’s heart folded up into a barrel knot and his stomach twisted like a sheet in the dryer. He took a long, deliberate sip. Could Martin see his hands shake?
“Talk?” Parsley swallowed the coffee. It almost didn’t go down, and just stayed bitter and chalky at the back of his throat. “Sure. What about?”
His hand tingled against the hot ceramic. He knows. He knows. Someone told him. He saw me. Oh, god, Martin, I’m sorry. I know I should’ve been more careful. I know I should’ve said no, but I’ve always had needs that you haven’t s—
“We need to talk about us.”
Parsley squeezed the mug until he thought he might crush it.
“Okay? Go ahead. What’s on your mind?” His voice came out like a middle schooler’s, high and thin with a little sand underneath.
“How do you feel about the way things are . . . ?” As he said it, Martin betrayed his unease by looking askance, off at the potted plant shoved in the corner or the cat-shaped clock that clacked away the seconds.
How did he feel? Betrayed? Guilty? Angry? Frightened? Confused?
“I don’t know.”
Martin sighed through his teeth. The paper on his lap rustled. "I wish you didn't say that. Things aren't . . . well, they aren't the same as they used to be."
"I know."
Martin's gaze met his. "It was easier back then, wasn't it? To be perfect for each other. Before we made separate lives for ourselves."
"I know," Parsley said again, and this time it was a miserable whisper.
"I love you." The words were fond and tender, gooey like warm bread. "You know that, right? I've always loved you and I always will. But—"
Those words made Parsley's emotional dam cave in like a block tower with the bottom kicked out. He kept his eyes locked on the coffee mug, and everything went hazy. Don't cry, do not cry, for the love of—
Martin's voice softened. "But I think we've found out that our lives aren't compatible this way. Not as . . . not as a couple. We're breaking each other down, Parsley."
Parsley propped his elbow on the table and held his forehead in the shelf of his palm. Plat . Water made a black circle on the burgundy placemat. Another drop hit next to it.
"Please don't—I mean—" Martin, always eloquent, always collected, fumbled. "I've cried over this as well. More than once. This isn't healthy anymore, Parsley. Maybe it was a long time ago. But we weren't meant to be this way."
I can change things, Martin, he wanted to say. I still love you, too. I don't want to lose you. I don't want anyone else to have you. I won't step out on you ever again. I was stupid, I thought I deserved more of your time. I thought I deserved more of you and look where it’s gotten us—
But something like a cactus was in his throat, scraping and scratching, and he couldn't say a thing. He shook his head. A few more stains bled over the placemat as the tears gathered under his chin and fell.
He knew Martin was right. He'd always known, deep inside. Their love was meant for one-night stands or tussles on the couch. Not family. They'd grown apart together. And he deserved every bit of the ache that felt like his ribs were breaking and the shards were filling his chest.
Martin roused from the chair to loop his arms around Parsley. He was warm and solid and safe—how had he forgotten how secure he was when Martin held him? Martin rested his cheek atop Parsley's head, squeezed his shoulders, pressed kisses over his hair. His voice went goopy, as though he were talking through a mouthful of peanut butter, and Parsley knew he was crying, too.
Martin deserved so much better. He'd always deserved better.
"You should've left me alone before that exam in seventh grade," Parsley muttered into the bathwater. If Martin hadn't seen him crying over that stupid velvet bow, where would they both be now? Farther? Happier? Without that empty heaviness that stayed in his chest like a cold brick?
Parsley sat upright, and water poured off his shoulders and hair in rivers, spattering and jangling. He jerked the stopper and grabbed for the heavy towel that dangled from the shower curtain rod. Cold air cut at his neck and legs, and he sloshed out of the water, dripping suds and ice on the bathmat. A chill wrapped around him like a ghost of a cat.
He'd moved out of their—Martin's—apartment. Back home with Mama and Dad. For awhile, anyway. Martin pleaded with Parsley to not go back and insisted he was always more welcome than anyone to stay. Parsley couldn't. The guilt would have worn him to a scrap.
But it turned out that it didn't matter where he was. Guilt and remorse kept whittling him down anyway. He clutched the towel around his shoulders. The chill subsided.
He secured the towel around his chest and wandered his hand over the counter. Past the bottles of hairspray, past Dad's shaving cream, until he found the black velvet ribbon. His reflection was a haze in the fogged-up mirror, but he didn't need to see it. He twisted his curls back with one hand and fastened the ribbon around the sheaf at the back of his neck.
When he opened the bathroom door, a fluff of steam followed. He reached for the bureau drawer, then paused. His cellphone lay on the pillow, right where he'd left it before his bath an hour ago.
His fingers fidgeted around the drawer knobs. It was late. Should he . . . ? He wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise.
Still rolled in the towel, Parsley sank to the edge of the mattress and reached for the phone. His wet finger left rainbow streaks across the screen as he dialed the number he'd called a thousand times before.
One ring. Two. Five. Nine. A beep.
Parsley drew a breath that ached all the way from his core.
"Hey, Martin. It's Parsley. I was just thinking about you. Call back when you can." He swallowed. "Love you."
The words barely came out. His throat had the diameter of a straw all of a sudden. He lowered the phone to his lap.
The water that hit the screen in big fat drops glittered off a hundred colors from the pale blue light.