Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [62]
“I don't know,” I said. “But she did say something about how you track mud all over the floor, so you should probably clean it up.”
He shot a derisive look at the floor before grabbing a paper towel and rubbing the dirt into the ceramic tile.
“If you see her, tell her I need my deodorant. She never remembers to buy my deodorant.”
And then he went into his office and shut the door.
41 ACROSS: HOW SOON IS NOW?
Later, in two separate incidents, my mother congratulated herself for knowing that my father would muddy up the floor, and my father congratulated himself for knowing that my mother would forget to buy his deodorant. This is what thirty-two years of marriage gets you: the utter satisfaction of predicting precisely how your life mate will annoy the hell out of you.
I can't imagine that they were always this way with each other, bickering about recycled Christmas trees and Right Guard—and through a proxy, no less. They should be arguing about more important things, like how it was completely certifiable of my mother to design a bedroom for the dead baby boy she never got to see grow up, or how it was almost equally certifiable that my dad didn't even know she had done it until I showed it to him, because he's off riding his bikes for hours and then holes himself up in his office “working” whenever he's home.
I'm sure that in their youth they felt as passionate toward each other as Marcus and I do. (Did? What tense are we in?)
So my point is this: Whether on the way to the altar or after, all relationships are doomed.
And yet . . .
3 ACROSS: PANIC
46 DOWN: GIRL AFRAID
10 ACROSS: WILL NEVER MARRY
40 ACROSS: WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
17 DOWN: LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME
47 ACROSS: NOW MY HEART IS FULL
34 ACROSS: THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
8 DOWN: THE MORE YOU IGNORE ME, THE CLOSER I GET
12 DOWN: THIS CHARMING MAN
2 ACROSS: THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE
6 ACROSS: FOUND, FOUND, FOUND
22 ACROSS: DISAPPOINTED
9 DOWN: HEAVEN KNOWS I'M MISERABLE NOW
1 DOWN: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE (LET ME GET WHAT I WANT)
the fifteenth
A Final Conversation
Me: I wasn't sure if I'd see you before I left.
Marcus: I wouldn't let you go without saying good-bye.
Me: When I didn't hear from you, I thought the worst.
Marcus: I needed time away to think.
Me: I'm so sorry, Marcus. You have no idea . . .
Marcus: You did what you wanted to do.
Me: But I didn't really . . .
Marcus: Part of you must have, or you wouldn't have done it.
Me: But . . .
Marcus: I didn't come here to make you feel bad about what happened.
Me: You're breaking up with me.
Marcus: I'm not breaking up with you.
Me: You're not?
Marcus: No.
Me: But . . .
Marcus: Please.
Me: Okay.
Marcus: We didn't talk much last semester. And now that I know it was because you thought you were pregnant, and were worried that it would change our relationship, as it ineluctably would, I don't blame you for your distance.
Me: But . . .
Marcus: The Buddhists believe that desiring begets suffering. That every pleasure itself consists as a continual striving that ends as soon as it's reached. I've spent my whole life craving something. Attention. The next high. Girls in general. Then one girl in particular.
Me: Me?
Marcus: Yes, you. But none of it has helped me feel truly at peace. Not even my love for you, which is as pure and real and true as anything I've ever known.
Me: But what does this have to do with . . . ?
Marcus: I was at unrest because I knew, deep down, that love, though a beautiful beginning, isn't enough. It's the practice of honoring and caring for another that's noble, not the emotion of love itself. The emotion is the easy part.
Me: . . .
Marcus: But how could I honor the responsibilities that come with being in a genuine love relationship? The sort of responsibilities your pregnancy scare brought to the fore for you. How could I try to understand your needs if I'm still a mystery to myself?
Me: . . .
Marcus: Throughout the period when I wasn't talking to you, I found that