A few nights later, Mark and Maisie were watching TV and digesting their dinners after long days at work. They finished their new episode of TV and Mark was watching random YouTube videos while Maisie scrolled on her phone.
Mark laughed at a cat video then glanced over to see if Maisie was laughing too. He missed her smile, instead seeing her frowning at her phone. “Did you see that? Oh, of course you didn’t…”
“What’s up?” She looked up from her phone, giving him a bright and completely fake grin.
“Oh.” He gestured at the TV, feeling empty. “Just a funny cat video.”
“Why do you watch so many cat videos, when we have two completely adorable cats that already live with us?” She gave him a teasing grin, this being a topic of conversation they’d had again and again, mostly in jest.
He was just not up for it tonight. “I’m heading to bed.” He stood up and put the remote on the coffee table, glancing at her hopefully. When they had first moved in together, eleven years ago, he would say that he was going to bed and she would race him there, hurry through brushing her teeth and washing her face before they would fall into bed together, pulling each other’s clothes off and pressing skin together. After, they would sometimes fall asleep but other times stay up late, talking and kissing and holding each other. But that hadn’t happened much over the past few years. Mark missed the afterglow, maybe more than the actual sex.
Maisie didn’t even look up from her phone. “Good night, honey, I’ll be in in a bit.”
“Aw, come to bed now. Please?”
At that, she looked up. “In a bit. I still have to do the dishes.”
“Skip them! One night isn’t a big deal.”
She huffed. “I can’t. I can’t skip them.”
Mark felt a flash of anger start to burn in his gut. “Then get off your phone and do the damn dishes, Maisie.” He turned on his heel and headed down the hall.
Maisie heard the bathroom door slam and she sighed. Shaking her head, she sat up and grabbed her headphones, queued up a podcast and grabbed their dirty dinner dishes off the coffee table, taking them into the kitchen. She immediately felt guilty whenever they got into one of their arguments, but he just didn’t understand how tired she was. How enormous all the tasks that she had to complete felt, and how if she skipped just one day, it would turn into a week and then a month and she would never be able to catch up. A tear fell down her cheek and into the dishwater and she wiped it away, angry at herself for being so melodramatic.
A half hour later, she climbed into bed alongside her husband, facing away from him and snuggling her pillow. She started counting her breaths to try to fall asleep. Awhile after that, he turned over and reached over to run his hand up and down her back and she pretended to be asleep, but sleep eluded her for another hour of counting breaths.
The first time they had slept together, all they had done was sleep. They had gone out for Thai food, which Mark had never had before and enjoyed, but thought was too spicy.
He smiled at her across the table, thinking that she looked extraordinarily pretty, in a purple sweater and jeans. Her eyes looked extra big and hazel, gazing into his blue eyes. He wished, again, that he had bothered to put on a sweater instead of his Badgers hoodie, and vowed in the future to try a little harder on their dates, thinking about all the couples they would see where the woman was dressed to the nines and clearly had made an effort, and the man was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
Then they had stopped by a house party thrown by someone Maisie had gone to high school with, and had a few drinks. They had ended up squished together on the old beat-up couch. Mark was having an animated conversation about the Star Wars prequels with some red haired dude with glasses between wincing sips of Jack Daniels out of a solo cup while Maisie drank something brightly colored that the woman throwing the party had blended with ice and tequila and called a “mango margarita,” even though it didn’t taste anything like mango.
“Oh, I thought that race scene was so cheesy, too! Like, who cares about this kid?”
“I know!” Sip. Grimace. “That actor was so obnoxious. And Jar-Jar!”
“Jar-Jar fucking Binks!”
Mark finally noticed Maisie wasn’t really contributing to the conversation and leaned over to whisper in her ear, “Wanna go?”
She nodded, feeling sick, and he stood up and hauled her out of the couch, said goodbye to the guy he had been talking with, then paused, wrapping one arm around Maisie to hold her still while he wrote out his email address on a scrap of paper he found to hand to the guy.
They then staggered out onto the street. Mark took a few breaths of fresh air and felt tipsy but fine, but Maisie felt like the world was moving beneath her feet in a new and not entirely enjoyable way.
“Whoa. Are you okay?”
She nodded, then shook her head. “I guess I drank too much?”
“How much do you usually drink?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh boy,” Mark laughed, shaking his head. “Well, let’s get you home, then.”
They walked a few blocks, and Maisie wasn’t any steadier on her feet.
“Change of plans, I’m going to take you to my dorm room. You really haven’t drank anything before?”
“I had a bunch of jello shots at my moms’ housewarming party this past summer. I think I got tipsy? But it didn’t feel like this, this feels dreadful.”
He lent her a t-shirt and a pair of boxers to sleep in, and made her drink two glasses of water before climbing into bed next to her. They held hands lying next to each other in the dark, under the covers, while Maisie hiccuped and kept apologizing with each “hic.”
Mark finally flipped onto his side facing her and snuggled her. “You really don’t have anything to apologize for, sweetie.”
She flipped on her side to face him, smiling a little. “Did you just call me sweetie?”
He nodded. “Yes, because you’re sweet.”
She snorted. “You already have me in your bed, you don’t need to be so nice to me.”
He laughed quietly. “Would someone nice do this?” and he leaned in and kissed her deeply, his hand running down her back to her butt, then pulling her leg up over his, then pulled away a little, still touching noses and foreheads.
She hiccupped.
He laughed and squeezed her tight. “Let’s just go to sleep, okay?”
The next morning, they had woken up together, early, to the sound of Mark’s roommate bursting in. “Whoops.” He shut the door, then opened it again. “Mark, dude, I need my gym shoes.”
Mark got out of bed and threw his roommate’s shoes into the hallway, then slammed the door.
“Thanks!”
He climbed back into bed next to Maisie, as she stared bleary-eyed at him.
“How are you feeling?”
“Ugh.”
Mark laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Let’s go get breakfast, okay?”
“The idea of eating anything ever again is the most revolting thought.”
“You’ll feel better, though, I promise.” They headed to the cafeteria and he made her a breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs and mild salsa and bacon he crumpled up by hand. And she did feel better.
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