Michael Bray - Feed

Tyler Matthews looked at the woman standing at the entrance to his apartment and realised she was a stranger. She looked and sounded almost the same as the woman he had fallen in love with seven years earlier, but the edges were harder on this iteration, the eyes harsh, lips without a smile and turned into a disapproving sneer. This version of Amy was an impostor, a cold thing in an Amy mask.

‘You realise this will be it, don’t you? Our marriage will be over if you do this.’ The impostor Amy crossed her arms to emphasise the point, one of her many bad habits that he had grown to detest.

‘Yeah, I know that,’ Tyler said, and it was true. He knew it was over and didn’t care. It had been a while since he had felt anything that could have been taken for love. First, there was frustration and tolerance which, over time, had grown into bitter indifference and longing to be free of the shackles he had married into.

‘And you’re going to do it anyway? What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you even want to fight for this? For us?’

He sighed and stared at his bare feet, curling his toes in the carpet, wondering if he should invite her in then deciding against it. ‘I don’t want to get into this again. We both know this is for the best. The sooner you come to terms with it, the better.’

‘Best for you. Not best for me. There’s a difference and you know it.’

A few years ago, a comment like that would have sparked a furious and passionate argument which would culminate in spectacular make-up sex later. Not anymore, though; now there was no room for desire. Only hatred. He badly wanted her to go away and leave him alone and wondered why she had come over. He had made it clear enough that whatever they once had was over, and yet she was stubborn in her refusal to play along. Her presence was putting a black cloud over his day, the negative energy hanging thick and heavy over the threshold to the house. ‘You chose to leave, Amy. Not me. You went and decided to move in with Tim.’

She flinched and looked away. ‘You forced me into that. I’d tried to keep us going by myself for so long and couldn’t do it anymore. Tim was there for me when you weren’t. He was there when I needed somebody. I realise now it was a mistake. I’ve changed my mind.’

He shook his head and flashed her a cynical grin. ‘That makes it alright then. You decide the affair wasn’t going to grow into something more like you hoped it would then think it’s okay to come back because you changed your mind. I’m done letting you walk all over me. Things have changed.’

‘You drove me to it.’

‘Don’t try to put this on me. I stuck to the vows of our marriage.’ He hated that she was getting him angry. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let that happen and hated her a little bit more for it.

‘Don’t you dare try to claim this was all one sided. You neglected me. You forced me to look elsewhere. This is as much your fault as it is mine.’

She had a point. He had neglected her. He had grown bored and started to feel trapped by the cocoon she had built. Steady and unspectacular job. A circle of friends who he had nothing in common with as they were mostly hers (especially Tim. She knew Tim really well). He had been manipulated into a boring existence, a cycle of meaningless days melting into each other which she expected him to do for the rest of his life. ‘Yeah, well, I suppose we’re both to blame,’ he muttered, wishing there was an easier way to do things like this.

Amy was frustrated and angry; he could see it in the way her lip curled down at the corner. ‘Jesus, Tyler, you mean to go through with this, don’t you?’

Typical Amy. Thinking the world revolved around her and never expecting that someone else might have plans that didn’t involve her. ‘Yeah,’ he said again, keeping with the answer that had served him well so far.

‘You know it’s insane, right? Giving up your job, a good job, a well-paid job. Selling the house to move into this shitty apartment.’

‘The apartment is temporary. It’s better that walking around that tomb of a house and being constantly reminded of you and what happened. And for the record, I hated that job.’

‘My brother got you that job, you ungrateful asshole.’

‘Exactly. You chose it. You asked your brother to put the word in without asking how I felt. You bullied me into taking it even though I didn’t want to. That was never my job, it was yours. I was just the puppet expected to bring home the money.’

‘Jesus, Tyler, someone had to help you. It’s not like you were making waves on your own. A year unemployed. If I didn’t push you, it would have never happened. I can’t believe how ungrateful you are. I made sure we survived and didn’t look like idiot paupers to our friends.’

He could feel the anger starting to swell. Once she was able to bring out a sense of love and need to protect her. Now he associated her with rage and stubbornness. ‘Let’s get this right. They were your friends you were trying to keep up appearances for. Not mine. Mine were all made to feel unwelcome. You made me push them out.’

‘Your friends were pigs. Common and beneath us.’

‘Bullshit. They were my friends and would do anything for me. If there is one thing I regret, it’s letting you push them out without stopping you. Anyway, it’s nothing to do with you anymore. It’s done. I’ve made my decision.’

She glared at him, balling her hands into fists at her side. ‘And that’s it. You’re just going to leave? Quit your job, sell the house, and go. What about the furniture? What about the possessions?’

‘I’m selling everything. I want a clean break.’ He was going to add again how everything in the house was associated with her and he didn’t want any reminders but decided it would be cruel to keep hammering home the point, and despite his dislike of the woman he once thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with, he didn’t want to make it any harder on either of them than it had to be. It was true, though. Her fingerprints were all over that house. She had picked the furniture and decided the layout of each room. What they could have, what they couldn’t, and he had gone along with it.

‘You do know you’re not a twenty-year-old kid anymore? What are you going to do with yourself one you are free from the shackles of responsibility?’

‘You talk like I’m old,’ he snapped, hurt by her tone.

‘You’ll be forty in a couple of years. Too old to sell everything you own and go travelling the world on a whim. Where the hell do you plan on going? How will you support yourself?’

‘The money from the house sale will keep me going. I suppose that’s one thing I’m fortunate about, that I kept that in my name without transferring half to you.’

She flinched again, and for a split second, he felt remorse, then ashamed that he was letting things get nasty. He took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure.

‘I’m not sure where I’ll go yet. Maybe Thailand to start then go from there. Wherever my head takes me. It will be nice to be free of the rat race for a while.’

She exhaled, shoulders slumping. He knew this routine. She was about to try and reason with him and make him feel guilty, a tactic used to great effect in the past.

‘Look,’ she said, taking a half step towards the open door. He could smell her perfume and in the back of his mind wondered if he had bought her it or if Tim had. ‘I get that you feel like this is the right thing to do, but think about what you will be throwing away. You’re literally selling your life. What will you be left with?’