But what Tal was saying, it felt right. She and Mike had been best friends for a long time, since before they started sleeping together. She had always been attracted to Mike, he was an attractive guy, and when they'd started sleeping together, that attraction had only grown, because he was good in bed.
It was kind of stupid to assume that having funny jokes and good moves in the sack equated to lifelong marriage material. But that's what had happened. She had loved him, because he was her friend, and somehow, she had mistaken that for being in love with him. She loved her friend Lacey, but she wasn't going to marry the woman.
Yet she'd done just that with Mike.
Oh my god.
“So many years,” she whispered, and a tear slipped down her cheek, ran sideways towards her neck.
“What?” Tal asked. She shook her head and wiped at her face, trying to stop the armies of tears in their forward march.
“Nothing. I just feel stupid,” she managed a laugh.
“Why?”
“You've known me a week, and you've already figured out why I sucked at being married – something I wasn't able to figure out in three years,” she replied.
“Don't say that, you don't suck. You're both to blame, but you're not a horrible person. He's not a horrible dude. He just wasn't supposed to be your husband,” Tal told her.
“No, just my best friend.”
“Everyone needs their proper title,” he joked.
“Then what's your title?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“'Everyone needs a title'. You're not Mr. One-Night-Stand. You're certainly not my boyfriend. What are you?” she continued.
He was silent for a long time, then she felt him rolling over. He crawled up the bed and moved so he was leaning over her, kneeling at her side. She stared back at him, trying not to sniffle.
“They have a word especially for people like me,” Tal said softly, reaching out and wiping her tears away.
“And what word is that?”
“Lover.”
~Mischa~
How much I wanted him took me by surprise. I didn't want to feel that way – I'd been telling the truth. I wasn't looking for another relationship. Clearly, I wasn't good at relationships, and had no business entering into an already-fucked-up-relationship without ending my last totally-fucked-up-relationship.
But it was like he understood me. I could say anything to him, literally anything, and he just got it. He didn't think I was a horrible human being for cheating on my husband. He didn't care that I was married. Didn't care that I was emotionally stunted most of the time, and physically inhibited some of the time. All he cared about was being with me. Everything else, that was just background noise.
I hadn't ever known that kind of freedom, to just be myself, one hundred percent. Say whatever I want, do whatever I want, in all situations. You just can't be like that with most people, there's always a filter that needs to be in place. But not with Tal.
Not in any situations.
I was drunk on him. High on him. I wanted to swallow him down, inhale him¸ inject him. I wanted him to live under my skin and change my DNA. I wanted to live in his air and breathe his passion.
I thought maybe, just maybe, I could overdose on him. If I could just take him one more time, and shut my eyes, and it would be the last time, with anyone, with anything, that would be alright. Guilt would be gone. Hurt would be gone. Confusion would be gone. Oppression would be gone. Obsession would be gone.
My memory would be his, I would only exist in his mind, and that was fine.
It was the only place I wanted to be anymore.
~Done Pretending~
There were no more “let's see where the day takes us” days. No more “just two friends hanging out” talk. No more ignoring the large, married elephant in the room.
Mischa only had nine days left in Rome. After that, she would spend five days on the Amalfi coast, in Positano – a sort of mini-vacation, given as a reward for all the hard work they were doing.
Positano was where Michael would be meeting her.
Where her marriage would end.
She and Tal talked about it a lot. They were honest with each other – they didn't know what was happening between them, neither had been looking for a relationship, nor could either make a commitment at that time. Tal had work, Misch had life. He wanted to go to the coast with her, but they decided it was a bad idea. Too risky to be in such a small place with her boss so close at hand, with her husband visiting so soon. No, it would be much better to make a clean break in Rome. So they agreed to spend her remaining time there with each other, in whatever capacity.
“Lovers,” he had whispered to her.
“Yes,” she had whispered back.
They spent every day together that they could, every moment. Talking. Laughing. Touching. She skipped out on work more than a few times, burning the days away with him.
It wasn't always easy, though. His job kept him busy, and sometimes he would get called away in the middle of whatever they were doing. He left in the middle of lunch one afternoon, and she didn't hear from him for a whole day. One day out of their precious nine. She had thought she would go crazy, or that it was over, and he'd been transferred somewhere else – something he'd warned her could happen. But then he'd shown up at her hotel room at ten o'clock at night, looking haggard, as if he hadn't slept the whole time.
Her overly emotional state didn't help matters. When she was with him, nothing else existed. But when she was alone, reality caved in on her. Crying happened often, and for long bouts of time. Somehow, her picture of Mike had gotten kicked under the bed, and when she happened upon it, she'd stared at it for a long time, then burst out crying. She didn't stop for almost two hours. Tal had come over, and she'd tried to tell him to go away. But he wasn't a very good listener, and was very good at picking locks, it turned out. He let himself into her hotel room, then just held her.