How to Spend an Evening Alone (Together)

By Caroline Schwartzbeck

Step 1: Open the door. Drop your bag and kick off your high heels. It doesn’t matter where they land. Turn on the overhead light, if only to prevent you from tripping over the clutter as you walk to the stairs.

(When you open the door, you’re greeted with warm light and a hug. You both embrace it for two, three, four seconds until he pulls away. Following suit, you put your bag on the couch so there’s room for you to take his hand.)

Step 2: Go to your room. Shrug off your work clothes and replace them with last night’s PJs, still stinking of sweat and sadness. Look at the unkempt bed and try to convince yourself to make it up. Fail in the end, of course.

(You shed your professional shell like a butterfly sheds its cocoon. His eyes glimmer as you spread your wings. You don’t think you look like all that in loose pants and an old band T-shirt, but he reassures you that he’d find you the most beautiful girl in the world even if you were dressed in rags.)

Step 3: Shuffle through your pantry until you find the instant mac and cheese—your third batch this week, if you’re counting right. Pour the water, set the timer, and stick it in the microwave for three minutes. Three whole minutes. Let the hum of the appliance become a monotonous backdrop for your sudden realization that you are now alone with your thoughts with no distractions for two minutes and fifty-nine, no, fifty-eight seconds. Try not to think about him. Think about anything but him. Fail at that, too.

(You chop, he stirs, the two of you fall into perfect tandem as you always do. Light pours in from the overhead light as well as the big window over the sink, and the music on his speaker joins the sizzling of the pan to create a cacophony of noise. He joins the chorus, too, shouting “Watch this!” as he tries to flip something in the pan like the chefs do in the movies. It lands on the floor with a sad flop, but you’re both laughing too hard to mourn it.)

Step 4: Pull up a table in front of the TV. Turn it on. Crank the volume all the way up. Pick the sports channel, then remember that the Bulls were his favorite team and switch to some action movie which goes straight to ads, so switch to 24-hour news and keep it there. It won’t make you feel better, but maybe, if you’re lucky, it’ll make you feel something else.

(He insists on using your grandmother’s china even though it’s nothing but a Tuesday afternoon. When you take your first bite, you realize you forgot how good his cooking is. He tells you to give yourself some more credit, that you did half the work and a good half at that. You’re not sure how to respond to that.)

Step 5: Don’t shower, because then there will be nothing but you and your dreaded thoughts and water dripping down your shoulders. Don’t even bother getting up to throw out the empty mac and cheese cup. The TV is your anchor, its constant flow of information shielding you from what’s out there. Don’t take something like that for granted.

(It feels like your shower is the only time you spend apart from him all night. Attached at the hip, his aunt said when she came to visit last year. The quiet is nice in some ways—it gives you time to think about what groceries you’ll need to pick up soon, when you’ll have time to do your laundry next. But that doesn’t deny the joy you feel when you shuffle out into the hall to see him lounging in bed, or how quickly you rush to fill the spot next to him.)

Step 6: Take it for granted. This quarter’s school board elections aren’t that interesting anyway. Go back to your room even though yes, it’s only nine o’clock and yes, you’re not even that tired yet. His ghost may haunt every square foot of this house, but with luck he won’t infiltrate your dreams tonight. Yes—get under the covers, turn out the lights, and wait for sweet unconsciousness to wash over you. When it doesn’t come as quick as you’d hoped, keep your eyes wide open so he’s not there when you close them. Fail at that, and catch just a glimpse of him. Realize too late that that’s enough to bring tears to your eyes, so many tears, and let them out. Maybe only through their release will you be free.

(You stay up talking until you’re both yawning every two seconds. Finally, when you start dozing off in the middle of a sentence, he lifts you off your feet and carries you upstairs. Nestle under the covers together, his arms around your chest, holding you close. You can feel his warmth, beckoning you to sleep like a crackling fire. He falls asleep first, his soft breath touching your hair, and you could swear he utters your name even in sleep. Maybe you’re in his dreams tonight, you hope as the whirring of the fan lulls you into slumber and you close your eyes, joining him.)