[asundered]

THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD, which is so soon to perish, has two edges. one of laughter, and one of anguish. 

INDEPENDENT, PRIVATE, SELECTIVE MULTI MUSE BLOG. intermittent activity. largely iconless. written by scallop

IMPORTANT NOTE:  i  strongly advise not following if the themes mentioned here are particularly upsetting to see/read: blood, self harm, child death, reproductive trauma, parental death, family trauma, abuse, murder, mention of assault / sexual assault and / or heavy implications of such, eating disorders, death, and suicidal ideation. this is by no means a complete list of potential content ahead, but it is a good at-a-glance, so please follow with these items in mind. i am liberal in tagging and always open to requested trigger tags, but as these are major plot points / characterization elements of many of the muses here, it may be best to pass this particular blog over. due to these themes, i also tend not to follow first.

[asundered]

sanityclaws​.

     ” oh , “   his shoulder hits the doorframe with a thud and his arms cross as though they’ll protect him from anymore comments such as that one.   

     all she’s trying to do is make him consider what kindness he might have needed as a younger man that he has the opportunity to extend to harper now,   but the part of his brain that clung to rationale like that had been turned off ages ago.   

     “ so it’s my fault he acts like that,  then? “  

“does it have to be a fault?”  there is a care here that is not altogether necessary, a gentleness that speaks more to her character than to any expectation of lashback - for all of his towering stature or past tendencies toward cruelty, maverick has never leveled more than the barest margins of it against her. it’s her own desire for softness that has her cradling his petulance so carefully.  

“he’s a teenager. he is going to be an asshole sometimes, baby. that’s just how the world works.”

[quismetarc]

@asundered feat. nick dunne

amy,    you can’t seriously tell me that you married this idiot ?

i know,   retract my claws lest i scratch myself with hypocrisy.   forty’s famous last words ring loud and clear in my eardrums.   my brother lives in my head and i can practically see him clicking his tongue in my direction.   i push forty back into the depths of my guilt and focus on the situation at hand.   i too married an idiot,   amy.   we’re both women who made mistakes in life but there’s no reason we can’t learn from them.   my own idiot is somewhere in the local library figuring out who he wanted to fuck next while rearranging aisles by the dewey decimal system.   much too preoccupied to worry himself about what his doting wife was getting up to,   which is fine by me.   gives me more time to fix some problems for you.   for you amy,   i’m handling the biggest thorn in your side.    he’s a rather heavy one at that.

it took all my strength to carry nick dunne into the basement of fresh tart.   i didn’t intend him any harm when he came in asking for a box of pastries.   in fact,   i never meant to get involved in the first place.   you with your picture perfect marriage and mine with my   …   well,   it’s complicated.    but when he came in asking for an order that i just knew wasn’t your regular,   i couldn't just stand there watching.    women like us are always taken for granted.    we forget to remind our husbands that we are a privilege not a right and in turn,   we are made the villains.    oh the laundry list of reasons joe could rattle off for why he can’t keep it in his pants.    i see him in nick.   not all of him,   but the dirtiest parts.    you see,   joe isn’t all bad.   it’s why i put up with it.   the good,   and he’s so good sometimes,   makes it easy to forget the bad.   but your husband ?    he’s rotten to the core. 

❝   awake ?   ❞   i ask when he finally stirs.   my face contorts into one of faux concern and i scoot closer to him inside the plexiglass walls.    ❝   oh,   thank god.   i was so scared you had a concussion after that fall,   and i had nowhere to lay you down so i panicked but i didn’t want to overreact and call the ambulance and,    ❞    i trail off with a shaky breath as if my quick succession of lies have rattled me.    i reach out to gingerly touch the bleeding gash on his forehead where he had collided with the bakery counter.    a natural reaction for someone hit in the back with a chair.   i hope you understand,   nick,   i’m no monster.    but i also hope you understand that i need to know if you are.    i need to know for amy's sake.   ❝   i should call amy,   ❞   i say as i start to get up.   ❝   she must be so concerned that you’re taking so long picking up blueberry scones.   ❞

[asundered]

"God, fuck . . ." I am capable of eloquence, when circumstances allow. I'm a writer. ( To say nothing of the manuscript half written on my desk, half baked, due too soon and planned too little. I am a writer. What I have written is beautiful, but I cannot figure out the ending. I have never been good at that. I start things, I try things, I rarely finish them. ) As a writer, eloquence must come with the territory. Waking up on my back, with a throbbing in my head so intense that it blurs my vision when my eyes first crack open, is not the sort of circumstance that allows for eloquence. So we get : God, fuck, and when Love's fingers reach out to touch the burning ache above my eyes, I think it again to myself, not because of the pain but because I must have imagined the sensation of her reaching out for me like this a hundred times, now, and this is not the way I would have preferred it.

At first I can only recognize her by voice, her shape a foggy outline in the lacking focus of my gaze before I blink, and it occurs to me that there is blood in my eyes. Her fingers come away red from their delicate brush along my forehead, and in a moment of blind panic, my hand darts to grasp her wrist when she moves to stand. I should call Amy. No, don't, I think to say. I am not where I said I would be. Amy does not eat blueberry scones - it takes me another moment to latch to the way that Love intimates as much, and it's only then that I realize her wrist is still caught in my hand. I drop it like a burning thing, I struggle to push myself to a sitting position and by way of apology, a strange, charming - nicky smile packed smack full of chagrin curls up my lips.

You look like a supervillain. Amy's voice cuts through the blood rush in my ears, and the smile drops away cold. "Sorry. You don't need to call Amy." Love is putting distance between us, probably still going for the phone, and so my gaze is on her back. ( Not on the clear walls of plexiglass around us, not on the basement I've been dragged to, not on the fact that she's walking through the door of this case that could easily be a prison and may in fact be about to lock me in. I am blinded by cowardice, by guilt, by the concept of having to fess up to Amy for sins I think she's already guessed at. I can't see anything, past my shame. That will cost me. )

"I just need to go by the hospital. I don't want her to worry."

@quismet.

[asundered]

absolutehorror​.

it's friday night : for some , this is a moment of celebration , a sigh of relief echoed throughout the working class as the week rolls to a close . but , for mari , it is when her main event begins . some nights , it's a club . others , it's a party . but tonight , she's gone back to old habits : dressing herself up and pursuing to a nearby bar . in some ways , it feels reminiscent of the days before lyric — seeking out nothing but empty conversation and a tab to put her drinks on . but the recent years have changed her , refined her skill until it is nothing but muscle memory . she begins her night like this : with one drink , nestled in the back corner of the bar . she steps out for a cigarette , watches carefully to see who's gaze follows her when she departs , and then works her way back inside . she holds conversation with two , maybe three different people : rarely are they interesting enough for her to choose as an end goal . eventually , when the alcohol content of the majority of the room rises , she excuses herself to the bathroom . she spends enough time for people to forget where she's gone , and then smears her eye makeup just enough to look like she's been crying . if she thinks it necessary , sometimes she smears her lipstick , too . then , with a soft sniffle and her head down , she exits the bathroom and hurries through an ignorant crowd to sit outside . she lights another cigarette , and waits .

sometimes , this doesn't result in anything . some nights , the room is too focused on other things : mari doesn't mind , not every night will be a success . but sometimes , someone follows her out . tonight , it happens to be one of the men whose gaze followed her the first time she'd left . he's tall , but overly average . she wipes her nose as he approaches , almost attempting to cover the tears that spring to her eyes . she's sat on the curb , a cigarette burning between her fingers as she looks upward . get into some trouble ? his voice is kind enough , but mari would be stupid to think that his concern is entirely selfless . a watery smile curls at her lips , flicking ash from her cigarette to the side . ' if tr — trouble is a . . . ' a soft exhale . ' . . an absent ti — tinder date , then s — sure . ' her gaze drops , watching as the embers of her cigarette eat away at the tobacco . ' but h — hey . ' her gaze rises again , lashes fluttering . ' who ha — hasn't gotten stood up , right ? ' she forces just a bit of strain into the end of her sentence , as if she's hoping for any bit of validation the man gives her . take the bait , asshole .

Tinder. For a moment, I find myself wondering how old this girl really is, before I remember that I am the outlier in this scenario, for balking at the concept of online dating. Tinder is the way of the future - people do not meet lovers and spouses in bars or parties the way that we used to. The way that I did. 

Maybe if I had, things would be different. I imagine how Amy would have come across over text, and think to myself I would have been smarter, read through the lines of her witty dialogue in order to find the sinister grain of truth hidden within. ( This is a lie - if anything, Amy would have secured me more easily - I have always been weakened by mystery, knowing her before seeing her would have only added to her intrigue, I would have fallen head over heels and she would have fallen slower, I think. There would have been no sugar storm, no hiding of the villainous chin to endear me to her. She is better than me at most everything. Even now, that fact does not escape me. ) 

“Everybody I know.” A lie, it comes along with a slight smile, the beer still trapped in my fingers tilting in a gesture like a shrug, indicating the futility of fighting against the universal order. “His loss. Or hers.” She looks like she’s been crying, something that had not been the case when I had first seen her step out for a cigarette, but which was obvious on her second pass toward the door, her head tucked down in embarrassment, or shame, or - disappointment, maybe. Looking at her now, it’s hard to reason to myself that I followed out of concern only. The street lamp casts a warm glow on her face, the slight tremble of her lip before it wraps the filter of the cigarette becomes a little mental note in my brain that I should not be making and I know, I am not a good man. In the soft light, I can make out the slightly raised texture of a scar at her eye - two, actually, and I gesture again with my bottle, this time toward the curb where she’s sat. 

“Want some company?”

[ecstaticruby]

[asundered]

wanting to do my drafts here v absolutely NOT having the energy to be as demented as nick or amy requires lmfaooo. hope you guys are all doing well ! im gonna continue brainrotting on claire bc she is my Space rn.

[asundered]

@quismet     ft.     amy dunne.

Dear Reader, 

It isn’t often that I miscalculate. 

I say this, of course, bearing in mind the humbling knowledge that I am currently standing oh - for - two, with thanks being in order first to my sweet husband Nick in all his disappointing predictability, and now, to the beautiful wife of my most recent attempted conquest, Joe. Now, for my more avid readers, that's Creepy Neighbor Joe, as you'll remember from my Diary. For those of you just tuning in, allow me to shed some light! There's been something of a flirtation blossoming between myself and the lesser half of the burgeoning Quinn - Goldberg Dynasty. It hadn't been intentional, at first ... but there are only so many ways to respond when a man takes it upon himself to pocket your panties during his first uninvited foray into your home. ( You should have gotten to know me better first, Joe. I’m alarmingly meticulous. I notice, when my things have been rifled through. Three little hairs, and all of them broken. You’re not nearly as clever as you think. )  

Me, I take that sort of behavior personally.

I take that sort of behavior for everything it's worth. 

Obsession, I can use.

I don't mind telling you … I thought this part would be easy. As far as I see it, I'd even be doing Love a favor, relieving her of the sad, miserable, peeping - tom bush lurker that she calls a husband - but of course, like any woman petri - grown in Sunny Los Angeles after surviving the toxic and yet surely still quite elastic grip of Dottie Quinn's poisonous, Non - GMO cunt is bound to be  ;  Love Quinn - Goldberg is ungrateful.

Are we surprised, reader?

No, I would say not. What is surprising though, is how she's taken to me sniffing around her husband. Should I set the scene a little?

After taking a particularly harsh whack to the back of the head with a bestriped rolling pin in the empty lobby of A Fresh Tart, you awake to find yourself in a cage of Hannibal Lecter-esque aesthetic and proportions. Your immaculately maintained cool girl blonde locks are matted in the back with dried blood, and when you sit up abruptly in the center of this monolithic ode to intellectual fetishism, you’re eye to eye with the woman whose husband you’ve been conspiring to sweet talk into killing yours. Do you . . . 

( Normally, I’d give us some A B C’s to choose from here, but since Love has gone off script, I’m going to play this one by ear. ) 

“Love?” Oooh, that doesn’t sound very sweet. My throat is sore from disuse, my head is throbbing. How long have you kept me down here, Love? How long until Joe notices I’m gone. “What’s going on?” 

I have to give it to her, reader . . . she’s dedicated. Strong - strong enough to drag me into what looks like the basement under her adorable storefront, strong enough to stop herself from killing me - or maybe too weak to do the job. I think we’re going to find out.  And don’t forget, reader. 

Obsession, I can use.

[asundered]

@tahitiwoke​ ft. jude kimber.

there’s a moment of silence after her head lifts, expecting chris and getting . . . something else entirely. her gaze is a slow track from about the level of his throat up to find his eyes, positioned higher than her instinctual, christopher - level glance had been aimed. her phone lying now forgotten in her hand first goes dim on the game of words with friends she’s playing against her little brother, and then darkens completely after another moment. 

“ . . . hi. sorry, is this not - “ she pauses, looks around the room at chris’s very obvious habitation of this office, odds and ends she recognizes as distinctly his, and most helpfully, the name card on the desk. she’s where she’s supposed to be. “i’m just . . . waiting for chris. is that . . . cool?”

[asundered]

@newsworth​ ft. jude kimber. 

“yeah, no, that’s . . .” she says nothing, then, for what seems like a long time, dark eyes lifted from the screen of his phone, the corner of her lip pulled between her teeth in order to chew it rather than having to actually voice an opinion. instead, she looks to try and suss his out from the setting of his features, the silence having hung long enough to be pointed. “um. yeah. that’s . . . it looks cool.”

[asundered]

JOE.

you’re smart. talented. you wear the big i’m married, don’t even look at me ring, but the low-cut dress that screams fuck me into the wind. you know exactly what you’re doing, at any given moment of the day. you are, for a lack of a better term, a perfectionist. a bottle blonde, elitist wife. that’s not to say that’s a bad thing — you read austen and dickens and sit in your ivory kitchen, and you write. god, you’re a writer! i see you though your windows — lamenting, mourning… i see the hurt and the downtrodden ache of an unloved wife. you are a writer, and i just happen to be a reader.

but — you’re married. you are… safe. you are all the fire and the attention, and allowing the wick to burn down to ash. in addiction, it’s all about moderation. it’s about balance. and i’m able to balance keeping my distance and indulging in the darkness every now and then. so thank you, the state of new york, for giving me that out.

the mall is just as dilapidated as every other building not on our street — boarded up, broken glass pooling in muddy puddles where the kids race their bikes and chew bubble gum until launching the remains into the most inconvenient spot imaginable. you walk, i follow. at a distance. the key to all this is distance.

— wait. where the fuck did you go?

i take my eye off you for five seconds. five seconds. and like some holy fucking apparition, you’re behind me.

shit.

“what, we don’t believe in happy coincidences anymore?” okay, play it cool. there are other reasons to be at the mall. think of one, idiot. i wouldn’t stalk you, if that’s what you’re implying. and, in the interest of honesty, let’s keep it that way. arm’s length. then everybody’s happy. you. me. love. that useless slob of a husband of yours — nick. nick the dick.

“i mean, looking for you? — come on, amy. love wants me to buy some new slacks. apparently i’m a slack guy now.”

“oh, i believe in happy coincidences, sure.” oh, joe. is that really the best you can do? “we’re quickly approaching the realm of kismet, though. don’t you think? it’s almost supernatural, the way we keep running into each other.” 

i give it a rest before i feel myself to be in danger of over selling my point  -  i am able to take a note here and there as needed, and, i know. i can be a little over the top. i keep you trapped in the gravitational pull of my gaze for a moment longer before i shift around you, my hands still folded behind my back from where i’d tapped a shoulder and withdrawn, coquettish and girlish and charming, if i can be so bold as to say. i’ve even bobbed a little up onto the balls of my feet and back down, so that you think i am pleased, maybe even giddy. ( honestly, reader, i am. if only at the idea that i’ve unsettled him even slightly, made him think that i see, which i do. i’m a slack guy, now. i bet you are, joe. i bet you’d be anything she wanted. cue : wistful sigh. )  i don’t really like you, joe, despite how well this is working for me.

I’ve really gone out of my way for you, though. i’ve adjusted the houseplants in the living room to make a little space between them for your eye line from the street. i’ve rearranged the furniture so that you can see my face when i’m sitting there lost in thought over my journal, i’ve brought out my best and sluttiest summer - wear so that you can see more of me, and want to see more beyond that. i am a writer, joe. but you’re not just a reader, not to me. you’re a character. 

and i think you’re going to be perfect for this part. 

“i missed you and love at our party last weekend . . . i hope she’s feeling better.” i turn around to face you then, walking backward in front of you with a gentle smile on my lips. oh, love. let me borrow your fucking husband, would you? i promise i’ll give him back when i’m done.

[asundered]

do you want to have sex? / nick.

@deamazed

Wives say this to their husbands.

Realistically, I know that this line is not the beginning of the horror movie reveal sequence that it feels like it is, but there's something about the way that Amy sits there so primly and properly on the edge of the bed with her hands folded and looks up at me with her hair still pulled tight in that immaculate ponytail that really makes me feel like my stomach is going to drop out of my asshole.

( Maybe it has nothing to do with the way that she is sitting, or the way that she is looking. Maybe it has something to do with the way I've only just stepped out of the shower after washing the Andie off my body. The way I came home and slunk up the staircase and like a coward avoided the kiss Amy tried to give me with one of those unbearably awkward side - hug - head - kiss movements because I knew, I feared, that she would somehow still taste Andie's cunt on my tongue, even though I'd haphazardly scrubbed my teeth with her own toothbrush before I'd left. Maybe it has something to do with that. )

I stand there for a moment in the doorway of the bathroom, barefoot and buck ass naked because I didn't bring in a change of clothes in my haste. Because I thought she'd have put herself to bed the way she sometimes does, quiet and oppressive and malicious in the meekness of the action, like she's daring me to ask What's Wrong? As if I would.

Like I said. Coward.

"You're not tired?"

[haethcliffs]

while i was seeing you, really seeing you, you were busy gazing at a goddamn fantasy. — @quismet, @haethcliffs.

[batfleckgifs]

10, January 2013 | Nobody loves Dunkin Donuts like Ben Affleck. 

[asundered]

 i see beauty in everything,  but especially in you. / nick.

I know that this fact is what keeps me alive.

It should be daunting, I know. I should be terrified, absolutely shaken to the bone by this realization, I should be panting on the floor because of it.

Let me assure you: I am, I am, and I have, already.

There is something incredibly honest and disarming about Amy. In this moment it is impossible to believe that she could be lying to me, because I can see the truth shining there, settled all the way at the back of her eyes. Which are beautiful, I am inclined to add. Amy is a very beautiful, disarming woman. When she slides her hands over my sides and links her fingers behind my back, her head angling to look at me as her chest presses to mine, looking for all the world as if she might just let her legs go out and force me to hold her upright, I am very, very cognizant of this fact. My arms settle around her just in case she decides to sag for the dramatics, expecting me to follow her down like Rhett would Scarlett.

I would. I will.

The unsettling, gruesome, Go - Repellent truth is that I would do anything for Amy. I have cooked more in the months that she has been back with me than I ever have throughout our entire marriage. I run baths for her. I stroke the back of her head when we lie in bed and I think to myself over and over, How can I please her? How can I comfort her? How can I ease the burden she must feel of having to be this creature, every hour of every day?

I strike that thought, I commit to myself never to think it again. I lower my face to bring it very close to hers, my thumbs press into the small of her back and rub in slow, languid motions, and I find that I like the feel of her. How her shirt feels, how she rests her chin at the center of my chest. My lips brush the tip of her nose, and I smile, and I smile.

"You put it there."

[asundered]

deamazed​.

Why did I marry a man so fucking glib? Dear Diary, my husband thinks I’m fucking crazy. No, worse than that — he looks at me and he sees the spider that’s crawled into his ear and left him without so much of a flinch. It’s impressing.

The cameras are all on us, sweetie. It’s time to give them a show.

A strong, stable show. We are two people who have just come out the other side of total fucking ruin. If you want to see how strong your relationship is, see how the man you love reacts when you get kidnapped and tied to the corners of the bed by a scornful lover. Hm. Maybe I should rephrase. Desi was never much of a lover. He smelt like cucumber water and his mother’s perfume — wet lettuce is just about ample enough to describe the way he looked at me. See, reader, we have been through so much together, that Nick comes out the other side, dusts off whatever hang-ups and kill-my-wife tendencies that are bound to run in his blood, and he smiles that gorgeous, charming, southern hospitality smile.

I am naught but a doting wife. The blood, the shame, the crocodile tears aside, and that’s who I’ve become. I hold him close, like it’s some twisted, all-American show of true fidelity — don’t worry, listeners, watchers, America’s Public: we can get through this. We can get through anything. My sweet hubby played away, but now I know he’s here to stay. (Anniversary six anyone? The traditional gift is iron. My exasperating husband is no doubt thinking that that means manacles.)

Amazing. Sometimes I fucking hate my husband.

I am not amazing. I am exceptional. Perfect. Calm. Fantastic — flippant, that might be, it’s a better fucking word than amazing. Amazing Amy shoves a box cutter into a rapist’s neck. Amazing Amy drinks Windex to keep Darling Husband close to her side. Amazing Amy digs her fucking talons into Darling Husband to keep him from floating away.

He makes me laugh. He makes me giggle like a fucking school girl and I run my hand over the inside of his thigh. Raunchy, no? Ellen Abbott looks like her head’s about to fucking explode, but I lean back and rest my perfect little head against his shoulder for just a beat.

“Oh, he’s too sweet. Isn’t he, Ellen? My little Nicky.” I squeeze. It’s playful, fun — just like me! — but also a warning. One fucking toe out of line, Nick.

“I couldn’t have written it without him. Gosh, I mean — my husband’s a real writer, Ellen.”

“Hardly. What you’ve done is extraordinary, sweetheart. I couldn’t hold a candle to it.”  I nearly said incredible. ( /inˈkredəb(ə)l. adjective. 1. impossible to believe. ) Do you see, Amy? I am learning. Extraordinary. That is my wife. My wife is Extraordinary. My wife is Awesome. I do not mean awesome by way of the watered down common usage, either. I mean old - testament Awe. ( /ôsəm/. adjective. extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear. I will even use it in a sentence : To really see Amy, is to gaze upon the awesome power of the atomic bomb. 

But she doesn't want me to fear her. So I say Extraordinary, not Awesome. I can afford to be less than sincere, if it will make her happy. )

“It’s so rewarding though, collaborating with Amy. Putting our story out there, figuring out a little more every day how she sees things, how brilliant she really is. I mean. There’s nothing like it.” I look at Ellen, and my good - boy smile is perfectly in place. It is easy to ignore, with Amy’s hand on my thigh, that this woman was screaming down the airways for my blood so incredibly recently. I lean a little more into Amy, I snake my hand behind her to rest on the edge of the sofa we crowd each other upon, my fingers find a smooth, newly - ice - blondified lock of her hair, and I rub it thoughtfully between my fingers. 

“I think she’ll make the bestseller list for sure. It’d be a crime if she didn’t.”

[asundered]

deamazed​.

My life is a goddamn romance novel — the kind that makes the post-menopausal flush, and teenage girls across the globe flutter with anticipation. Nick is a sweetheart — he has charm. I think that’s just about the highest complement anyone could have: oh, him? That guy’s charming. It’s better than handsome — anyone can be handsome. And anyone can be funny. But charming? Oh, that’s the real panty-dropper. The real fuck-me-gently precursor. (This man of mine is smart, wonderful, a complete catch (!) and better than all that, he’s all mine.)

It’s just me, my man, and a well-loved, spine-bent Jane Austen novel between the sheets. It’s so hot, it’s borderline pornographic, the way his cutesy little accent peeks through the o’s and draws out the r’s. They say you can take the boy out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the boy, and I, for one, fucking adore it.

He challenges me. If you’ve been reading along, you know that it’s not exactly an easy task — I’ve fucked drummers, played with college boys, twirled my hair and kicked my heels over corporate hasbros, but never quite like this.

I’m going to marry this man.

He holds me close, and mumbles his way through Pride and Prejudice without so much as a hesitation — this is the man. The fabled One that stalks every young girl’s unconscious mind. This is the man of my dreams, and I’m doing everything to keep him tangible. He might fall out of my grip if I stray too far from our bed.

He’s looking at me, and I just want to cry. (With happiness, might I just add. The hot wings and the blowjobs aside, I’ve made myself the girl of his dreams, too. The up-for-anything, tie-my-hair-back, swallow-don’t-spit wild card that keeps him right on his toes and supports him through the ins-and-outs of New York life. I’m the coolest fucking woman in his life.)

“If you keep reading to me, I’m going to have to have sex with you, Nick Dunne.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever been in love before. There’s nothing quite like a grown man saying in love to make women melt and other men cringe, but damn it, I am feeling sentimental. Because of that, It is easy to roll over, to pin her underneath my weight, I think she’ll even giggle, especially when I prop my elbow on the bed beside her head and lift my head and shoulders at the most ridiculous, painful fucking angle to find my place back on the page.

“Please, Amy. Be serious. I’m trying to educate us both. Where was I --- oh, here.” The hand that is still trapped under her makes itself known, pressing my fingers into the notches of her spine trying to find some ticklish little area to assail, to make her jerk closer to me. I want to hold her, so, so tight.  “I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine,” I pause, I purse my lips approvingly, as if Austen needed my approval, or would have wanted it, either way. “Man, that’s good.” I look down at her, then back at the book. “We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”

I pause there, and when I look down at her again, I’m grinning. This girl in my arms, she is fun, she is smart, she is so fucking quick witted, and to top it off, out - of - this - world sexy. Fuck the cliche, I’ll just say it : She’s not like other girls. 

So obviously, I have to know what she’s thinking. 

“Interesting opinion . . . Do you hold with that, Amy Elliott? Would you still want to keep seeing me, if I was an asshole?”

[asundered]

deamazed​.

I would like it said, explicitly, and for the record, that this is not the man that I married. This is the unsurprising, completely fucking disappointing slab of meat that snores next to me and shuts down when I even try to have a civil conversation. He’s like Pac-Man. He eats, and he eats, and he eats. He whittles me down into the ghost he’s created, and has the total man-like audacity to hate me for it.

Dear Diary, I think my husband hates me! He beats me, he hurts me, he ties me to the bed and — what, you thought I was going to finish that sentence? Diary entry number one hundred and thirty two: Nick is sweet, but he flies off the handle for no reason at all. One hundred and seventy four: He shoved me today. Two hundred and thirty six: I bought a gun for my own protection. Poor me.

“Surprises,” I reiterate, popping the p with its very own southern twang that reminds Nick of exactly what I think of this bumfuck incest hell. I hate it. I hate him. Gosh, what are we going to do with one another?

“Well, I have a treasure hunt planned… but you’re ruining my surprise, darling.” Darling, baby, honey — I’m not disillusioned to the fact that he’d prefer whore, slut, bitch. Southern charm only extends so far when you hate a woman that won’t give you a blowjob and spread her cunt exactly the way you want her to.

“I was thinking dinner tonight. If you can clean up.” The trash overflows. The sink overfills. We are two coffee-stained mugs and the dredges of week-old milk that he refuses to tidy. But baby, he’s the one. (I can fix him — the world is run by women who think I can fix him. I can bring him back to the challenging, complex hubby I put a ring on. It might just take a little shake up.)

“We need to celebrate properly.”

“Of course I can clean up.” Of course I can. After I’ve said it, I gain the distinct impression that she won’t like it. Oh really? Because I haven’t, and I don’t until she asks me to. From time to time I think to myself, Amy and I have different standards of cleanliness, or, even if I clean, it won’t be the way she wants. I have learned a new term for this, through the internet, every bit against my will. Weaponized Incompetence. Amy would love this term, I think. I fucking hope she doesn’t already know it. 

The thing is, with Amy, it’s true. There is literally a right and wrong way to do things, with her, and she will not tell you the correct way for fucking anything. You -- no, I won’t even use the loose, targetless ‘you’ -- I, Nick, am supposed to discern the inadequacies in my work through the pitch and tone of her little sighs, the subtle raises of her brows, the rapping of her fingertips on the counter. What did you use? A Lysol wipe. Hmm. 

Hmm. It’s those fucking Hmms that kill me. I felt the counter after she quietly, somberly ghosted her way up the stairs. Faintly sticky. Fair the fuck enough. I fixed it. She says : Nothing. I can only conclude because she thought it should have been done right the first time. 

Fuck. I really have become one of those men that hates his wife. One of those monkeys we used to laugh about. But hey. Marriage is a two - way street, Amy. Meet me in the fucking middle. 

“You want to come down and keep me company while I do?”