Saviour

In five hours, Lydia had only blinked, cradled her face with her hand once and curled and uncurled her fingers and toes twice. She did not eat, she did not drink, she barely seemed to breathe.

Her eyes were open but she did not see anything, her vision was blurred. She stared not at the opposite wall but past it, through it to the garden, where she did not imagine snow but imagined summer. Imagined everything tinted yellow, every nook and cranny, from the sun's infinite reach. The dark corners of her garden even blooming, breathing, like they'd never known the bite the cold. Imagined tulips never touched by a human hand, never ruined with the oils or guilt or harshness of her skin. Of Robert's skin.

They spoke. He told her, I don't love you, I think. She kept tight-lipped because she couldn't do anything else. He told her, I don't know if you love me, still. She kept tight-lipped because she didn't know, either. He asked her, what are we doing to ourselves? She kept tight-lipped because she knew that the second she opened her mouth, she'd throw up.

During the whole thing, she'd felt childlike and small and dumb, and now it wouldn't leave her head. What are we doing to ourselves? Lydia couldn't help but think, What are we doing to each other?

Why couldn't Robert have said that instead? Shown the tiniest bit of affection for Lydia. They didn't love each other much, she knew that, but did they even still like each other?

Lydia knew as stupid as it was, she cared for Robert in the tiniest way. She craved his approval still. He is the reason she continues, every other morning, to shave her legs. He is the reason she continues to buy fifteen dollar mascara and apply it carefully in the bathroom's yellow light, just the way she learned to from her mother.

But Lydia also knew Robert did not crave her approval. Who was the reason Robert shaved in the mornings, groomed his eyebrows? Who kept him going to the gym?

Lydia heard her breathing become less even, heard her heart in her ears, heard the refrigerator's low rumbles, heard the creak of the seventh stair and heard herself sniffle and heard Robert walk back up to their room pretending he hadn't heard anything at all.