I Love My Wife

Now that Adeen’s finally left to do his part in gaining income for our growing amount of bills, I can relax.

I’ve realized it is damn near mpossible for me to relax around Adeen anymore. The moment I notice he’s near I tense up. I could be relaxing in the bathtub going on an hour in absolute zen and the moment I hear the front door shut and his call out, “Natalia, you around?”

I'm ripped from my calm place, my whole demeanor changes.

I’m usually not around when he gets off work but I know that he calls out every day without missing a beat. As soon as the door clicks shut and he’s taking his first step across the marble floor. Even when he knows I’m not at home he calls out. I asked him once why he does it and he just shrugged and shook his head.

I think he does it as a security type thing, but I don’t know I don’t want to read into it too much. Adeen always says I overthink, overanalyze. But you know what I say in retaliation to that, he underachieves at utterly everything. I said that to him once, I don’t know why but I was in a highly irritable mood and he was in one of his nothing matters mood which only pissed me off more.

“You'd think Mike would have called by now, right?” I ask in huff while wiping my sweaty palms on my dark blue dress.

This was during the time we were thinking of selling our house and possibly moving out of the state. That ended up not happening, but Mike is the man that gave us our quote.

Adeen scratches his brown beard, “how long has it been?”

“A little over an hour, one hour twenty-four minutes by my clock,” I reply quickly tapping my right temple.

I’ve always been good with numbers. Whether that be keeping the time, knowing the amount of time that has passed without consciously keeping track. Memorizing credit card/account/social/driver’s license numbers of both Adeen and I is a piece of cake. Numbers are like the back of my hand, every trivial and non-trivial way to use numbers, I’ve got it locked down. I possess sort of a photographic memory when it comes to numbers.

Adeen shrugs again and for some reason that throws me over the edge. I can feel the heat rising underneath my skin and my muscles tense.

"He'll get here when he gets here," Adeen says.

“Why’d I bother asking you?” I grumble.

I can tell he doesn’t want to start an argument, but I'm already at that point.

Adeen takes a breath and scratches his nose, “I don’t know babe. I know I’m not much help, but stressing over when Mike's going to show up isn’t going to do anything but upset you more. Don’t go overanalyzing like you always do.”

“Oh Yes!” I exclaim. “I should be more like you right? Not give a damn about anything, be nonchalant? Underachieve at utterly everything, like you? That's your sound advice?”

“What the hell’s your deal?” Adeen asks bewildered.

I laugh once walking away up the stairs muttering to myself, “what’s my deal,” I shake my head. “What’s my deal?” I ask a little louder now at the top of the stairs.

“You!” I nearly yell down at him while leaning in over the rail.

He looks up at me with that stupid clueless expression and I want to spit on him. But instead I turn away and slam the bedroom door shut.

“Shit’s getting old,” I say to myself and go to run a bath.

Thinking about that now, I was particularly heated for no real reason. That's rather cringeworthy.