Chapter 10: Brown Belt Loosened
He didn't answer right away after I said temporary.
The words just hung there between us. Temporary separation, not breakup. I heard how careful I'd sounded, like I was laying down a legal term instead of a feeling. His hands had gone to his belt without him seeming to notice. He hooked his thumbs under the brown leather and pulled, not hard, just a shift, like it had gotten too tight sitting through all of this.
He'd been standing in the middle of the rug, right where the wood floor met the edge of it. The lamp threw his shadow long behind him. I was still by the hallway side of the room, keys in one hand, the white bag with the gold chain strap still on my right shoulder. My grip had gone tight around the strap and now my fingers ached.
He looked down at the belt. Then he loosened it. One notch. The leather made a soft scrape through the buckle.
"I never even thought," he said. His voice was lower now. Not the pleading I'd heard at 2:52 when he'd asked who I was trying to look good for, not the serious edge after I told him to stop asking. Something else, flatter. "I didn't think about it like that."
I didn't move. I kept standing. For the first time that afternoon I realized I was taller than him. Not actually, but he was looking up a little and I was looking down. It changed the whole room.
He sank. Not collapsed, just lowered himself to the edge of the rug where it met the wood. He sat, legs bent, hands resting on his knees, the blue shirt pulling a little at the shoulders where the sleeves were still rolled. The brown belt sat looser now around his khakis, the tail of it sticking out a half inch farther than before.
I watched his face. His brow wasn't furrowed trying to convince me of anything. His mouth wasn't open ready with the next line. He just breathed. I could see his chest move under the button-down, a little faster than normal, then slowing.
"You still have your bag," he said quietly, and glanced at it.
I nodded. I didn't take it off. The chain pressed familiar against my shoulder. The keys were cold in my left hand. I held both like proof.
"I know," I said.
He looked up at me. The flag was behind him on the wall, vertical in the upper right corner, and from where he sat it framed him a little. The framed artwork above the lamp, the rug under his shoes — everything in the apartment looked the same but the height difference made it feel like a different place, like I'd stepped onto a platform he hadn't.
"Did I scare you?" he asked.
The question landed different than the last one he'd asked. The last one — if you don't want me, then who are you trying to look good for — had been about him keeping score, about my dress and who got to look at it. This one wasn't about the dress at all.
He didn't dress it up. He didn't add I didn't mean to or you know I'd never. He just left it there, open. His eyes stayed on mine. I saw the curly brown hair, a little messed from where he'd run a hand through it earlier, and the way his hands stayed still on his knees instead of reaching for me.
That was the tell. For fifteen minutes he'd been gesturing, open palm, stepping forward, trying to fill the space I'd made when I walked toward the door. Now he made himself smaller. He sat on the edge of our rug like a guest who wasn't sure he was allowed on the furniture.
I swallowed. My throat was dry from saying so little and meaning every word. I thought about saying no quickly to make it easier for him. I didn't.
"I was scared when you wouldn't let me leave," I said. Past tense felt important. I kept my voice even. "When you kept asking that question instead of hearing me."
He flinched, just a tiny movement around his eyes, but he didn't look away.
"Don't touch me anymore," I had said at the start, and "Stop asking," after. Both times I'd meant the same thing — move back, give me air. He was finally doing it, but from the floor instead of standing.
He nodded once. The brown belt, loosened, caught the lamp light. "Okay," he said. "I heard you."
May you like
I stayed standing. The bag stayed on my shoulder. The keys stayed in my hand. The door was still behind me, and the hallway beyond it was quiet again, and somewhere in my chest I felt the strange, steady weight of being the one looking down — not to win, but to finally be seen at eye level, or higher, long enough to decide what came next.
He stayed seated, defeated but present, waiting for whatever I would do with the honest question he'd finally asked.
