Vivian Wyrick

Traffic

Do you remember the time I slipped myself into the lobby of your building early in the morning, without buzzing you first, when the UPS man arrived with his dolly full of packages, and then exhausted and traumatized, but relieved at how easy that was, I climbed the four flights to ding your bell and surprise you and you let me in because you knew you had to because it was the morning after I found out you were cheating on me with a woman you had been with for close to four years and even though I had suspicions, which you gaslit out of my silly-willy head, I had nothing concrete on you until precisely 7:02 pm the evening before when you finally called me back after I texted you those two photos showing the smoking gun stuff and you said in a voice I hear over and over in my head yes it’s true I’m so ashamed and my stomach mutinied and my stomach said I am going to pull some seasick queasiness on you for maybe six months and I tried to go to sleep that night when Brenda gave me three sleeping pills and said better living through chemistry and I had never in my life taken sleeping pills before and didn’t realize they were so small and that amused me somehow and I lay down in her master bedroom which she gave up for me but I just tossed and turned for hours until I finally decided to get up shivering, throw on unflattering sweats and drive my betrayed self to Manhattan and I found parking near your street and waiting until after 8 am so your son would have left for school I snuck in with the UPS guy and dinged your door and you had to let me in and I sauntered angrily into the living room and craning my head to peek around corners and down the hall I said oh I see you slept alone last night all sarcastic and you just stood there wringing your hands with your eyeballs peering left to right back and forth left to right and your mouth stretched into this lame grin like maybe the cavalry would come or something and I guess just feeling like shit and not knowing what to do or say to this woman whom of course you loved madly but mostly you just fucked pretty hard and intense and squish was a word you used to describe the sex we had once and I thought that was a bit unsettling but that was before I knew you were cheating on me for the entire length of our relationship and I sat down on your couch and you came over just standing in front of me like a derp with nothing to say so I got up and grabbed a Pretty Lady apple from your kitchen like I always used to do and you tried to make a joke and say oh you only like to come here for the apples I bet heh-heh and I didn’t think it was too funny and I didn’t even eat it in the cute way I used to do which was to bite it all the way around the middle and make a little trench belt but this time I just took bites like some hungry wounded ferret and then I said did you tell her you love her and you squeezed your eyes shut, tilted your head back and shook it to mean yes and then I said did you tell her you wanted to marry her like you told me and you shook your head no with eyes still shut and that seemed to ease my stomach a bit and then you said look I have a lot of work to do today and interviews too and I think you said you had to tape your podcast and I said go ahead I’m gonna take a bath and I proceeded to take off my clothes and take a bath because I was shivering from waiting outside for 8 o clock to come and my stomach hurt from that Egg McMuffin I bought at 6 am from the McDonalds across the street and so I turned on the hot water in that tub that I had been in so many times and looked to see if the paint was still chipping off the tub walls and it was and I wondered if sometimes she ever peeled that paint too and after I warmed my bones I hopped into your bed and tried to close my eyes because I’d been up all night and the tiny sleeping pills were taking effect but first I called Mimi and told her I was in your apartment and she screamed, I mean literally screamed into the phone get the hell out of there right now what is wrong with you bitch because I was crying to her on my way into the city that night telling her how you had admitted you cheated on me and I guess she thought I was going to go into the city to kick you in the balls or something so anyway she did not approve of me telling her I was in your bed all naked but I didn’t listen to her but I figured I should at least put my clothes back on so I did and then I jumped back under the covers and dozed a little and then about an hour later you came in and said you had to go soon but I should stay while you took a shower and maybe I wish I had gone into the shower to fuck you hard now in retrospect but I am writing this three months later and I am not sure if that would have been a good idea or not and so I just kept my eyes closed and then after the shower you came into the bedroom in your ass-tight boxer briefs with your wet hair slicked and combed back which was a look that always got me hot and you sat next to me on the edge of the bed and kissed me on the forehead and cheeks and then you said thank you for catching me and I took my hands and ran them over your slicked and combed backed hair because you were hot when your hair was like that and you had and still have an amazing head and we kissed on the mouth I think in a gentle way and you had a big smile on your face and then you said come on we have to go and I got up and with hands on hips I said what were you thinking to lie for thirteen months and you said hell I am terrified of women and I am even terrified of you and that surprised me and then you said women always end up leaving me and that made me think that you couldn’t be evil just really fucked up but it only served to upset my seasick stomach big time and then you said come I’ll walk you to your car and we held hands and the city seemed silent for some strange reason even though it was bustling with traffic and you asked me where I parked and it was up on Amsterdam and we walked hand in hand and then there was a ticket on my car because I was not in a position to read parking rule signs that morning and you said oh you have a ticket and I laughed and said oh no you have a ticket and you said that’s right and you took it and put it in one of the pockets of your black skinny jeans and then you said I am going to change you’ll see and you said I can assure you that you will never see this behavior from me again and please don’t tell your brother and you said cats can learn since you had a habit of calling yourself Cat as if referring to a third person and this was another weird thing about you but I liked it and it always made me hot when you would do the meow thing and when I got into my car and shut the door you crouched your six foot two frame down to see me sitting bewildered behind the wheel and your face was grinning like a little kid who didn’t have a care in the world and I drove home and the world through the car window seemed silent for some strange reason even though it was bustling with traffic?