it's obvious, she does not want to come with you; she does not want this night. she does not want the flashing lights of the cameras, the red carpet out of her fortress of imagined solitude in the same space with you to the openness of people who do not know.
she does not want this anymore.
all the patience, trying to save a burning bridge gone out and collapsing. you both wait for the plummeting carnival of pretense and false bravery, false hope, false caress of past tenderness, the desperation gone with the wind so you give up.
"you look beautiful," she tries. talk to me is what you hear, longing for the rest of the collapse, the final undoing. you smile small, walking away from her and onto the last ray of light in the room; the last thread of hope for this marriage.
it's almost dark, the spear of orange in your monochrome world narrowing. your time almost up. you are almost ready, all composed, suited up, scented in love and eyes sobering up for a show—your eyes that would lie but never to your wife. your eyes that would not meet hers tonight.
the light closes, winking the last glint of your wedding ring—a pawn to every futile attempt to make amends to commitments and cold devotions. there is no longer a distraction left, so you start packing your clothes.
you hear the bed shift, and the rough tension of the tresses of her hair against the others, trying to stall the drying of her hair for half an hour. you feel her eyes against your back and you tell yourself you would not look back at her just to tell her to try, and you mean it this time so you continue stuffing your bag of things you need: clothes, pen, journal, alcohol.
perhaps, this is your last act of chivalry, and this is her last act of kindness, doing you the favor of staying behind and making the pretending for the flashes easy, the drama coarse and dry on the end of those who sought your life out of entertainment and sensation.
jennie "drying" her hair in the past hour is a double-edged sword, the other poised to save you and the other poised to save herself, the sharpness of honesty withdrawn because it only means well like the neighbor who puts up a barbed wire on top of their fence is only for the sake of self-preservation.
you put yours up too, discarding the cardigan she gave you, tossing it gently onto the bed, still neatly folded. she doesn't question it, yet you see her hand fix the slight crease. it is justified to count wrongs, is what you think.
you pack another clothing in ceremoniously so she does not count it wrong and do the rest for you. you do not need it tonight—you do not need your wife from now on.
you've both always tallied wrongs, trying to keep yourselves on equal grounds with every uncordial thing that you hate about one another and the uncordial things you do—the niches you used to adore. it is as petty as you can get, but you never hurt each other (only because you do not speak on it). you both counted wrongs that turned into counting the days until the marriage is up and spoiled. just this once, you're both the jailer.
jennie eventually gets up from the bed, and you eventually stop packing what's perhaps enough for the night or more. she is considerate enough to try putting on the dress. black. the color of grief. it is up to the motif.
you ask what if we can live with this, zipping the dress up for her. there is a gasp there somewhere, or perhaps the beginning of the crying.
you do not tell her how wonderful she looks, here, in the middle of the final disaster in your room. the bed is made, the shoes stashed neatly on a line, no mess of fabric, the dim light—jennie beneath the dimming light and the estranged wife, fallen out of love, this image mosaiced into a kaleidoscope of broken hearts without the cushion of tenderness reminiscent of the soon-to-be-wedded waiting at the altar fifteen years earlier.
you start walking to her, the tension blank of romanticism and nostalgia. here is your future, but to jennie is a gateway. your footsteps do not sound against the floor, gentle against the rough night to come, and the days to follow, your steps perishable with the requited loves now abandoned, unfaithful to your vows.
she looks back at you with blank anticipation, but her eyes are sad nonetheless. this is where it is all going, the world outside starts creeping like a quiet choir of conversations, uninvited to the climax of the night. jennie does not speak when you reach her. you were my world too is what you wanted to say.
she's the contrast to you: tousled hair, bare face, her scent fresh out of the bath, lips quivering at the cold from the open window or in your presence, her dress with wet patches from her hair that she stalled you with.
she looks young is what you think but the good years when you both used to be reckless and in love unable to surface. she looks young as if she does not know her place, as if she does not own the apartment with you, truly estranged. she looks as if you can still afford to dance in a disaster.
"you don't have to come with me," you say, finally.
"just a little bit longer," jennie replies, but her body does not move. her body stills in resignation, waiting for you.
"you don't have to do this anymore," is what follows. "we don't have to do this anymore."
"i'm still your wife." a year ago, you would've hoped that the shoe still fits her, but here is the end of love: in this apartment in new york, on an awards night where your wife should've been in attendance too. in this room where your wedding rings turn into artifacts of something grand in the past. everything here is a pastiche of futility and discarded meanings.
you hand her the signed divorce papers, the clarity embedded in all technicalities of both your failures to one another; the certainty of falling apart.
jennie does not ask what the papers are for, and does not question the baggage that you carry, off to your hotel room for the night and the next couple of days after the severing is done.
"you don't have to be anymore," is what you say.
you do not wait for jennie to speak, nor her permission to walk out.
so you do, ring still on your finger. you are still her wife.
[BREAKING] three-time grammy winner lisa manobal attends the grammy's
wife jennie kim not in attendance, sparks divorce rumors
