She tries hard to ignore and push it to the back of her mind and concentrate on the task at hand, at the workers infront of her. Yet she cannot. He is watching, she always knows when he does.
A part of her wants to run away, away to the safe confines of her cabinet in the smallest corner of the furthest room in this foreign house, away from every single person, away from him. The other part of her wants to run back to him, but to the him back in time, before everything blew up around them and made them into him and her, two separate beings instead of "them".
She listens to neither part though and just smiles on brightly, gesturing ahead with her hands to show the workers the arrangements which are needed. She also nods to another guest passing by who tips his glass to her in a silent salute. It is easier to do all these mundane tasks, play act a farce. It is easier to be someone else whose only problem in life is the gossip mills.
She almost gets her equanimity back but then her "husband" arrives. It is a new thing her "husband" does, looping his arm around her, trying to display a sense of domesticity which doesn't exist. She stiffens, never used to these public displays of affection from a man who is virtually a stranger to her and most importantly, is not him.
And all the while, his gaze continues, relentless. She tries to block out the panicky haze that has her enveloped, when there is a soft, crunching noise from his side of the room. She turns slightly to watch a crushed plastic cup in his hand and heartbreak on his face.
