Taking A Chance On Love || m.t.

十四 Cold War

I was discharged the next day, and Mark led me gingerly through the door of our home. My sensitive nose was immediately assailed by the slight scent of cleaning products wafting from the open door of the master bedroom. I stopped in my tracks, one hand tightening in Mark's while the other hovered over my slowly deflating abdomen, unwilling to touch the newly empty shell. Mark immediately went to close the door, his eyes darting around wildly as he looked for anything else that might trigger me. Finding none, he led me to the couch.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" He asked me gently.

I nodded slightly, and he disappeared into the kitchen. I sank into the couch cushions, looking around at our suddenly unfamiliar home. It was clean. Too clean. It was like someone had scrubbed away any signs of living in addition to the signs of death. I shivered involuntarily as the memory of the other day skittered across my mind. Suddenly tired, I leaned my head back and fought off the tears that threatened to break forth. I didn't want to cry again. It felt like all I had done since marrying was mess things up and uselessly cry as if that was all I was capable of doing. At that moment, I heard Mark coming back into the living room, so I sat up and fought to look more upbeat, plastering a tiny smile on my face.

"Here you go, honey. Nice and warm, no milk and one spoon of sugar, just like you usually drink it," Mark said with a bright smile that was clearly also plastered on.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I no longer took my tea that way, not since 5 months ago, so I simply nodded as I took the cup.

"Thank you, honey," I said softly after I'd taken a sip.

We sat in a slightly awkward silence as I drank my tea. It finally became uncomfortable enough that Mark put the TV on to serve as background noise. It reminded me of the day we first met, when we spent time together in my apartment later that morning. The TV was on and we were on the couch, just like this. And yet, that silence was neither awkward nor long. I hid my rueful smile in my cup as I took another sip.

Mark tapped his fingers against his knees while stealing glances at me until I finished my tea. Once I did, he took my cup and set it on the end table.

"Are you okay?" He asked tentatively.

Not ready for any conversation, I simply forced the corners of my mouth to turn upwards and nodded slightly. He sat back and gingerly gathered me in his arms. I let him, knowing he was trying to comfort me in his own way. At least he remembered that I liked being held. I sat back in his arms and curled up, placing my head on his shoulder. Although the silence was still awkward and kind of suffocating, it was easier to ignore. We sat there for what felt like hours, mindlessly watching TV until my eyes began to droop. By the time I came to, it was the middle of the night and I was lying in bed, Mark's arms around me like usual.

I stared at the ceiling until my eyes adjusted. I realised we weren't in the master bedroom, but rather in one of our guest rooms, the closet spilling with some of our clothes and a few boxes strewn about with some more personal effects that weren't put away yet. My heart should have felt warm at the gesture, and it did, yet somehow I still couldn't shake off the state of careful detachment I had put myself into. I felt that if I let myself feel things, I would have to feel the loss that I was trying to avoid.

Instead, I absentmindedly lay in Mark's arms, listening to his heart beating slowly while he slept.

Days bled into weeks, and yet things didn't seem to get better. If anything, it felt like Mark and I were growing apart. While we were dating, we were practically inseparable, yet now we simply nodded to each other in passing, saying the bare minimum to each other before scurrying off into different corners of the house to do our own thing. More often than not, Mark started leaving the house all day, only coming home to sleep. I no longer said anything about it because I was still too caught up in the loss of our child to concern myself with what he did. I let him throw himself in his work while I wallowed at home, sometimes taking walks outside now that I was cleared to do so thanks to the threats that had all but stopped after news of my miscarriage was leaked on SNS.

I felt like I couldn't even lift my head to meet his eyes due to my guilt. I couldn't help drowning in self-loathing, knowing it was my lack of self care that played a big part in my miscarriage. The few times I mustered up the courage to look in his eyes, I felt like I could see helplessness in his eyes and exasperation in his clipped tone from being unable to comfort me properly and facing the wall I had built up around myself. I couldn't help but understand, yet against my will, there seemed to be a tiny spark of anger that I buried deep down before it could be fueled by an argument. So every time we nearly argued over petty things, one of us would simply leave the room, until those arguments started growing.

We argued over the smallest things, arguments that for some reason always left us both angry and breathless, forgetting entirely what the argument was originally about and intentionally sidestepping the elephant we knew was the underlying cause.

It got to the point that we would both be laying in bed, sleeping back to back; two hearts physically in one room, yet emotionally miles apart.

The cold war dragged on, yet that tiny spark of anger remained buried. Until one day.

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A/N: It's been a while! I had a terrible episode of writer's block for the past couple months so it was hard even getting the motivation to write anything, much less update this book. But after joining a group chat that got me in touch with some amazing people, I began to slowly get the motivation back. I figured I'd just take it one word at a time, and before I knew it, the chapter was written!

I know this chapter is shorter than my usually very short chapters, but you'll see why in the next chapter. I didn't want to overdo it so I had to break up the chapter into 2 short parts instead of cutting it down or adding unnecessary paragraphs.

This chapter may seem a bit messy but I realised if I obsess over it, I'll never keep going. I want to finish by New Year's, so I'll probably go back and edit it later after it's completed.