Dear Maria (on hold)

Part 23

I had just closed my bedroom door behind us, and was now rifling though my closet, trying to find something for both Maria and I to wear. I had tons of Maria's clothes in my closet; they had just accumulated there over the months. I tossed them onto my bed so Maria could find something to wear. For myself, I hurriedly yanked on a pair of faded blue, boot cut jeans and a low cut, tight fitting, long sleeved, black v-neck. I ran a brush through my messy hair and pulled it up into a high pony tail, then handed Maria the brush. She brushed out her beautiful curls, and then we assessed each other by unspoken consent, checking to see if we both looked good enough to face Danny. I tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear and straightened her skirt, and she tugged my bra straps further up so that my bra was doing what she wanted it to, and then she adjusted my shirt, pulling the neckline further up. I raised one eyebrow at her questioningly, and as an answer, she took my face gently between her hands and kissed me deeply. Once we were both nearly gasping for breath, she moved her lips to my ear, and murmured,

“You are for my eyes only. You are mine.” I shivered as her warm breath tickled my neck, deeply touched by Maria’s possessive nature toward me, which I only now truly grasped the depth of. Then Maria took my hand reassuringly in hers, and I grasped it so firmly that I was sure her fingertips would turn purple, but she didn't complain. I opened my bedroom door, and strode out with borrowed confidence to face my slimy, cheating, sleazy ex-husband.

“So Holly, your parents called my home line to invite me and you to your sister's wedding. You didn't tell your family that we were divorced?” Danny inquired, raising an eyebrow, looking critically at me from across the coffee table that separated us. He sat in the only chair in my living room, and Maria and I sat side by side on my couch. As she spoke, Danny's eyes flickered questioningly at the hesitant no-contact space between Maria and I, where our hands rested on the cushions between her crossed legs and my crossed legs, our fingers only an inch from touching. I yearned to be touching Maria, for her skin to be on mine, but in front of my ex-husband it was just as little too awkward.

“Wait, my sister is getting married? Meg? To who?” I asked incredulously, carefully ignoring his other question. “And you kept our old phone number?” I asked, now questioning his sanity. The best defense is a good offense, I always say. Or at least, when I have something to be defensive about. Basically, I’m saying it now. I felt Maria's eyes on me, but I was careful not to look into their green depths, afraid of what my own eyes would betray. In truth, I had not told my family about Danny's and my divorce. Since middle school, every single relationship I'd ever been in had ended after only a couple of weeks, months at best, and so I had been simply unable to admit to them that I had failed yet again. I continued to avoid Maria's gaze, though I wasn't all that keen on meeting Danny's, either.

“Yeah, didn't she tell you?” Danny asked in his usual thick, oblivious puzzlement. I shook my head; I suppose I had forgotten to give Meg my new phone number. I tended to shy away from her perfect life, full of successful careers, men that stuck around, insipid suburbia, and now, a fiance and a big white wedding. No doubt she'd soon be popping out babies, providing our parents with darling little grandchildren, just like a good daughter should.

Though I knew I should be happy for Meg, and I part of me was, I couldn't help but feeling rather resentful. It certainly didn't help that Meg was six years younger than I was, a mere twenty years old. Here she was, only twenty, and she already had a successful career as a nurse, a home of her own instead of one she rented, a car less than thirteen years old, and a fiance to come home to every night and to kiss her good morning, a glittering diamond ring on her finger to remind her of the promise her lover had made to her, a promise to be there for her, in sickness and in health, for better, for worse... And here I was, twenty-six, a bartender at a lesbian bar, living on my own for the first time in a house I was renting, and driving an archaic car that hated to drive on the freeway because it could barely go over fifty miles an hour. But I had something Meg didn't have, something infinitely more precious. I had Maria. I had someone to love, who loved me, too. I had a beautiful woman to kiss me and hold my hand and warm my sheets and go grocery shopping with me and sit by my side while I talked to my ex-husband. I knew that if I had met Maria when I was Meg's age, I wouldn't have been ready to love her or be loved by her, and I certainly wouldn't have with her what I had now. So despite the sting of hearing that my younger sister was getting married, I was happy for her, and I was confident that I wouldn't trade what I had for anything in the world. I slid my hand over Maria's, finally looking at her, smiling. She smiled back, and laced her fingers through mine. Danny glanced at our now intertwined hands, and I felt just a twinge of unease. Whatever.

“I guess she hasn't gotten around to it yet,” I said, at last responding to Danny's somewhat rhetorical question. “So what did you tell my parents?” I prompted nervously, my hand tightening around Maria's

“I told them that you didn't live with me no more,” Danny replied bluntly. I sighed. I didn't know where to be exasperated and annoyed or relieved that I didn't have to tell them myself. I'll sort that all out later. Meanwhile, I had Danny to contend with. I reluctantly raised my eyes from the coffee table to look at Danny's face, and it was impossible not to remember, despite every degree of hell he had put me through, why I had married this man in the first place. I was starting to remember, that person I used to be...

Danny left after another awkward hour full of guilty thoughts and loaded glances. Whenever Maria squeezed my hand, in an attempt to reassure, relax, and/or encourage me, it only made me feel worse, guiltier. There was no doubt in my mind that I belonged with Maria, I knew I loved her more than everything in the world combined. But seeing Danny here... brought back every feeling and every memory that had made me marry him in the first place. After all that I had gone through to get over him, I wasn't about to fool myself into thinking that I could ever be with him again, not after what he did to me, but the woman who had loved him wasn't as buried as I'd thought. I had loved him, was the thing. He couldn't possibly have hurt me as much as he did, if I hadn't.