Meeting Him Again

Your Night, My Night

I scratched the back of my hand absent mindedly as I studied Harriet. She'd insisted on sitting on the other side of the sofa to me, curled around a mug of coffee. We'd had to go out and buy the granules: both Harold and I were tea people. Usually, we'd share a blanket, especially once the weather got colder. We'd while away the evenings with a game of cards or a movie. Always together, always under the one blanket.
Harriet had gotten cold about twenty minutes ago - I noticed her shivering - and had disappeared off into the back reaches of the house, coming back shortly after with one of Harold's hoodies falling loosely over her tiny frame.
"What?" she asked, her hand flying to her neck as she noticed me staring.
"No, nothing," I sighed. This was the first interaction we'd had since getting back from the picnic.
Her cheeks flared red with a flash flood of embarrassment, her eyes dropping to the carpet as she sank into the sofa again. I hoped that thinly veiled lie had masked well enough what I really wanted to say - you're beautiful. But the words stuck in my throat. And then there was the hurt. Before, Harold would've just stolen the blanket right off my legs and run off with it. Harriet was so different. I almost felt like I had to keep telling myself she was the same person that I'd married so long ago.
In the dim purple light cast by the lamps dotted about the square room, Harriet took on an entirely different aura. She was quite tall, slightly taller than me, with a large leg to torso ratio. Her long arms were toned, as if the body had history in javelin or shot-put. Her green eyes were clouded with doubt as she stared down into the swirling galaxy of coffee between her thin fingers. She always looked so deep in thought. Scared, almost.
I frowned to myself, leaning my head back onto the arm of the leather sofa and pulling the soft wool blanket up to my chin. It wasn't like this. Not usually.
I'd asked around, of course, and knew a fair bit about regeneration myself; it was normal for people to be different, as that was the whole point of the exercise, and even slightly dazed or doubtful for a couple days afterwards, but never anything to this scale. This sort of confusion was unprecedented. I had spent hours digging through logs and rifling through books more famous, more old, than the planet itself looking for answers, but there never was any. All I had to work with was that my wife wasn't my husband.
Putting it like that made me seem like an idiot, even to myself. Perhaps I was.
It felt like fists had formed around my hearts, clutching them, getting gradually tighter the more Harriet drifted away from me. The further I let myself stray from her. Soon, they would shatter, and I would be condemned to piecing them back together. I wouldn't let that happen. Couldn't. Not with Harriet. We'd agreed to always work things out. Always talk to each other. Always smile and laugh away the bad days together.
It was in the vows.
"Hey," Harriet said suddenly, starting me out of my thought, "ba- Sharon... Shall I take the sofa tonight?"
It felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. My breath flew out of my chest.
"T-Take the... Sofa?" I stammered.
"Well, we can't possibly sleep upstairs together. Not in the same bed," she mumbled. She'd pulled the long sleeves of Harold's massive hoodie over her palms and held her mug sheepishly. Her collarbone poked out of the wide and open neck. I found myself staring at it, dumbfounded, wanting nothing more than to run my fingers along it as I held her close to me and tell her she didn't have to worry about that. To tell her I was still hers, but I stayed rooted. Couldn't move.
I felt my hand ball into a fist, nails digging in a clichéd manner into my palms. I didn't want to sleep in a separate bed. Hadn't for some odd five hundred and fifty years... Why start now? Cause she'd changed a bit? But, of course, if she wasn't comfortable, I would have to.
"I'll take it tomorrow, then."
Harriet's brow furrowed. "I don't know if I could be in that bed."
Her eyes had glazed over. I scratched the back of my neck, self-conscious.
"I'm not letting you sleep on the sofa every night, Harry. Think of your back. Neck. Nah. Your night, my night basis."
I swallowed. My voice was going to crack.
Why was she acting like this?