I Always Will

Strategies

Riley

I slow my roll down the hall slightly, just so that I can get a view of Row edging ahead of me. Today for the first time in ages, she's not wearing yoga pants and a black death metal sweatshirt down to her knees. For whatever reason, she put on ripped up jeans and a white tissue t-shirt today. 

And her long necklaces. A beaded necklace that might very well be a rosary, which she surely knows should not be worn as jewelry, given the fact that her grandparents are Roman Catholic, even if her father does not practice. She's also wearing a sandalwood mala, though she couldn't sit still to meditate if her life depended on it. And some kind of Native American feather thing, which is mostly likely probably also a religious artifact she is profaning by wearing casually without any thought to its meaning.

I love the swing of those necklaces.

The sway of her constant rebellion.

My spectacular heathen.

I sigh.

How can the same thing I love about her be the very thing I cannot abide?

She turns, and her mop of messy blonde flares. I snuff a laugh. Even that mess is growing on me. Especially when she wears it in that braid. Stroking down the back of her skull through the full length is like stroking a cat from head to tail.

Not quite our Lion. Sleeker. Slinkier. More feral. More skittish. More elusive.

A little bobcat, that's what she is.

Although her brother and sister are tormenting her with that cheetah nonsense. So obvious about it, too. As if I wouldn't notice. As if I don't notice nearly everything.

I ignore it, because it doesn't merit acknowledgment. They may have their childish sibling interactions, but it's no joke, what Row did.

She nearly destroyed me when she cheated.

Worse, she nearly destroyed herself.

She has no idea that the bigger part of what I can't forgive is the fact that she contemplated, for however briefly, ending her life rather facing what she had done.

Not only did she betray me, she thought to leave me forever, and leave me in the way she knows I could never recover from.

Losing Priscilla was a devastation. Losing Row the same way?

It would have been the death of me.

Letting her go was the only way I could survive even the thought of it.

Reckless woman.

Stubborn girl.

Reckless in her anger, but stubborn in her love.

She can't stop loving me, she says, in the same breath she curses me. What did she call me? Insufferable, arrogant, prideful fuck? She's not wrong.

Oh, I forgot. British. I laugh under my breath at the way she's made that the most profane adjective she can attach to me.

She swings around, her necklaces clattering as she grins at me. "Come on, slowpoke..."

"Just enjoying the view," I say mildly pushing my wheels quickly three times to catch up. She gives me a sexy side eye.

I ignore it. I have to stop this. Flirting with her, being tender with her. Giving her mixed signals.

It's not fair to her, given the likely outcome of this journey.

I'm a fairly strategic bloke, and I can see clearly what's waiting for us down the mostly likely path.

Another heartbreak, the likes of which will make our divorce seem like child's play.