“Maybe I’ve been looking too hard,” he says, shrugging.
“Looking too hard to not looking at all,” I correct.
Alka sighs. “I’m happy.” He looks at me and shifts, leaning forward to press his face into mine. “I love you. You’re the absolute best husband I could ever want. I’m not… dissatisfied. You know that, right?”
“I’ve always known that.”
“Maybe what I’ve always said I wanted just isn’t going to happen. Maybe it was never meant to.”
“Maybe you just haven’t been in the right place when he has. Maybe you’ve crossed paths a dozen times.”
He smiles. “Why are we really talking about this?”
“Because I’m worried about you. You’ve stopped chasing love since Declan, and that breaks my heart.”
“Declan,” he says, chuckling. “Fucker was perfect.”
“He’s not,” I argue, “or he’d be yours.”
He hums, but I’m not sure he agrees with me.
“Do you think there’s a subconscious reason you’ve stopped looking?”
Alka sits up and turns back to the food. I do the same, so it gets eaten while it’s still warm. We’re quiet for a few minutes as he considers the question.
“I don’t know. I can’t think of one, but if it’s an unconscious thought, then I wouldn’t think of it anyway.”
I grin into my plate as I take another bite.
“Do you have a reason I might be self-sabotaging my attempts to find someone to love in addition to you, something that you’re attempting to get me to recognize on my own?”
Do I? I don’t answer as it’s my turn to think about his question. Do I suspect something? “If there’s something specific, then it’s also in my unconscious thoughts. What I do think is that you’ve been discouraged so many times that you’ve given up and you’re allowing yourself to settle on just one romantic partner because you have one you love. Yes, we are happy. Yes,we have a very good life together. No, I don’t think we’re missing anything or that we’re incomplete. But Idothink that you still have a lot of love to give someone.”
“Maybe you’re just going to have to accept having all my love,” he muses.
“I have all your love. No one will ever have the love you give me. But I know you’re capable of so much more than loving just me, and that’s what you long for.”
“There are people in the world that would tell us we’re obviously unsatisfied.”
“I’d wager a bet that those idiots love more than one person too. They can deny polyamory all they want, but they love more than one parent, more than one child, more than one friend. It’s not a competition to love one person at a time. You don’t take away the love you have for one child in order to give love to the other. Your heart expands to love both children equally—differently, uniquely, but equally all the same.”
“Poetry right there.”
“We could talk about this all day, but we’re on the same side of a heated debate and it’s a waste of our time. The bottom line is our life choices, and our lifestyle, are none of anyone else’s business, and I’m happy to remind them of that in the same tone with which they offer their unsolicited opinions. However, this is neither here nor there. Alka, I don’t want you to give up on looking for the second half of your love. That’s why I brought this up. I’ve watched you give up for the last year and a half, and I hate that I can’t give this to you. But I can’t. This one you’re going to need to do on your own.”
Alka watches me for a few minutes before he nods. A gentle, subtle bob of his head. “Okay.”
“I don’t care what you do today, including visiting the nunnery that is the library.” He snorts. “But please, go out and be amongst people. Talk to people. Meet people. Promise me.”
He playfully rolls his eyes. “Fine. I promise.”
“Put some effort in, like more than five minutes.”
He snorts. “Yes. I got it. Anything else?”
“Tell me you’re okay and mean it.”
Alka puts his fork down and turns his chair to face me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and rests his head on mine. “I’m okay. Yes, I’m sad that I don’t have the… love that I always imagined I’d have by now. But I have you, and I’m not at all sad if it’s just you and me for the rest of our lives, even as contradictory as that sounds. You are my world, and I’m ridiculously happy that you stalked me at a gas station like a creeper.”
