Tallus
Diem had been inside his head all afternoon and evening. Something was tumbling and bumbling within the thick walls of his cranium, yet I didn’t think it had to do with my mother’s comment anymore. It seemed… different. More of a quiet introspection. The aura of anxiety was missing, or perhaps it had dimmed.
Most of the time, I could read Diem like a book. On occasion, he reinforced his steel barriers, and I was hopelessly lost, like now. No matter what I did, I couldn’t see beyond the shield he’d erected to know what knotted his brain and silenced his lips.
“Everything okay?” I asked on our way home.
“Yeah.”
“You’re quiet.”
“Thinking.”
“About?”
He pretended not tohear, and I didn’t ask again.
When I offered to cook dinner, he insisted it was his turn. When I said I would wash up after, he brushed his thumb along my jaw, pecked a kiss on my lips, and mumbled, “It’s fine. I’ve got it. Go watch TV. I’ll be there soon. We can snuggle.”
I suspiciously backed away. Diem rarely suggested cuddling as an activity we should partake in. He never resisted when I crawled into his arms or burrowed against his chest at night to listen to his heart. He willingly reciprocated by wrapping me in his arms. I often monkeyed around him when I was having a bad day, and he suffered the invasion, but snuggling of his own volition was… outside the norm.
But tonight, Diem wanted to snuggle.Suggestedsnuggling. I tried not to think of it as a red flag.
Stretching long on the couch, I encouraged Echo to lie beside me. I scrolled through our various subscription services, considering what to watch. Diem didn’t like reality TV, but some programs appealed to him more than others. He tolerated the cooking and baking contests. He loathed every singing competition. Fashion shows and anything runway-based made him roll his eyes and openly complain. Forget the dating ones. Those were trash. Utter garbage. The building, flipping, renovating, house-hunting type held his attention more than most, but it was theSurvivor-esque competitions that he seemed to secretly enjoy.
We had been slowly making our way through all twelve seasons ofAlone, a wilderness survival competition. People were dropped in the middle of nowhere with minimal supplies, and the person who lasted the longest won. Memphis and I had never heard of it, and we were reality show gurus.
Diem discovered it one night on the History Channel, and after one episode, he was hooked. Admitting it wasn’t bad, I searched ourstreaming services and found it right away. We had been binge-watching every season for the past few weeks.
Many aspects of the program gave me the heebie-jeebies, but Diem mumbled repeatedly how pleasant and peaceful the solitude sounded—no people, no traffic, no toxic air—and how he would kick ass if he was a contestant. Nothing set us apart more than our vastly different ways of definingpleasant and peaceful.
A bubble bath with a glass of wine on a Friday night was pleasant and peaceful. The wilderness with mosquitoes and muck and a lack of flushing toilets… not so much.
Alas, I loved Diem, so we indulged in his show from time to time. Since he was in a weird thinky headspace, I queued the next episode ofAloneand waited for him to finish in the kitchen. As I waited, I gave Echo ear scratches, and she licked my face in gratitude, wetting my glasses with her slobber and making me laugh.
“You’re disgusting. Do you lick your daddy’s face like that?”
“She does.”
“And you let her?”
He didn’t respond, and I suspected his attention had drifted elsewhere. He only had one foot in the moment. The other was locked in a different plane of existence with whatever was troubling him. A few minutes later, he shooed Echo from the couch. Instead of making me sit up to give him room, he lay beside me, stretching long and filling the space she’d once been.
Diem was not little spoon material.
“Um. You’re much bigger than a dog, and I can’t see over you. Plus, I’m squashed against the back of the couch.”
He rolled to face me.
“Not complaining,” I said, “but the TV is the other way.”
“Better view this way.” Diem wrapped his arms around me, drawing me against his brick wall body and burying his face in my hair.
Crushed against his chest, I squeaked, “Glasses. God help me if I break them, D. We can’t afford to buy new ones. Again.”
With a soft chuckle, he loosened his hold.
I removed the frames—they were only six months old—before they ended up crushed.
