Page 33 of Come Back To Me

“What are you thinking about?” David asked me.

“An old lady with a pinky ring,” I said.

“See, how could you bore anyone, let alone yourself?”

I tried not to smile. “Don’t change the subject,” I said.

He nodded seriously.

“She’s been coming to a lot of shows.”

“A real-life groupie.” I rolled my eyes.

“I knew it would make you uncomfortable.”

“So you’re keeping things from me because you think they’ll make me uncomfortable?” I folded my arms across my chest. I was battle ready. I wanted to fight.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m in the wrong. I’m sorry and I won’t do it again.”

He was a natural diffuser. I wasn’t ready to stop. I felt things and I wanted to express them.

“You sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, made her feel special…validated. It’s like you want her to fall in love with you.”

“Come on, Yara…” He turned his face, dismissing me.

“No, you come on,” I said. “That’s exactly what you did.”

“I’m a performer!” he said. “I please the crowd. That’s something you signed on for being with me.”

“No, I signed on to being with you, not your career.”

“It’s a package deal,” he said that through his teeth.

I could hear the ebbing anger and it excited me. David was rarely upset with me.

“I think you have a thing for her,” I said, and David balked. “You have a savior complex, David! You’ve said so yourself.”

He stood up, walked toward the kitchen, away from me, and then stopped.

“Do you even believe what you’re saying?”

“You knew what you were signing up for when you wanted to be with me.”

He looked at me long and hard. “I did,” he said. “I don’t know how any man or woman could grow accustomed to unwarranted accusation. It’s not good for the heart.”

“Why did you sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her?”

“Because it was her birthday,” he said simply before walking away.

I started to feel the withdrawals right then and there. I’d replaced wanderlust with a human. That was a terrible mistake.

New addiction, new problem.

It was a little thing, like a pebble in your shoe. Sometimes you knew it was there and sometimes it moved out of the way of your toes and you forgot. That was Petra and her presence in our lives. A lingering uncertainty in my mind and possibly David’s.

David got depressed. I called it the deep sleep. Not to him, but that’s how it was in my mind. It wasn’t often, but it was powerful, and during our year together I learned how to watch for signs of its approach. I didn’t know how to manage him when he was like that. There was no manual, no website that gave firm answers.Be supportive, they said.Depression is chemical, and you can’t just expect them to snap out of it.I felt inadequate, like anything I said or did wouldn’t be enough. I touched him so he knew I was there, and I fed him because I was afraid he would forget to eat. He wouldn’t talk to me when he was like that, but occasionally when I was walking by he’d grab onto my hips and bury his face in my stomach. I’d drop whatever I was holding, a laundry basket, a roll of paper towels, and hold onto his head. I tried to talk to him even if he didn’t return the words. Just nonsense about TV shows or customers that came into the bar. The more nonsense I spoke, the shallower I felt. I wasn’t saying anything to help him—I was just trying to fill the silence.

I’d watch him from the kitchen, sitting in the chair by the window, knowing that I didn’t understand his depression. And maybe it wasn’t for me to understand; humans always want to fix things. Sure, I got the blues like everyone else, but this was something more. To David, depression was a tidal wave, not something that could be fixed with a new day and perspective.

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