Red Flags, Green Light

I wish that I hadn't been so focused on the idea of being in a relationship when I was young. I wish that in every "What do I want to be when I grow up?" essay, I had replaced "married" with "loving myself." Perhaps if I had spent thirty-two years hammering that idea of self-love into my brain, I wouldn't have ignored all the red flags that brought us to this moment.

Packing up my bags, I was almost shocked that these pieces of crimson fabric weren't physical objects I was forced to lug from the one bedroom house we had bought together, into the 400 square foot apartment that signified our ending. Because I was the one who left. I was downgraded. You were the one who lied; who cheated; who convinced me that your erratic mood swings and venom tongue weren’t abuse. Yet here I am, the one trying to cushion my valuables with something other than the wardrobe I could have sewn with the imaginary yards of red cotton you had draped over our lives.

I wish the broken plate had been the moment I decided to go. Work had you too consumed to come to the group dinner that we had planned for months. A chance to finally see our friends after a year in the house with just us; just the plants; just Baxter's indignant basset hound wail.

Returning to the office- that step that you had been dreading every day since the restrictions began to lift- had proven as taxing as you had imagined. We had grown accustomed to the almost stifling amount of time we spent together at opposite ends of the kitchen table, clacking away at our respective projects, only exiting the shared space for a conference call, and sometimes, not even then.

But that first day back, your blue shirt buttoned high,pants a bit tighter than the last time you wore them. You were ready for a fight from the moment you woke up.

I attempted to stave off the morning rant by rising early and getting coffee started. After two years of marriage, I should have been used to the jarring way you often took the morning as a personal attack. But the way you bubble with rage before your feet even hit the floor still makes my heart race and my head light.

"It's idiotic. It's criminal. It's a god-damned pandemic, Rachel. Why the hell does an accountant need to sit in a room full of mouth breathers during a respiratory pandemic? What is being solved by me sitting my fatter ass in that chair. Did you see me try to put on these pants? I'm fatter, fucking fatter because we keep eating this heavy shit. I don't know why you love pasta so much."

You continued as I handed you a mug of coffee, letting you roll your eyes at the way my hand shook. Letting you tell me it was time to get my anxiety under control, incredulously asking if I took my medication. Letting you go on about how my cooking was making you gain weight, trying not to think about the fact that you are half my size and what could you possibly be thinking about me.

Forty seven minutes. That's how long you spoke in nothing but negatives before slamming the door on your way out. I had begun timing your morning dance with rage, a countdown to when it'd be reasonable for me to put my headphones on and get back to my writing- sometimes feigning a deadline so you wouldn't question my hasty exit from the very one sided conversation.

In that forty seven minutes, I had contributed exactly five words.

My hollow "Love you, see you tonight." echoing behind you as you stormed out. It wasn't until I heard your car pull fully out of the drive that I exhaled. Then inhaled through my nose deeply and exhaled again slowly. Four times I did this, an instinctual hold over from years of therapy in an attempt to control the way my heart raced at the first sign of conflict.

I didn't write that day. No deadlines and an empty house meant that I took Baxter on a longer walk, sipping my own coffee as I noticed the playful way the eight am sun touched the sidewalk through the leaves of the giant oak tree in the Stewart family's yard. It had been weeks since I spent time by myself, letting my thoughts turn flowery and poetic as I saw the world through my own clear eyes, not clouded by whatever current rage you were throwing. It was the first peaceful day I'd had in that same number of weeks. The first good day.

And I felt so selfish for it.

I felt selfish for rejoicing in your absence, when the reason for that absence was making you miserable at every turn. I felt selfish for enjoying myself when I knew you were miserable and I loved you more than I valued my own happiness. I felt selfish because I had spent my childhood wishing for marriage, not for the strength to love myself more.

You came home that day steely and cold. The morning fire was replaced with ice, a result of me turning off my phone and ignoring the endless stream of complaints that your chat screen was bringing me. I was already ready for the sushi dinner we had been looking forward to, my white dress a challenge to not drip soy sauce or wine on my chest like usual. But you came in with a brown bag full of takeout. Silently grabbing two dinner plates which you began shoveling lasagna onto.

"Are you eating? It's sushi night with the group." You stopped moving, staying silent. "We are supposed to be there in twenty minutes."

"I don't think we should go." I knew this was coming, but the obvious sureness in your voice that I would comply was more aggravating than I expected. "I'm working outside of the house now, it's unsafe."

"We're all vaccinated, and we're sitting outside."

"I'm tired. Today was bullshit and I need a night at home."

"We've had a year's worth of time at home, and we've been planning this for months."

"We're not going." Your hands gripped the counter, pressing into the unyielding formica like you were trying to dig a piece out of it. My calm demeanor dropped, the rage cloud my own for once.

"Well I'm going. You can have fun with your take out alone." I turned away from you in time to hear the plate whiz by my ear. Hitting the wall next to the door, it splattered red sauce and bits of meat across the white paint, the tile floor, and my dress.

I didn't change. I didn't talk to you. I didn't even turn back around. I simply took another deep breath in through my nose, releasing it shakily out my mouth, and left, marinara looking like oxidized blood on my otherwise stark outfit.

I held it together at dinner, reflexively waving off questions about where you were and what happened to my dress. Danielle, with her fourteen years of knowing me, didn't buy it- eyes narrowing with every brush off- but she didn't address it until we were in the bathroom together later.

"Where is she, really?" She positioned herself between me and the door, not necessarily blocking it, but forcing me to make eye contact with her.

"At home. She had a hard day." I could feel myself begin to cave under her gaze.

"She always has a hard day. She always has something to complain about. What's with the dress, is that blood?"

"It's lasagna. Jill brought it home thinking I'd let her cancel."

"Did she shoot it at you? You're covered. What the hell happened?"

"Nothing, Dani. It's been a rough year, we're just going through it."

"Kayla and I aren't showing up to dinner alone and covered in take out."

"Yeah well, you and Kayla have both been to therapy. She just has her shit, we all do."

"You don't need to have her shit, too."

"We're married, Dani. Legally, it is my shit."

"Are you safe?"

“I’m fine, we’re fine.” My exasperation didn’t fool her.

She didn't take her eyes off of me for the rest of the night, only turning away as I pulled out of the parking lot in the red Nissan you and I shared.

"We need to do this more," She had said fervently as she hugged me. It wasn't the insincere way that most thirty-somethings say they'll get together soon. Instead, it was insistent, real, concerned. "Let's get you out of that house more often."

When I got home, you were already snoring, building your strength for the fight that came the next morning. The morning’s rage rant included snide hopes that I "showered off the germs of the outside world" before crawling into bed. The same rant that happened the next three mornings after nights out with Dani. She had kept her promise to get me out of the house more, each time making you angrier than the last.

I wish I had ended it that night- wish I had the right amount of self-love to extricate myself from us. But I was still holding onto that five-year old dream of marriage. It wasn't until I found that scarlet thong, the physical embodiment of every red flag I had been ignoring, wrapped in our sheets. Bright against the white sheets like fresh blood, not yet oxidized like the lasagna had been.

A size six reminder that my size eighteen had always eclipsed our closet.

It couldn't be yours; you would never wear anything so expressly feminine as a thong. And yet here it lay, in our bed the morning after I had spent hours in Dani's backyard.

And that was it, the final red flag embodied, too real and physical to ignore. At that moment I heard the little girl in my head say "marriage" as her ultimate goal and I finally laughed at her. My eyes didn't sting, my stomach didn't drop. I was just done.

Of course, it was Danielle that I called to pick me up. And as we drove away from the house, a bulging suitcase in the trunk, we stopped at the red light at the corner, the one that never turned fast enough, regardless of incoming traffic. A single red Nissan, turning a left in front of us. We made eye contact as you drove past in our shared vehicle and the tears finally started. My entire body feeling deflated, tired from years of hyper vigilance. My phone vibrated with your incessant stream of texts, Dani saying nothing as we waited for what felt like an hour for the signal to change. She simply squeezed my hand as we both stared forward.

The light changed from red to green.

"Green light. Let's go."