do you love me?

We’d been having problems for awhile now. Little things mostly. Silence at dinner. Short conversations when we had them. Not making plans.

So I asked one morning “Babe, are you OK?”

“Of course,” she said after a little bit too long of a pause and with a grin that looked more like a grimace. “Why?”

“Because something’s changed. Not saying it’s good or bad. Just that something is different than it was.”

We started dating almost three years ago. It happened one night, kind of by accident, but not really. I guess one of us had a motive.

“It just feels strange lately, babe,” I continued. “We just aren’t us lately.”

She’d been working long, hard hours at work. Me? I’d been trying to write a novel. And getting about as far as Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” What little work I was getting paid for, was just enough to distract me from what I should have been doing.

“Let’s go get drunk tonight,” she said eagerly. “That’s how we met. That’s how we coped during the lean times. So, let’s do it!”

I smiled. She had that look in her eyes. The one that got me that first night we kissed. It’s a rarity to see that in someone’s eyes. And when you find it, you’ve got to grab hold of it and do everything you can so it doesn’t disappear. So far, every other time, it went away.

“You got it babe,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.

“That’s all I get?” she said coyly, pretending to sad.

That’s all the cue I needed. Soon, we were naked again and enjoying each other.

After a sweaty mess of a time, I laid there in bed watching her. I had the luxury of being able to do that, not having a real job. She was clumsy, dropping her bra when she was looking for a pair of underwear. Or simply forgetting something and having to run back into the room seconds later.

I smiled at this.

“What?” she asked.

“I love you, don’t every forget that.”

“Never will darlin’.”

I pulled up the covers to my chin. I’m glad I asked. In the past, I would have just ignored the signs. Let them grow. Let them become doubts. Needless doubts, but doubts. And when they sprout, they grow like vines. They choke out everything else. They spread to the other person. Before you know it, you’re alone, wondering what the fuck happened.

Don’t know when I realized that. I guess the last time. When she left without a word on a Saturday afternoon. Two hours before she said she was. Not even a note. Just gone. With all her stuff.

A little over a year later, after we’d reconnected a bit, she did it again. I saw it coming, however. Wasn’t killed by it. Just hurt. But if I’d just asked, I would have known at least a month earlier. Instead, I just watched.

The next girl didn’t have the eyes. I wasn’t consumed by her stare. It sucked. I wanted it to be there. But it wasn’t. It took me over a year to finally one night to drunkenly try something. We enjoyed a night. Then woke up the next day without much to say. I chocked it up to just being scared of being hurt. We were both gun shy by this point in our lives. Probably at a time when that should have been the furthest thought, but instead consumed us like 14 year old school kids.

One night, I asked her why she stayed with me.

“I like you,” she said.

“But you don’t love me, do you?”

Silence.

A little while later, I asked again.

“Do you love me?”

“I guess not.”

“Yeah, it’s just not there, is it?”

We stayed together for another year. But the end was inevitable.

One night in our favorite bar, I saw her. She had the most gorgeous eyes I’d seen in a long time. I couldn’t help but look at her in the mirror behind the bar.

“You should go talk to her,” my girlfriend said.

“What?” I said, shocked at this.

“You’ve been looking at her the entire time she’s been in here. She’s your type.”

“I can’t.”

“Why? Because of me?”

“No. … I’m scared.”

She looked at me and laughed. Then she bought another drink and a second one. Except it was a drink she’d never have -- a Singapore sling. She sent it to the other woman. From me.

I watched this happen. The other girl looked over at me, took the drink and held it up with a smile and a blown kiss.

By the end of the night, I had her number and her eyes in my head.

They’re still there. Thankfully. Because I don’t think I could do it without them.