by Chloe Liese
“Tom, those are Aristotle’s thoughts on tragedy.”
“Exactly. At some point, every love is a tragedy. It just doesn’t have to stay that way. We choose our endings. That’s Aristotle’s point. Tragedy is built—it has a structure. And if that’s not the ending you want, then you get out of that trajectory. You change the narrative.”
I stand there, stunned.
I’ve just had the best lecture of my life on Aristotle from the janitor. Not that I’m surprised. Tom’s sharp, and I know more than anyone that having a low-income job is no indication of a person’s intellect or wisdom. I just…wasn’t expecting his explanation to make so much sense.
It’s an epiphany that flashes like lightning against the dark backdrop of my hopelessness—Freya and I can’t go back to what we were, but we can lean into this painful moment, learn from it, and become something stronger, something better, together.
Tragedy is built, Tom said.
Which means I can change course and find a way forward that doesn’t keep pulling us apart but instead brings us close again. I’m a business and numbers guy. I understand changing trajectories. I understand that when one approach doesn’t work, you tweak the formula, then try another.
If that’s not the ending you want, then you get out of that trajectory. You change the narrative.
Tom’s words echo in my head, morphing into a whisper of hope. Hope that beyond the necessary work of counseling, I can go back home and tackle my fucked-up head. I can grip our disintegration and drag it away from the arc of tragedy, back to the path we started on. The path of long, hot nights and quiet afternoons, touching, talking, confiding in each other; the road paved with laughter and playfulness and hard fucking work. I can show Freya what I haven’t in too long—how much she means to me, how much I love her.
“Now get out,” he gruffs.
Before I can answer Tom, let alone thank him for his advice, he turns on the vacuum. I take the hint. Conversation ended. So I scoop up my duffel bag and leave.
Outside, it’s one of those rare nights when you can actually see the stars in the night sky, past the city’s light pollution. I stare up at that bowl of velvet black, flecked with diamond stars, remembering our honeymoon. We couldn’t afford much, so we’d planned to make the most of it up at her family’s Washington State A-frame. But her parents surprised us with a week-long all-inclusive stay in Playa del Carmen.
I can see Freya in my mind’s eye, in her sheer white nightgown fluttering over tan skin, blonde hair long and beachy from the ocean air, like an exotic, night-blooming flower unfurling in her native environment. She spun outside our secluded waterfront bungalow, the waves sloshing softly just beyond us. Then she stopped and held out her hand.
“Look, Bear,” she said, the warm affection of her nickname for me filling her voice. I took her hand and wrapped her in my arms, felt the overwhelming, beautiful weight of responsibility for this woman that I still couldn’t believe had somehow chosen me. She smelled like salt air and the flower garland she’d worn in her hair that morning, and I hugged her so tight, she squeaked. “Aiden, look.”
There were stars. So many stars. And they meant nothing to me—no, that isn’t true, not nothing. It was simply that at the moment, my wife on our wedding night held all my attention, and unlike Freya, I didn’t grow up sitting on my dad’s knee, staring up at the constellations and learning their stories.
“Stunning,” I whispered against her neck.
She smiled. I felt it against my temple. “You’re humoring me.”
“I like listening to you. I’m just a little distracted by this very lovely woman in my arms.”
Freya sighed. That sweet, breathy sigh that meant I was winning her over. My lips trailed her neck, softer than starlight kissing her skin, and she shivered happily. “It’s Lyra,” she whispered, pointing up at a cluster of stars, “the harp—well, the lyre—of Orpheus, the great musician.”
“Hm.” One strap down, her shoulder bare and tan. I kissed it, savored the heat of her skin, the flesh and blood vitality of her body, safe and warm against mine.
“Well, Orpheus was very popular, sort of like the ancient Greek version of a hot rock star,” she said. “And he fell for Eurydice who was your classic plain Jane. A mere mortal. One day when Orpheus was on the road, doing his rock star thing, Eurydice was caught in the crosshairs of war, which, when you were a woman back then, was dangerous business. So she fled for her life. As she did, she stepped on a venomous snake, who bit her. Then she died.”
I stopped and peered up at her. “Jesus, Freya. Where’s this going?”
She turned, slid her nose against mine and stole a quick, too-short kiss. “Orpheus went to the Underworld to save Eurydice, and played his lyre, wowing Hades with his mad shredding skills.”
I snorted against her skin but felt my laughter fading quickly. “What happened?”
Her eyes, pale as moonlight, searched mine. “Hades told Orpheus he could have Eurydice and bring her back to life, on one condition: he must never look back as they left the Underworld.”
My grip on her tightened. “What happened? He didn’t look back, did he?”
Freya nodded.
“What?” I heard myself half-yell, sounding much more invested than I had when we started, but that’s Freya, just like her dad. She speaks, and you listen. She shares, and you want to be a part of it. She had me enthralled. “I mean, how hard is it,” I asked her, “not to do the one thing that ruins everything? All he had to do was not look over his shoulder and keep his eyes forward, to protect the person he loved.”
Freya smiled sadly. “I think that’s the lesson. It’s harder than we think. Eurydice was tired from her time in the Underworld, and she was slow behind him. Orpheus struggled to trust she would follow him all the way. His love wasn’t enough to overcome his fear. And so at the very end of their journey, Orpheus faltered and glanced back, dooming Eurydice to the Underworld forever.
“Then he spent the rest of his life, playing the lyre—” She pointed to a smattering of stars that looked nothing like a harp to me. “Wandering directionless, refusing to marry another.”
I remember holding her tight, staring into her eyes as she bit her lip and said, “Sorry. I forgot how sad that story was. I just remember it moved me.”
Then I turned her in my arms and held her close. “I promise I’ll keep my eyes ahead, Freya.”
She smiled as she said, “I know you will.” Then she sealed my promise and her belief with a deep, long kiss.
My chest aches as I stop in the parking lot, next to our old, beat-up Civic. I drop my bag onto the hood and yank out the chain that holds a stamped metal pendant, warm against my skin, hidden beneath my shirt. My gift from Freya on our wedding night.
To Aiden—
Thank you for this happily ever after beyond my wildest dreams.
—Love, Freya
From “happily ever after” to this. God, how did it happen?
Sharp, tight pangs of guilt stab my chest. I did what I said I wouldn’t. Like Orpheus, I looked back. I looked back at the hell I knew as a kid and felt the flames lick higher, fear grabbing me by both hands. And I dragged Freya there with me.
But this isn’t some ancient story, some doomed, grim tale. Tom said it—this doesn’t have to end in tragedy. We get to choose our endings, and I choose mine.
I choose Freya.
I grab my bag, slide into the car, and turn the engine. I’m going home. And I’m not looking back.
Not anymore.
Freya
Playlist: “Hide and Seek,” Imogen Heap
“Freya?” Cassie, our front desk admin, pops her head into the break room.
I glance up from the cup of tea I’m sipping. “Yes?”
She smiles, flashing her braces. “There’s someone out front for you.”
“What? Didn’t you say my last patient—”
“Canceled. Yes. It’s not a patient. Why are you still here, anyway?”
>
I stare down at my cup. “Nick’s my ride.”
Cassie peers at me in confusion but doesn’t ask why I didn’t call Aiden.
I’m glad she doesn’t. Because I wouldn’t know what to tell her. I would never tell her I was scared to ask my husband to pick me up instead of waiting to carpool with my coworker, Nick. I would never confess I was scared that Aiden would be running late, or he’d say he couldn’t, any whiff of a brush-off that would be too much for me when I’m so raw from counseling, from sobbing in the shower afterward, then coming out to a quiet kitchen and a note in his tidy scrawl, saying he went for a run.
A run that lasted long enough for him to come home hours later, after I’d crawled into bed. I felt the mattress dip, and my traitorous lungs breathed him in, ocean-water clean. For just the faintest moment, my hand slid across the bed, toward the warmth radiating from his body, from the broad expanse of his back stretching a soft white undershirt. And then I remembered. How much he’s hurt me. How long I’ve felt alone. I snatched my hand back, turned, and faced the wall.
It took me hours to fall asleep.
My head’s a mess. My heart hurts. I feel like one wrong move from either Aiden or me, and I’ll collapse. Which is why I’ve been hiding in the break room, waiting for Nick to be done with his patient.
“Who is it?” I ask.
Cassie smiles. “See for yourself.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Some front desk receptionist you are.”
“I’m a receptionist,” she says on a wink. “Not a bouncer.”
Sighing, I stand and follow her out to the lobby, then falter. “Aiden?”
He smiles hesitantly. “Hey.”
“Gotta go check the fax machine!” Cassie says. “Don’t mind me.”
I stare down at my tennis shoes, peering up when Cassie slips into the back room. Aiden sets his hands in his pockets and tips his head. “Senior Physical Therapist. You wear it well.”
My heart tumbles. He saw my paystub, then; he knows I got the promotion. I hate myself for devouring that crumb, the faintest hint of considerate awareness.
“Same scrubs,” I say evenly. “But thanks.”
He hesitates for a moment, then steps closer, brushing knuckles with me.
I shut my eyes.
Stay strong, Freya. Don’t you dare give in. One knowing compliment. His hand touching yours. Fingers brushing is not romantic or sensual or tempting or emotional.
Well, you try reading Persuasion on a ten-week celibate streak and see if you can honestly say that. Three-hundred pages of longing and loaded silences, days spent in each other’s company, so vulnerable and wounded, neither of them is willing to face what they mean to each other, let alone admit it to themselves.
I’m drowning in need and loneliness. I can’t help that Aiden’s warm, rough fingers tangling with mine makes heat simmer beneath my skin. So I pull my hand away.
But Aiden’s Aiden, which means he has balls of steel. He slides his hand up my arm, and tugs me against his chest, into a hug. “I’m proud of you. I didn’t tell you. And I should have. Forgive me.”
I wrap my arms around his solid waist before I can stop myself. I need hugs like I need air. I’m overflowing with unspent love and affection that hasn’t gone into my intimate life in months, and I bite back tears because this feels dangerously good. Sighing unsteadily as Aiden squeezes me to him, I soak up his presence, warm and clean, the soft scent of his ocean-water cologne, a mint tucked inside his cheek. I bury my face in his collar.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Clasping the nape of my neck, he presses a kiss to my hair, then steps back.
“What’s the occasion?” I ask, blinking away sudden tears, hoping they’re not obvious. “What are you doing here?”
“I wondered if you’d want to—” He clears his throat. “Whenever you’re done, that is. With your patients. I wondered if you’d want to get ice cream—that is, have an ice cream date…with me.”
My stomach swoops. “Ice cream?” Our first date was at an ice cream place near campus.
“Yeah.” He scrubs his neck. “Then I thought we could order pizza to have once we’re back.”
“Why?”
He stares at me unblinkingly. “You know why.”
“I need the words,” I whisper.
“Because I miss you. Because I know dessert for dinner makes you happy and—” His voice catches. He stares down at his shoes. “And I just want you to be happy, Freya.”
My heart flies in my chest as his words sink in, as I try to battle how weak I feel, how readily I want to throw myself at him and trust that this means we’re on our way and we’ll be okay.
But then I remember so many late nights. Quiet dinners. Short answers. The loneliness that settled in, a bone-chilling ache that slowly turned to hypothermic numbness.
He’s trying. Give him a chance.
“My last patient canceled, actually,” I tell him after a long silent moment. “So I can leave now. And…I’d like ice cream.”
A wide smile I haven’t seen in so long brightens his face, before it dims, like Aiden’s trying to hide his relief as much as I’m trying to bury my hope. “Great.”
After grabbing my bag and paying a visit in back to say goodbye to a grinning Cassie, I walk with Aiden out to our car. Like always, he gets my door.
Like always.
That makes me pause. “Like always” is something you start to think when you’ve been together for a while. Certain behaviors become predictable, taken for granted. Even a gesture as kind as opening the car door for me.
I make myself stop and savor it, the feeling of him standing close, the evening air whispering around us. Peering up, I watch the low sun bathe Aiden in its golden light, making his dark waves sparkle, glancing off the strong line of his nose, the tight set of his mouth. A mouth I used to slide my finger across, then kiss until it was soft and smiling.
Staring at him, I recognize that familiarity dulls the shine of your partner’s mystery, but it doesn’t make them any less of a puzzle. We just…stop seeing them that way. We stop exploring, stop wondering with the wide-eyed fascination of new lovers. I’m afraid to admit that somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing the mystery in Aiden, and I think maybe he stopped seeing the mystery in me.
I wish we wouldn’t have. And I wonder if we’d be here if we’d done it differently. If we hadn’t decided we knew everything there was to know about each other and began to act accordingly, one predictive step ahead of each other. If we hadn’t let that take us so far from the other person, from the ways that we’d changed, from the truth that we still had needs and hurts and wonders and fears…
“You okay?” Aiden asks quietly. His hand settles low on my back, the heat of his palm seeping through my scrubs. Longing unfurls inside me, a soft, deep ache for something I haven’t felt with him in so long.
“I’m okay,” I whisper.
He smiles gently.
After I lower into my seat, Aiden shuts the door behind me. He strolls around the front of the car, and I watch him walk, his long purposeful stride, the way he bites his lip in thought as he pulls out his keys, then slides into the driver’s seat. With the windows halfway down, our drive’s breezy and quiet, but I don’t mind. We’re both in our thoughts, sadly unused to time like this, time in which we’re trying this consciously to be present to each other.
I feel a pinch of nerves like I did on our first date. But I shove that feeling away. I can’t let the past get mixed with the present. Young, twenty-year-old Freya had no clue what was ahead. Thirty-two-year-old Freya knows all too well, and she’d do well not to forget.
We pull up to the ice cream shop, which is in its lull after the post-dinner rush. Once Aiden throws the car into park, I let myself out and Aiden comes around. Shutting the door behind me, he sets his hand gently on my back as he hits the key fob to lock up.
“Hm.” I stare at the massive ice cream menu, frowning.
Aiden cros
ses his arms and frowns at it, too. “Hm.”
I glance over at him, and my stomach does a somersault as I read the tentative playfulness in his expression. “Making fun of me, are we?”
“I would never.” He gives me a quick sideways glance, before refocusing on the menu. “I’m just doing some mental math.”
“What kind of mental math?”
He leans in slightly, his shoulder brushing mine.
He’s flirting with me. Aiden is…despicably good at flirting. He wears his charm like he wears his clothes—with a genetically predetermined comfort and grace. And when he leans close and drops his voice, when his sea-blue eyes glitter and a dark, rakish lock of hair falls onto his forehead, he turns me into a big, gooey, doe-eyed puddle. Always has.
I try to straighten my spine and snap out of it, but it’s so damn genuine, and he’s so clearly feeling bashful, a splash of pink warming his cheekbones. When the wind picks up and bathes me in his scent, I have to stop myself from shoving my nose into his solid arm, breathing him in.
His eyes dip to my mouth.
“The mental math?” I remind him, curling my fingers to a fist until crescent-moon indents sting my palms.
“Well—” He leans even closer, his mouth a warm whisper away from my ear. Goose bumps dance across my skin. “It’s a very complex equation that allows me to calculate how long it’ll take you to pick two flavors for your ice cream cone, before you decide you like mine better.”
I shove him halfheartedly. “I don’t do that anymore.”
A huff of laughter leaves him as he guides me forward when the line moves up. I peer at the menu again and sigh heavily. “There are too many choices,” I mutter.
Aiden bites his lip.
“Stop laughing at me,” I tell him.
He lifts his eyebrows and looks at me. “I’m not laughing!”
“You want to.”
“But I’m not.”
Turning, I face him. “So what’s this equation? And how accurate is it?”
“It’s highly complex math,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Let’s just say if I could monetize it, I would. It’s pretty damn accurate.”
