Running away

I saw him sitting at a corner table idly playing with the cutlery. The restaurant was in a quiet neighborhood and we wanted to meet on neutral grounds. He was a good looking guy but today, he looked quite beaten and exhausted. I pushed away all guilty feelings aside and walked towards him. He had called me this afternoon and had gently pushed me into accepting a dinner invite. It seems so long ago when I used to impatiently wait for a dinner with him. Now, it was just another appointment that I was trying to keep. I slid across his table giving him a faint smile. After two years of marriage and six months of separation this was all I could do.
"I thought you weren't going to come."
"I gave you my word didn't I? I for one, don't go back on my words."
"Thanks a tonne. There are certain things that I need to tell you. Things that I think I should have told you when we were together, but somehow never bothered to let you know. But before that, lets order alright?" He signaled a waiter. We finished giving out our orders and I looked at him expectantly. He began to talk.
"For last couple of months I have been thinking why our marriage failed." I sighed. This was a sensitive topic and now I know why he chose this place to talk. If we weren't in a public place, then there would be less talking and more shouting; the last time we tried talking, the "talk" had ended up as a factor distancing us away further from each other.
"You do realize the damage that these 'talks' can create? We simply blame each other for the failure and both end up saying things that we don't mean yet they hurt us to no end. Lets pretend to be two strangers, have dinner and go to our respective houses."
"I am not here to talk about you or talk about me. I am here to talk about us." His voice was low, clear and deep. Wasn't that one of the thing that I liked in him?
"OK. What about us? I thought 'us' ceased to exist six months ago, when you walked out of our apartment." He sighed and looked at me. His eyes had a far away look.
"Can you give me a chance to at least explain myself first?" I shrugged. I mentally decided that if he started to blame me for our marriage failure today, I was going to punch him. Hell with being in public place crap.
"If I asked you to explain yourself in one word then what would be it?" Hmm...I wondered if he was following this as per his marriage counselor's advice. Oh wait! Only a couple can have a marriage counselor, not just a man who wants a divorce. Divorce...I repeated that words couple of times in my mind. Every time it tasted bad. I ignored the bitter feelings and answered him.
"I am intelligent or sharp or simple or kind or witty or enchanting. Take your pick." He smiled.
"I think you are complicated. What do you say?"
"Interesting. In what sense?" I remembered a quote from Calvin and Hobbes - Hobbes, I am a simple man with complex tastes. He had told me this line when I had explained to him the cutlery,spices and grocery arrangement in our kitchen. I smiled at the memory.
"You are smiling. Remembered Calvin's line?"
"Yeah." How he knew these things, he never told me. He simply knew certain things about me without me telling him what I was feeling. It annoyed me to no end that he never really answered me those times. Just a shrug of shoulders used to be his answer.
"You are complicated not because you are an obsessive hygiene freak or because you analyze and plan everything before doing something. Its because you get yourself tangled in a whole lot of ideologies and theories which in the end becomes a big mess. Sometimes your theories work out and sometime they backfire. When they backfire, we a small rift between us."
"I thought we aren't blaming each other." I said a little heatedly. He had wonderfully psychoanalyzed me and whatever I was eating suddenly felt bitter.
"I am not blaming. I am merely stating certain things which I believe, I should have I told you years ago." His voice was gentle. He was slowly eating his food. I sat there just staring at my plate; he resumed speaking.
"I'll tell you one word to explain myself. Aloof."
"Aloof?" What is he on about? He was idly twirling his glass of wine.
"Do you remember that night when you told me that I work with such a concentration that I forget everything around me, including you? You were very proud of me that day. Of course, for the same reason you were angry with me for more than three quarters part of last year, but thats beside the point. In last couple of months I have wondered what would have happened if I had corrected you that night." I looked at him with surprise. It was good when we were hurling insults at each other. That made me feel lot more at ease then us being like this - not fighting and acting like adults!
"I achieve that level of concentration in my work because I practically nothing affects me. Including you." I looked up from my plate. He was pushing his food around his plate and was staring at salt and pepper shaker. In the past he had uttered words to me that I would never dream of him telling me, not meaning anything but got so lost in the heat of the argument that they had sounded he meant it. It had cut me real deep. Now, he is being honest and I have absolutely no idea what I am supposed to feel. I am supposed to feel something every time these kinds of emotional bursts are made right? I feel nothing. Whatever in hell does that mean?
"I am so sorry Suze. I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought I should tell you this." Suze...Suze...Suze...the name buzzed inside my head. There was this one time when I had chopped my hair real short. He started teasing me as Susie Derkins of Calvin's fame. In short, it was Suze. It was the only endearment that he has ever said to me. And the way he said it had made the name all the more special.
"Why are you telling this to me? Why now? Why after three years of marriage? There were more than a hundred occasions to tell me this." God, he is such an idiot.
"Because I didn't know till now. I didn't know that I had taken you for granted. I didn't know that not changing your perspective would mean breaking our marriage and I didn't know that not having a complex brain walking around me can make me miserable." This was too much for me. Strangely, there were no tears in my eyes. The numbness in me relaxed for just an iota bit. I have had enough. There was only one thing to do. I missed him terribly, but there was no way I was going to tell him. Not yet.
"Apology accepted." I said with a haughty smile.
"Umm...Suze, I never said sorry." I threw napkin on his grinning face. Was this all that was needed? Apology? Are things this simple? I guess I will never know if I don't give it a try.
"You do realize that nothing is going to be same between us? We have fought for more than a year and lived separately for last six months. A year and half of hostility, bluntness and anger to be put behind." I can't help analyzing everything. I cannot simply change myself to a simpering idiot because the guy decides to come back to me. Please, am much more than that. Husband or not, still its just a guy!!!
"Too true. Am glad, your brain is still busy processing a million things a second."
"Damn straight!" My smile had a superior air about it. We are definitely not going to change ourselves overnight because we decided to go back being together. Then what was going to change?
"You realize that we have to get to know each other all over again?" His voice full of hope. For now, it was enough.
"Yes. Getting to know each other - calls, meetings, dates, mails. Then, we will see how it goes." There were no promises of commitment or loud and emotional confessions of our undying love. We were still on probation. We were still dwelling on muddy waters. But we were willing to try. We both had hope. And that was a nice start. "Lets introduce ourselves first." I managed to add. We both had full blown smile on our faces.
"Hi. I am Complicated." I said stretching out my hand.
"Hi. I am Aloof." He shook on it.
"What is going to change this time?" I cannot simply sit and feel everything is right when my brain is screaming for some answers. I still asked him not really expecting an answer but for his usual shrug.
"Point Of View." He answered. I never asked him whose point of view he was talking about. If I had asked, then I knew he would surely tell me. But for now, questions can wait.