Lies I Heard Were Never Said

"I keep wanting to kiss you. I'm sorry. I'm a monster," I whine from where I've collapsed on the floor in our living room. We're back from a walk, and any sort of physical exertion wears me out. The walk was lovely, and we talked about future plans with no interruptions.

"The best kind of monster!" Mike announces. He makes his way to the bathroom to clean a splinter from the bottom of his foot. We'd walked through some underbrush to get home without braving a major road, and he'd been limping ever since. I follow.

I'm playing around with my new hair in the mirror while Mike sits on the edge of the bathtub, and I'm thinking it is a perfect day. The night before, I'd hid his phone so we could skip church (for the first time in our marriage) and sleep in. THree weeks in a row we'd been out of town, and was dying for a lazy Sunday morning.


"Where's my phone?" Mike had asked the night before. I sat in bed with a book, sinking a bit below the covers.

"I don't know." I should know he knows this tone by now. He stops looking.

"Heather."

"What? I don't know where your phone is."

"Well, the alarm is set for 5:40 AM from yesterday, you know," he says.

I lunge to the phone in its hiding place, then back-track quickly to the bed. "I mean... I don't know where--"

"Heather!"

"Fine, fine." I pick up the phone and turn the alarm off. Making a scene worked (this time) and we're allowed to sleep in.

That next morning, I awoke to Mike turning the pages on his book. I scoot closer to his arm and fall back asleep. The next time I wake up, he's smiling at me. He tells me he's already cleaned the kitchen and paid the bills. (Note: Boys, THIS is the kind of fantasies girls have before they're married.) I stare out the window while he finishes his chapter, and we declare the morning calls for chocolate chip pancakes. Mike even sneaks in a tablespoon of Bailey's.

"There's nothing like a little liquor in your pancakes when you're skipping church!" I said. We refill our coffee mugs and bum on the couch, analyzing the lyrics of a movie we saw the night before.

We get around to getting ready, and the breeze coming in with the sunlight fills our apartment. I crank some music and dance around our living room madly. Mike films, of course, and I'm struck by the beauty of the day thus far. Mike Colletto is my college roommate, and that's pretty sweet.

We drove to his parents' house early that afternoon with the windows down. I'd worked hard on my new haircut because we were going to see his whole family, but, like a girl with a crush, I was too proud to say anything and we drove with the wind blowing recklessly through the car. So recklessly, in fact, that the temporary registration sitting in the back windshield almost flew out of the car.

We spent the afternoon with his parents, grandparents, and aunt and uncle. Married, at last, and learning to be fully comfortable with this new family that's been added. After an entire afternoon of sipping tea on the back deck, telling and hearing stories, we drive home and walk around the park across the street.

In the bathroom, I turn from the mirror to kiss the top of Mike's tanned scalp and check what I can scrounge for dinner. I freeze.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing," I say. I bravely grab a few pieces of toilet paper and swipe his neck.

"What?" he asks again, now instinctively running his hand over the back of his neck. I show him my find.

"A tick!" Mike, a victim of Lyme's disease in the past, smiles proudly at me. "I saved your life, Mike! Just now!"

He starts to tell me that it's not that kind of a tick, but barely finishes his sentence. I've tossed my kill proudly into the trash and dance another dance.

Considering he saved my life right when I needed it, it's the least I could do. After all, if this is the beauty of the outcome, who knows what else lies in store?