He stepped into the apartment, suitcase in hand. Wearing his best "guilty puppy" expression, he said softly, "Honey, I realized I was wrong. Please, forgive me."
"Oh, good heavens..." She looked at him with wide, feigning eyes. "Why on earth are you asking for my forgiveness? Who am I to you?"
"What do you mean, 'who'?" He sighed mournfully and finally set the suitcase down on the floor. "You're the woman I unfairly hurt."
"And?" she asked.
"And what?" He faltered for a second but quickly regained his footing. If there was one thing he was good at, it was making up. "Now I have to make it up to you."
"Make it up?" She let out a dry chuckle. "Is my forgiveness something you can just patch over like a hole in the drywall?"
"I don't follow." He was lost again. "What does drywall have to do with anything?"
"You can't just smooth over a person's feelings and pretend the cracks aren't there," she explained.
"I don't understand you."
And he truly didn't. Nothing was going according to the usual script. Usually, he'd leave, then he'd come back, she'd forgive him, and life would start all over again. But something had shifted.
"What's there to understand?" she asked. "I'm willing to forgive you... if you pay me. A lot of money."
"Wait a minute!" He looked at her with pure disbelief. "What does money have to do with this? I came back to you. I just need you to forgive me, and that's it."
"And who asked you to come back?" she asked, a strange smile playing on her lips.
"I'm lost again," he said cautiously.
He looked around the room in confusion, as if trying to verify he was even in the right house.
"You've become so slow on the uptake." Her smile took on a sharper, unpleasant edge. "Did your brain go soft during this past week?"
"Don't joke like that, honey." He was starting to get annoyed. "I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine."
"Don't call me 'honey,'" she snapped.
"Why not?"
"I don't like it."
"Fine, sweetheart," he nodded.
"And don't call me 'sweetheart' either," she commanded.
"Alright, darling," he replied uncertainly.
"And 'darling' is definitely off-limits."
"Hey, what is this?" he finally flared up. "Why don't I have the right to call my own wife 'darling'?"
"I'm not your wife."
She said it so casually, so effortlessly, that his heart skipped a beat.
"What do you mean, not my wife?"
"We don't have a marriage license," she said with a shrug.
"But we've been living together as common-law spouses for years," he said, his voice trailing off into uncertainty.
"Where is that written?"
"What is all this supposed to mean?!" His voice began to tremble like an indignant schoolboy's. "We have a common-law marriage. Anyone who knows us would testify to that!"
"That ship has sailed." She smiled that unpleasant smile again. "Sailed and hit an iceberg."
***
"What?" The floor seemed to sway beneath his feet.
"Why are you surprised?" she asked. "You left me."
"I left, yes. But I suffered every single day this week without you." There was so much performative sorrow in his voice. "And yesterday I finally realized how wrong I was. See? I've come back."
"You came back for nothing this time." Her words sounded like a final verdict.
"Are you trying to say..."
"Yes, exactly that. You came back, but I'm a stranger now."
Her gaze really did look like that of a stranger. Totally detached. But he refused to believe it.
"What do you mean, a stranger?" he asked, hoping she was just hurt and wanted him to beg a little longer.
But her voice only grew colder.
"Just a stranger! What's so hard to grasp?"
"A stranger to whom?"
"To everyone. But especially to you."
"Wait... is there someone else already?"
"That's irrelevant. You're a stranger, too. We're just two people who don't know each other."
"So what am I supposed to do now?" he asked, completely bewildered.
"What do you think? Pick up that suitcase, turn one hundred and eighty degrees, and... go find someone else."
"Wait!" he remembered. "You said I could buy your forgiveness? With money... how much is it?"
"It was a joke," she said firmly. "Leave."
He picked up the suitcase with a shaking hand and looked into her eyes one last time.
"Is there any chance..?"
"No." She shook her head. "I'm a stranger."
He nodded and finally turned one hundred and eighty degrees.
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