WIP

My cheeks ache from smiling. I try to stop, to relax, but my face is all screwed up and tight. Like gum that you’ve chewed for too long. Nothing but a tasteless, hard lump, and yet you can’t stop chewing. Because that’s what you do with gum. You grind it between your molars until nothing remains but tatters.

It even hurts to breathe. It’s as if my lungs don’t want to part with the air. I have to force it through my throat, and it chafes against my vocal cords like a desert wind.

But I only have myself to blame. I never told him, and now it’s too late. I found out on Facebook – Facebook, for fuck’s sake! I don’t even use Facebook. I check it once a month, and this morning when I went there, his post screamed at me from the top of my otherwise eventless feed: I’m moving! And then a smiley.

I blink, and my family takes form again around the table. They’re laughing and chatting, completely unaware that Armageddon has been and gone. Linda catches my eye and smiles like only she can smile: hopeful, yet resigned. It’s a long time since she had any illusions about me.

“Going down to the studio after dinner?” she asks, and I’m horrified to blush. I know she thinks I use that room to jerk off, and in a way I guess that’s true. But not the way she thinks.

“Yeah, I thought I’d have a go at the album,” I mumble. I’m not lying. That’s exactly what I’m planning to do. But the lyrics to those songs are an X-ray of my heart, and she knows it. She just doesn’t know who the mystery woman is.

Just as I think it, the doorbell rings. We both jump, and I clutch the edge of the table. Her eyes slip down to take it in, and she cocks her head slightly. Does she guess?