An Itch to Scratch

"Stop worrying about -my- happiness and focus on yours. Are you happy?"

"Some days I am and some days I'm not."

"Don't give me that bullshit answer." she shook her head. "I need to know. Yes. Or no."

He sighed. "No."

"So we're not happy in this shit situation. Why are we sticking around for this?" she asked. "And no, I don't -want- a divorce." she said, since he wouldn't. "That's the last thing I want. But.. there's no spark in this anymore."

"I know and like I said, we're both trying but it's just not working. ...so what? we get a separation or something?"

"I don't want that, but..." she shrugged gently.

He ran a hand through his hair and nodded. "Look, how about before we make any final decision...we just take time to think. I'll go stay at my school for a couple of days and obviously come see the kids. If we both realize that we miss each other and want to stay together, then we'll do it. If not, then I guess we'll come to a conclusion that we should get a separation."

"Phil. Even if we do try the separation thing, we are just going to get back together." she said. "You don't want that and I don't want that. I'm telling you right now, I'm going to miss you if you go." she said. "We've tried to figure out things and there is apparently nothing to figure out." she sighed. "This is just.. this is just us now." she folded her arms across her chest. "And I hate it. But for some reason, if I say something, you just shut down. Like the lasagna thing. I just wanted you to eat. But you took it as me not wanting to be with you and you just shut down on me and it went bad from there." she shook her head. "And when you do that, I don't know how to respond." She said. "And I'm scared that I told you that because you tell me that I can tell you the truth and tell you how I feel about things that you do, but you get offended when I do." she said. "And I'm not looking for an apology or for you to place any blame on yourself. So please don't. I'm just telling you."

He nodded. "Well then, I don't know what to say after that, except for...okay." he said. "I guess we're going to be stuck like this. We can't do anything else about it, even if we keep trying. I don't know what to do, you don't know what to do and I don't know about anything anymore." he told her.

She sighed gently. "Do you want a divorce, Phil? Be honest. Don't think about me. Don't think about how it's going to affect the kids. Do you want out?"

"You know I don't." he told her.

"Okay." she nodded. "So is this how it's going to be?" she asked. "Dead?"

"Well, do you want a divorce?"

"I don't. But i don't know what else to do. And I know you don't either." She ran her hands through her hair.

"This fucking sucks." he said as he shook his head a bit, biting his lip.

"Yeah. It does." She said as she sniffled quietly. She didn't want to get emotional. "I don't feel like the girl that fell in love with you ten years ago."

"Then what do you feel like?"

"A woman in a loveless marriage."

He sighed. "For what it's worth Lacy, I do love you. No matter what happens to us, I always will." he said. "Do you...regret getting married and everything?"

"I think we should have waited." She said honestly. "Everything happened so fast, so soon. We were together for not even a year before we had Brandon. Then we got married later that year. I just feel like we didn't have time to figure out if we really wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We just.. went too fast."

He nodded. "Yeah, we didn't really think it through. We just let ourselves get carried away."

"But to answer your question, no, I don't regret anything. I could never."

"Same for me." he told her.

"I guess I'll sleep in the guest room from now on."