MAD BLACK WOMAN

SEPARATION (part one)

There is silence before lightning briefly illuminates the house, the floor to ceiling windows give a slight shudder as thunder booms through and Nanti feels as if her heart is a paper her husband tears in half and commences to burn the remains.

She hurts.

And it takes everything in her being to not let a tear shed. It's begging to fall, she wants to wail but she holds it all in, swallows the hurt down her throat and still it sits uncomfortably in her belly.

She barely musters out, "huh?"

He leans back in the chair with his eyes closed and takes a deep breath. The folds in his suit are creasing, crumpled up like wilted lettuce.

"Yeah- I'm moving out. I can't do this anymore. I'll pay for you to live here but I'm just gonna find another apartment for myself. We need some time apart."

She's never felt this sick in her life.

No, seriously she hasn't.

She feels like the five year old she once was, crowd in front of her, spotlight shining down on her, sticking her to the stage. Her tutu is slightly tilted and her toes are stiff and pointed and her mind is focused on perfection. No one knows she's scared for her life because her pride is a chamber and she's so good at packing shit in it. Her pride is a chamber that has yet to overfill with baggage but now, nearly two decades later, the walls are starting to give.

"Élan, that's dramatic-" She squeaks.

"You love it though, don't you? The dramatics? For months on end, I've been living around you not with you because you're so goddamn dramatic!" His voice crescendoes. He coughs before continuing. "Do you even remember what you're angry about? Do you recall?"

He's on his feet now, in her face with his brows so low and eyes so narrow. She's never seen him this angry, he looks like a villain in his gray suit. Frustrated, he runs his fingers through his hair and scoffs because he's leaking with anger built up from almost a year.

He could hit something but he doesn't, just aggressively rubs his eyes and mumbles something along the lines of disbelief and putting up with shit. Then, he leaves a trail of discarded clothes to the bedroom before she hears the bathroom door slam shut and the shower run.

Holy matrimony with a woman who has walls so thick and so wide, he might as well be talking to a brick. The mind games, the manipulation, the stress. He watches these emotional wounds open up and pour his deep red blood down the drain as he scrubs his skin raw. Like if he presses hard enough, his life will reinvent itself. Like if the water is hot enough, he'll melt and slip down the drain.

The hot beads of water are leaving ugly little red marks on his forearms as he lazily slings the rag across his skin, leaving a trail of suds. He's foamy now, attempting to wash away his anger, to relax, to control his emotions but he's so exhausted- with everything. He is probably in the shower for an hour but he doesn't know or care, all Élan wants is the space to breathe and think a thought that isn't consumed with his wife. Or his job.

There's a pool of steam flaming around him when he exits the shower, it makes everything in the room heavy and even his nasal congestion seems to vaporize. It's almost like the heat from home, in which the sun blazes so hard there is no mistaking the true color of eyes or hair. Where everything is a little sun-bleached, from buildings to skin. And music is always in the warm air along with the smells of good, fresh food.

He can't fathom the mystique of America anymore, why it drew them here. Why they thought things would be so much better because it isn't.

He glares in the mirror at himself when the steam breaks and sees a ruggedness that wasn't in him before, his hazel eyes aren't as green-ish brown. His skin no longer possessing that golden undertone. The little freckles he has left are faint. His physique is taut, flesh stretched over lean muscle, his cheekbones pronounced, and jaw line chiseled. The only thing that remains soft and gentle is his hair, waving smoothly like the beaches back on the Coast. It's the only thing left of him that reminds him of home.