"It has nothing to do with your damn leg," she snaps.

He smiles mirthlessly:  It's the first true thing she's said today.

Two hours later the only reminder of her presence is that god-awful green and gold sofa she fell in love with at a boutique in Philadelphia.  Maker’s Mark mixes with Vicodin, and he thinks she could have at least left her cigarettes—he’s conceited enough to think she won’t need them anymore.

It will be Wilson who finds him passed out at the piano, fingers still in place on the keyboard, the B-flat pressing hard into his cheek.

*

It has nothing to do with his leg.

It has everything to do with his leg.

She’s always known about the drugs, of course.  It's an uncommon thing for doctors, and even he can’t avoid the cliché.

Since the first night, she’s known about the drugs.  She’s never been okay with the drugs, but they dull his edge and make living with him that much more bearable.

Besides, God knows she has more than her fair share of self-destructive habits.  She’s never considered herself a hypocrite, so she lets it go.

It might have something to do with the drugs.

*

Misery is never an attractive thing.  

They both know this, and they've always lived teetering on the edge, using each other to stay just on the right side of things.  They're perfectly matched.  They're terrible for each other.  

She’s learned to see through his bullshit, and he's the only person in the world who's ever known her.  When the bourbon and pills have cleared his system, he’s left with the ever-dutiful Wilson.  Wilson is a constant.  

She doesn’t have a Wilson, and he wonders if she’s left with anyone at all.  It’s the last thing he thinks before he comes.

*

Three in the morning, and the pounding at her door only exacerbates the pounding in her head.  Still a little drunk, robe tied around her waist, and he's standing on the porch.  He hands her flowers, then Tylenol 3.  She lets him in, he turns on her stereo.

Hours later she falls asleep on her couch.  He picks the robe off the floor and lays it over her.

They both know a couple of aspirin would have been enough to kill the headache.  They both know the headache was an excuse.

It's always had something to do with the drugs.

*

"She'll be back," he says, and even he doesn't believe it.

The statement is met with silent pity.  

In the last six months he's seen so much fucking pity that he's almost stopped caring that's it's the most selfishly ingenuine of human emotions. Pity—and the first time he said this she accused him of being a terrible cynic—is nothing more than the lie that masks relief.  God, Pity says. At least I’m not that pathetic.

He fucking hates the constant hypocrisy.

"Rebecca likes the couch, right?" he says.  "Take it.  It's a fucking eyesore."

Acceptance is never a direct thing.

*

They both work too much, drink too much, talk too much, think too much.

They find excuses to fight, the desire to win— to be right— always at the forefront.  Some couples end their arguments with hurried makeup sex, as if sex solves anything— everything.  As if sex cures.  

They’re not like that.

Arguments end only when one of them is right, and sex is a weapon, a tool of distraction.  Their fights last for days and sex does little more than add fuel to the fire.

He makes her a better lawyer.

They never fight about anything that matters.

*

She'd call him a pig for it, but God, he misses the sex.

At first he thought it was just sex he missed, but he’s blown a thousand bucks on hookers this month and is still itching for relief.  This depresses him more than her absence, more than his pain, more than the fucking sofa that Wilson’s wife doesn’t want after all.

Sex has always been a constant.  Power, reward, celebration, weapon, apology.  She’d call him a pig for it, but she’d understand better than anyone.  He misses the sex.

Wilson becomes his substitute, and so everything comes full circle.

*

No one who’s met him thinks badly of her for leaving.  Her mother met him once before she died.  Her mother hated him and didn’t hesitate tell her why, a laundry list of faults. He’s cold, impossible, unloving, unstable, even.  If heaven’s exists, then her mother must have been eating her words in the weeks after the funeral.

He’d never believe her, but she doesn't hate him, even now.  Hating him would make it easier. She doesn’t hate him.

She still calls James to chat, to keep up.  If he were capable of it, James would think badly of her.

*

She was too good for him.

He’s a misanthropic son-of-a-bitch, and now he’s a cripple to boot.

He would wallow, but Wilson won’t let him.  Wilson’s a good little wife, and neither of them seem to care that he’s a terrible husband.  Rebecca fades into the background and for a little while, everything is as it was.

Then something is said or done and Wilson’s moving in with Julie and nothing is constant anymore.

Years start to blur, and the phone rings and it’s a friend of a friend of a colleague and at work, at least, he’s not alone.

*

She never thought she’d get married.

White isn’t her color, and she’s never been a fan of elaborate ceremonies, but she’s been married for three years and she’s absolutely certain that her husband is dying.

Her friends tell her she’s being paranoid, and maybe she is.

She’s right though, and even if she’s wrong, she’s more inclined to credit it to morbid curiosity.

She schedules dinner with James to call in a five-year-old favor.  He refuses, and feels morally superior for it.

Two more specialists and another bullshit non-diagnosis later, she screws up her courage.

Nothing and everything is different.