Compromise
Niki
Niki
| And it’s the little things that creep up first. They’ve been putting up a front, giving each other the best version of themselves for the past six months or so, at least to make it through the seven month itch (although it’s supposed to be seven years, she’s always been one to drift and stray). Now they’re going into their sixth month, and the way he sips his coffee really rather loudly just annoys her, the way he picks food off her plate, she really truly hates it when he does that. But then he impulsively shows up at work with a greasy bag of fried chicken and an ice cold drink, and she loves him all over again. But then he picks at a crispy chicken skin on her plate, and she resists the urge to punch him just a little. They use different kinds of soap, hers is some minty shower gel that stings his skin, he prefers the herbal ones. They read different sections of the paper, and she lets him watch the history channel sometimes, when her favourite shows aren’t on, but he has stopped narrating it to her now (compromise) and settles with her just sitting beside him, playing with her blackberry or doing her nails (he tried painting her toe nails once and got the varnish all over her jeans somehow, she still wears them.) He hates how she listens to her music. Really loudly in the morning, she’s a lyrics girl, and she sings and sways-badly. Sure, the top twenty creeps up every once in a while, and he laughs at the way she thinks she dances so sexy. He doesn’t like the way she eats, alone. She doesn’t like it when he steals her food, and he doesn’t find it adorable how she would eat desert first, why can’t she be a normal girl his mother would like, for once? But then she’d go out to a bar with her friends, and all these adorable (but not perfect) guys would come up and buy her drinks, or ask for her number, or if she’s free for dinner next week. She’d laugh and flirt a little, but then she declines and goes back to their apartment. The next morning, like every time after a night out with her friends, she cooks him breakfast (and she’s so bad, so terrible at it) and doesn’t turn on the music. And he understands why she does it, but doesn’t want to tell her that he waits up for her whenever she’s out late, and just pretends to be asleep when she stumbles in, so he sticks to his own plate. They decide to love each other better, more selflessly, in a way that their friends sigh with relief. And she doesn’t go to bars anymore. He begins looking at rings, about a year into their relationship. Then he stops, and he doesn’t know how that started or why he gave up so soon. They love each other better, she starts leaving him frozen lunches in the freezer, and he abandons his books to watch Sex and the City re runs with her at night. He grew up in a conventional, slightly conservative and traditional family. He attended all the right schools and had the pretty girls chasing him, begging silently to sit shotgun in his dad’s car. But he wasn’t interested, not really. He was a sort of lost soul amongst a big crowd, he read when his friends played video games, and he doesn’t watch a basketball game for the beer and the cheerleaders, he really watches. It’s a science of some sort. So naturally, he has always wanted someone he could lie in bed and read with, someone he can discuss culture with, someone to smoke his cigarettes with (bad, bad habit). He wants to watch high brow shows like mad men and he wants someone to pick at his writing (her attention span is about twenty minutes, at most). But she, although gorgeous and glamorous and everything perfect on paper, isn’t really into any of that. She too, grew up in a family like his, but unlike him, discontinued her parents’ traits and ways of life, and seems to purposely do everything that they wouldn’t do. He kind of resents that, doesn’t she realise that she’s so lucky? But he also doesn’t want her to think that she’s dating a younger version of her dad. She walks into their apartment at around ten thirty at night, and he’s sitting on the kitchen stool, sipping some kind of herbal tea, wearing his old college t shirt, some kind of lacrosse thing and she has to chuckle at how adult he looks. They’re only twenty seven, barely even, and she feels like a child next to him sometimes. It’s been a bad day at work, she doesn’t understand why she decided to work for her father, she hates finance, but she’s good at her job and it keeps her father from criticizing her about other things. ‘Hey, how was your day?’ She snaps at him because he just looks so in control, sitting there in cotton pyjama pants, listening to pretentious jazz with his hair all messy (the way she likes it best), acting like some intellectual pretentious idiot with his book and notepad by his side. And truth is she’s jealous. She’s jealous at how he can be mister perfect who doesn’t get anything wrong, and on days like these, when her father shouts at her in front of all his employees, she feels like they’re heading towards different paths, and she’s just waiting for them to snap, for the other shoe to drop. She’s being a bitch, in hopes of speeding things up a little for him. She climbs into their bed in her work clothes, and he follows with a fresh mug of tea for her (she hates tea, but he insists it’s healthy). He opens his mouth to say something about taking a shower, but then she crumbles and her shoulders shake slightly, and he holds her and kisses her hair. They don’t say anything for a while, and she feels so immature for crying like this. The tea is cold, and she feels slightly guilty, so she turns to him and asks if he could read her a passage from the book he’s reading. He grins, it’s a boring book about philosophy and struggle, and while she doesn’t understand why a smart, handsome man with a trendy upscale apartment would care about things such as the intellectual struggle of mankind, his voice is soothing when he reads and she loves seeing his eyebrow tighten up when he concentrates, so she listens until she falls asleep. So they begin a thing of compromises. He kisses her at the movies (he has always hated PDA), really kisses her, with his hands tangled in her hair kind of kiss. She lies beside him in bed while he reads/writes and studies her credit report, things she usually did at the office. She drinks English breakfast tea occasionally, and he puts on cotton shorts and has a beer with her friends, laughing about trivial girl stuff. They are good, stable for a good year and a half, but then he proposes to her with his grandmother’s diamond ring-the biggest ring she’s ever seen. She’s seen one of those rings before, on her own mother, and she really doesn’t think she wants this. His speech is beautiful, yet generic (it could have been about anyone), and he rambles on about wanting kids, raising little girls with ballet dresses and boys he could teach sailing to. His eyes sparkle and she swears there’s a tear in them. But all this talk about the future scares her, such traditional ideals scare her, and she’s not sure she wants this. Even though she wants him, she doesn’t want this version of him, the traditional preppy boy with traditions to uphold. It’s so boring, and it’s what her parents are. So she does the only thing she can, accepts the ring, somehow without saying yes, and sleeps with him (probably for the last time), and slips out at around five in the morning with her bags. He wakes up to find a letter that he doesn’t read, and doesn’t bother to try and make sense of things from his philosophy books. He does what his friends do, and stay at the bar till closing. He’s drunk, so he doesn’t really understand why she slipped in a photo of her parents in the letter. He passed out before he could see what was written at the back. So neither of them calls, and he doesn’t move out of the apartment. He’s sure that she’s not out starving on the streets (aside from the family house in the Hamptons, he’s sure her parents have about three places in the city), and although it’s ridiculous to just let her walk away from him like that, and it’s not really in his nature to passively stand by, he does, because he’s a little lost and very broken. And for once in his life, he’s not in control. It’s obvious that they’d have to see each other sooner or later; they have the same friends (although most of them are her friends more than his, he’s just such a loner wrapped in a perfect, popular package). One of their friends is throwing a party, and they both kind of have to attend. She walks into the room, about midnight (although everyone else turned up about nine-ish, an indication that they are adults). She’s stunning, glowing even, but her eyes are sad. And her eyes search the room, he’s just kind of standing there, a beer clutched in hand, and she knows without even thinking, that he’d rather be watching a movie and sipping herbal tea at home. Then it hits her, he’s here for her. It’s a compromise. He tells her that he’s been sort of seeing someone, someone out of their circle, and she raises her eyebrows in slight amusement (the only thing she inherited from her mother). She’s not sure what to think, because it’s only been a month, and unlike her, she hasn’t left the house since. She thought it’d be the other way around. In a way, she wanted to stay at home, ponder their relationship and give it a little respect. He’s only dated this girl because he can’t help but think does she want marriage? Does she want four kids? (No one has four kids these days) And they are not in a place to compromise anymore, so she leaves the party around two am, but he catches up with her and offers to take her home. ‘I don’t think your girlfriend would like it very much’, she slurs. And he only laughs. ‘Let’s go back to our place’ She wakes up, slightly dazed and very, very hungover. He grins a little (he seems to be more relaxed, maybe it’s the girlfriend) ‘Here you go, you need it’. Coffee. Not herbal tea. Compromise. She thanks him, drinks, shower and turns to leave. ‘Why did you leave? Huh? Did I deserve nothing more than some stupid letter and a picture? What the hell was that about anyway?’ ‘Then you waltz back like nothing happened! Like, you could just accept my proposal, and then leave, and come back like you were just on a business trip! Is that how it works? God, you’ve always been such a spoilt brat, I should have known.’ ‘You keep leaving, trying to find excuses to run, throughout our entire relationship, and I just, I just keep letting you.’ Her heart breaks, she sees the man who’s usually so composed, so perfect, break down this way, and it was probably in that moment when she realises that she needs him, she loves him and she wants it all with him, traditional ideals and all that comes with it. ‘Did you ever see the photo?’ He looks up, still angry (with himself, and a little bit at her for always being his weakness) ‘Of your parents? Yeah, I mean, how touching right? You go away and leave a picture of my two favourite people behind’. She knew he’s always despised her parents, her father especially, for always controlling her. ‘So you never read what I wrote behind the photograph-’ ‘What?’ ‘I said, I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be them.’ She breathes, she owes him this much, because they keep drawing each other back in, in a way that some couples do when they break up without really knowing why. ‘It’s just, you’re so, so traditional. You drink herbal tea and have your shirts dry-cleaned. You live the way your parents brought you up to, I’m nothing like that. And yes, I’m a hypocrite; I work for my dad in a job that I hate. But you scare me, you want commitment and all these kids, and soccer games and family trips to the museum! What if our kid hates ballet? What if she wanted to, I don’t know, join the circus? I’m so afraid of holding you back, because I hate traditions, and that’s why I ran. I’m sorry, I love you, but I ran.’ He’s laughing, really laughing, in such a boyish, adorable way she’s never seen before. ‘You said our kid- You said ‘our’ kid, hating ballet’ And she doesn’t even bother making excuses, she runs towards him and he lifts her up in his arms, it’s so cheesy, and oh so rom-com, but she thinks maybe it’s time to make new traditions. ‘I’m scared, but I want those kids, I’ll learn how to be a parent, you’ll be amazing, and I’ll catch up with you eventually.’ He kisses her nose and leans into her ear, ‘I think that sounds amazing, and I know we’ll be great. But I think Sex and the City is on right now, I taped it for you.’ It’s not letting her win or giving in so he could have the upper hand, its compromise. So while she watches sex and the city, and laugh at Samantha’s antics (he thinks she’s annoying as hell but doesn’t say a word), he slips the ring on her finger, and she turns off the TV and kisses him until he can’t breathe. ‘We can watch this tomorrow, let’s order in’ And he smirks before suggesting they eat off the same plate. © Niki All Rights Reserved www.millionstories.net |
| We like this story because: It sketches out the territory, the landscape of growing up into love, relationships and life. |
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