Signed and Sealed.

They sat across each other. The mahogany table between them personified hatred, and hostility, and nothingness. As she tapped her unmanicured nails on the table, trying to drown out the noise of all the screaming lawyers by an inane tune, she thought of all the pain and tears and screaming that table must have seen over the years. She was strange that way - always imagined life in inanimate objects. She had more emotions to offer for inanimate objects than human beings. She was immune to human pain. Like a resilient strain of a disease, this pain, sometimes there is no cure, and eventually it becomes such a big part of you that you learn to live with it.

They avoided each others eyes for most of those 6 hours. But when she did steal a look, she looked straight into his eyes, which scared him further because she could always read him so well. Every time he came home drunk, or had cheated on her, or lied, all she had to do was look into those eyes and she knew. No alcohol breath. No lipstick on the collar. No lie detectors or confessions.

Soon she realized the tapping of nails was getting loud enough to turn tired heads. She retracted them and sighed. These lawyers that she hired were pretty ruthless. Relentless motherfuckers. Trying to safeguard her mini fortune. When she decided to get a divorce, she had called a friend of hers, a divorcee, who recommended these lawyers like friends recommend hairdressers - " They are fantastic. You just give them my name, and they'll take care of everything. You'll love them." I don't think people think before they speak. Or maybe she was just excited to recruit another member to the Old Divorcees Club.

They had to call her name out twice to pull her out of her thoughts. When she was back in the room - physically and mentally, she realized how much the room was smelling of cigarettes. She immediately craved one but curbed herself. Instinct. She then told herself, that she didn't need to hide her filthy habit anymore, no more hiding the cigarettes in the laundry bag, or above the book shelf, no more revolting air freshener to mask the smell of the smoke, because within hours, hopefully less, she would be single again. She didn't have to pretend to be the better human being anymore. She lit a cigarette, and made a conscious effort to not look at him. They took her to a corner, and explained the settlement.

Financially, they were both independent, made enough money to take care of themselves and for the last few years of their married life, that's all they did. She didn't care who got the little holiday home that they both had invested in, because the market was right, not because they thought of spending their long weekends cuddled up in a far away place. He didn't care either. The last lady like thing she did was that she didn't tell the lawyers that he had cheated on her, on multiple occasions. She thought it was irrelevant in the light of all the things that had progressively gone wrong in their marriage. Sure the proceedings wouldn't have taken as long, but there was no victory in the end. She wasn't there to win, and for all the resentment that existed in her heart towards him, she knew he wasn't there for the gold medal either.

Besides, in her mind he had won already. The only thing she really cared about, her friends, who had, like all other things, her large bed, her medium sized dog, and her small heart, had also become his. They are the only people she fought for. She failed. She could never gain sympathy simply because she didn't know how. He on the other hand thrived on sympathy. We as a generation have become fans of the anti hero. We like people who make mistakes, and struggle with their flawed decisions in life. We empathize with people who drown their sorrows in bottles of booze and those who hurt others only as long as the reason for them to do so is love. When they decided to part ways, she told her friends, 'that is the best thing for us.' He told them, 'I love her, and I can't take this pain.' All her friends were sold to the man who put pain into words and served it on a platter. She put her pain in a vault and wished that eventually everything will just fall into place. For him and for her.

She had lost all her friends to him, and he knew it well. He signed the holiday home over to her. Perhaps to get rid of any residual guilt.

As the lawyers shook hands, she turned around and left. She had nothing left to say, no emotions left to show, no prize to display boastfully. She drove back home, with no friends to call over for a glass of wine or a bottle.

She slipped into her pajamas and his old oversized sweatshirt, fetched her bottle of wine, her pack of guilt free cigarettes, cuddled next to her dog, and switched on some TV with the hope of some distraction.

As she flipped through the channels aimlessly, her phone lit up. It was a text. From him.

'Your favorite movie is on. Channel 349.'

1 hour : 22 minutes : 57 seconds

She never thought this day could get any worse, the sad emotional, fool that she was. As they slept in each others arms she wondered to herself, "How did I get this lucky?" She smiled to herself, and made a mental note, 'Don't let him catch you smile. EVER.'
He didn't understand why women were so affectionate, all the time. He just put women in the same bracket as all things pink, and teddy bears, and body lotions that smell like fruit. He never told her, how much he loved how nice she would smell every single day. He knew she was different. Good different. As they kissed, she realized how much it hurt to know that she liked him so much more than he liked her. But she told herself everyday, that it was okay. Two people are never identical.
He knew she was having a rough day and he tried to make her laugh, he tickled her, messed her hair up, he even propped her nose up to make her look like a pig. He didn't know any better. And she didn't know anything at all. She wondered if speaking about the day with a man who would much rather not listen, would do any good? He delayed leaving her, because he knew she was hurting, but he always was good at letting guilt go. Quick. Dirty. Painless. The minute he left, she cried, after so long. Loud. Long. Painful.
When he called her later, just as he promised he would, she felt lost, and distracted. She could hear a certain dejection in his voice. She could almost hear him say, "I can't believe I chose this for myself." She asked him why he sounded like he was out of hope, like he was unhappy. He just said, he wasn't. In fact, he was affirmative in his response. He actually said the words, "I am happy." But she, the cynic that she was, didn't believe a word. How could she believe him, when every chance he got, he left her stranded and questioned her feelings? He told her, that she had the tendency to behave like she was the only one with problems. So much for her belief and pride in her strength and ability to overcome tough situations by herself. She thought, you spend all your life wondering if the few things that you like about yourself are actually worth appreciating, and you hope, like all fools do, that the one person you share most of your life's moments with isn't the same person who succeeds in making you believe that those things don't really exist at all.
She always hated men who didn't respond when she spoke. And he was as she always said, 'another level of heartless.' But she remembered, a little later in the day, but she remembered, that, 'he was not so good with words, but oh so good with heart.' Another thing she always said about him. She told him how she needed him, and that he should never stop being himself because that is what she liked the most about him. Every inch of his body, every small part of his heart. She told him that she had forgotten that although he didn't listen, because she never spoke, he did blow wind on her face, and kissed her cheeks, and bit her arm, and held her tightly, and that was the best he could do, and his best was good enough. He didn't pay any heed to her words then, for he had crossed over to a land where he was a man's man, where he said hurtful things, and she was sarcastic, even when she was crying. She asked him, "Do you really like this? Us?" To which he said, "Yes.", and then she asked, "Tell me please what it is you like about us?" and he curtly replied, "No."
Some more hurtful words and then came the line that drove her sleep away. "I will talk to you tomorrow, I am too sleepy and I really don't want to understand anymore." She sighed, and in her head she imagined jumping through hoops of fire. "Goodnight" she said, saddened by the thought that this is it for tonight, or maybe...and he still didn't say a word. She waited, and shut her eyes in despair, feeling the lack of clarity, the blur, from all the tears. Hoops. Hoops. More Hoops. "The end", she said, as she hung up, and walked over to her pack of cigarettes. One drag. Two drags.Three and Four. The phone began to ring. The picture of the two of them that came up when he called, inebriated, happy, affectionate always made her smile. She remembered her mental note before she answered his call. 'Don't let him catch you smile. EVER.'
He called to say goodbye and goodnight.
Hoops. Good with heart. Painful. Painless.
1 hour: 22 minutes: 57 seconds