Post Intimacy

I could feel myself fade away right then, as something that meant so much more to Derek took my place. Days blurred into weeks as we lugged our life behind this band and became strangers to each other. The savage fighting stopped, replaced by an indifferent common-law hatred that hurt more than I imagined. We stretched painfully to the opposite sides of the mattress. We found ways not to look at each other. Not a sound passed for hundreds of miles– not a burp or sneeze, a hiccup or a mumble. Derek only talked about the band, of the road. I was like a pet he hauled around. With nothing much else to drive us on, we decided to follow the band east across the expanse of the winterbarren midwest, running from the sunset.