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I’m parked outside your house and I can feel time passing normally. It slips through my fingers and I don’t hold onto it despite knowing that I can.

The street light above me flickers and I think of that song. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.

No, it wasn’t ‘a street light flickers’. It was ‘a street light gutters’. Different, I suppose.

And soon it will be morning.

Whatever. I hate that song anyways.

Your front porch light clicks on and I jump, but it’s only your cat activating the sensor. I see it slink off into the bushes. All your blinds are pulled up and the internal lights are on so your family doesn’t seem to notice the porch light. Lucky. Not that it would matter to me. Well, not really.

I crawl over the center console and exit through the passenger seat so that I can slip around the back of my car and into the thick hedge that guards your front yard.

I want to watch you in your element, sweetness. I want to see the way you are now — without me. I want to see how you are with him, sweetness — your husband.

~~~

It starts to rain and I feel the urge to stop it but I want to see you — because through the window, in the yellow glow of your kitchen light, I see you chopping onions and chicken and all I can hear is you saying how you hate to cook. All I hear is how it’s such a goddamned stereotype for women to be in the kitchen doing what men tell them to do. What men expect them to do.

And yet here you are. With your shiny engagement ring and your sparkling wedding ring and your hollow smile. You’re wearing a fucking apron. And sautéing. And forcing a smile. And doing all the things you swore you would never do.

Never. Ever. Do.

You’re a lying sack of shit, sweetness. You are the scum that I scraped off my toilet bowl last night.

You are the girl I lost hold of.

And you’re all that I can think about anymore.

~~~

Eventually the safety light turns off and I get a better view of you in the kitchen and him pouring a glass of fucking chardonnay. For himself. You cut roughly through a stubborn tomato and it spurts onto your dress above your apron. I watch you try to wipe it off but I see he’s angry. You failed to please him.

I see you eye the wine.

I know you want some and I know he probably disapproves of you drinking at all. If only he knew you and who you really were.

What you want is a shot of tequila. Or an old fashioned. Or some smooth whiskey over ice.

I know what you want sweetness.

He — your husband — knows nothing about you.

~~~

From the hedge I can’t hear you but I can see him exiting the kitchen and taking up a seat in the lounge. He turns on the NFL and I see you cringe as you realise you’re going to have to watch it all night. Your hand shakes. You look across at the bottle of wine and quickly turn back to the tomato-chopping that is your job.

I know you’re absolutely dying for a cigarette.

No. Better. A fucking cigar.

The stink of it. The heat of it. The weight of it in your hand.

A cigar and a whiskey. I know you sweetness.

I know what you want.

I continue to watch as you focus on your tomato and he turns the volume up on the television. The tension in your neck makes me angry and I want to bust in there and save you from your fate. But you made your choices.

I watch him laugh out loud at an advertisement on the box and I watch you shrink further down. And that’s when I decide to stop it.

I stop time.

~~~

Inside the house your husband is the first person I walk by and I mark him an idiot for not bothering to lock the front door behind him. His mouth is open and there’s a droplet of spit hanging between his lips and the palm of his out-held hand. I have a strong urge to take his hand and stuff it into his mouth and twist his legs back the wrong way until they buckle and break.

I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.

I focus on you.

You, sweetness. With your apron and your glossy hair and your shiny heels. Right now — you are everything that I know you not to be. You’re trying too hard to fit into his life. You are mushing yourself into a mold that isn’t worth it, a mold that will turn you out like a smooth, self-loathing chocolate bunny rabbit.

I touch your hair and it is softer and cleaner than I remember it to be. I kiss your neck, but it is as smooth as I remember it to be. You are rigid, frozen in time, and so am I, but in a different way. I hold you tight and I rut up into you and all I want is for you to be mine forever.

Is that too much to ask?

~~~

I start time again.

I am in the other room now, your bedroom, and neither of you notice. I listen to your back and forth as I silently rifle through your drawers of clothing.

“Carrots?” you ask.

He’s watching the game. “Hmm. Whatever.”

I hear you dissolve and I know he doesn’t see it.

I see it. I see it in how quiet you are in response.

~~~

I stop time.

I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I wait a little longer this time, glad that I don’t have to hear your forced words and his uninterested responses. I’m always surprised by how excruciatingly quiet it is when the world stops. Deafening — it presses in on me and sometimes I can barely stand it.

The majority of your knickers are sensible in a repeating trio of beige, black, and dark blue, but right at the back of the drawer my fingers find a pair of socks that aren’t soft enough. Your vibrator.

I wonder if he knows, at the same time realising that, of course, he doesn’t. I bet he can’t even make you come. Does he try?

A range of pills inhabit your mirrored medicine cupboard and I pocket a few just for my own amusement. For later, after I go home and pretend like I’m going to sleep.

Your makeup is a neat yet excessive collection of overly expensive brands that fill a deep drawer under the sink. I remember you wearing dark eye liner and smudged mascara and I remember, every Sunday morning, with the help of a coffee and then a cigarette, you’d pluck the stray hairs of your eyebrows and complain how women would never be set free from all the fucking expectations.

Still, every Sunday morning, you’d pluck away until you were down to the filter and the skin above your eyes was red and puffy.

We fought more than was necessary but you were always my best girl, sweetness. If only I could rewind.

But all I can do is stop.

~~~

Your house is nice but it’s not you at all. Plush carpet (carpet is dirty and I don’t vacuum), eggshell walls (yeah…I don’t scrub walls), and too many bedrooms for what is needed in my opinion (who needs this many room?! It’s only more space to clean).

You were never the domestic type.

That song is still playing in my head.

And soon it will be morning. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.

I don’t even think those lyrics are aright. Morning is a long way off, but for the moment I still have time stopped, so it doesn’t matter.

Back in the kitchen I’m tempted to lift up your dress to see how you’re keeping things for him. That’s too far though. Instead I take a glass from the cabinet, pour some wine and place it just next to your chopping board. I press my face into your neck and you smell just like the girl I know you are. I pull your hair and your head cocks back and I remember how much you liked that.

I take a step back and admire your long, curling locks that hang from your tilted head.

I start time again.

~~~

You start backward but immediately catch yourself and straighten your neck again. You drop the knife and he calls from the living room when he hears it clatter on the bench.

“Everything alright?”

You cough. “Yes baby. Just slipped. Sorry, get back to your game.”

He doesn’t respond and that’s when you notice the wine. From behind, I watch you hesitate. You continue to chop your tomato and I know you want the drink — you want to let go and give in and give up — and he laughs in the living room and I see you tense up again.

I’m breathing as quietly as I can, and there’s no reason for you to expect me to be behind you, but still, my nerves and the exhilaration of even being here in your house is making me thump hard with adrenaline. My heart beats in my chest. I worry you’ll hear it.

You don’t. You don’t even turn. You place the knife down almost silently and lift the glass to your lips. You drain it. I wonder if it’s sheer want or terror that makes you do it.

You put your glass back down and I can’t help myself. I stop time and refill it. And then I get close enough to brush my lips against your neck and I immediately regret it. I want you. Badly. I want to pick you up and take you out of this awful house and away from this man who doesn’t love you. I want to hold your warmth close to my own and go back to the days we had. The days where we would be high or drunk or just inebriated in one way or another. I want to fix you but I know I’m probably the one who needs fixing.

I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.

You’re halfway through the second glass when I stop time.

I take it from your hand and empty it into the sink. I wash it, dry it, place it back in the cupboard, and arrange you to chop the tomato — as if you had been chopping it the whole time.

I want to brush my finger across your lips and hold you close to me. Close enough that you could feel how much I still want you. It’s always been you, sweetness. Yours is the name I say when I get there.

Every time.

I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I know I shouldn’t have come here at all, but just like you, I find it hard to help myself.

I walk out of your front door and I don’t look back.

I make it to the end of your garden path and out onto the street. The moon is bright above me and I’m singing that fucking song in my head again. A streetlamp gutters. 

 I’m looking back at your house. I start time again. I don’t notice the black Leviathan and there is less than a second before it hits me. I am man against RangeRover, and I lose.