Creepy

“C’mon Mike, it’ll be fun.”

“Then go have fun.”

“But you should come with. You have to get out a bit, y’know? Try acting normal for a change.”

“I am acting normal.”

“No, normal people normal, not normal for you. You’re too cooped up, you have to get out there and mix it up a bit.”

“Will? Bugger off.”

This conversation is going exactly as I expected it to, and it’s not likely that I’ll get Mike to do anything he doesn’t want to. He’s a special kind of stubborn, but I still have to try.

“C’mon Mike, do it for me. Ella is getting worried about you, and that’s not fun for me when I get home” I said.

“And?” he asked. It was a reasonable question.

“Well, we’re co-workers in a way. The happier my home life is the easier it’ll be for us to keep working together. She’s been pretty understanding.”

“For you maybe,” Mike said. It’s true, Ella never really liked him, and it had only gotten worse over the years. They never were much more than polite to each other, and since Mikes’ problems Ella just didn’t know how to relate to him anymore. But she’s my wife and he’s my best friend, so we had to work it out. Hell, at this point I’m probably his only friend and I can’t very well abandon him.

“She just doesn’t get you, which is pretty fair. I mean, you’ve been pretty standoffish for…say… forever or so. “ I felt like I was beginning to plead, and I hope Mike didn’t pick up on it or he’d know that he’d won.

“So?” he asked calmly. “It’s not like she and I have ever been all that close, and it never made a difference before.”

“Yeah, but she’s beginning to get scared of you. I can’t have her start hating you.”

“Well she ought to be scared of me Will. With what she does for a living and with what we’re doing, I’m exactly what she would be scared of.”

“She doesn’t know what you do.” I said.

Mike look astonished, “what do you mean she doesn’t know?”

“It’s not exactly one of those things I can just tell her, now is it? You thought she knew?”

“I just kind of figured you’d have told her.” Mike gave me a why are we having this conversation shrug. “I mean, anything you know she seems to know.”

“Dude, she’s just my wife, she doesn’t have to know all my business.”

“Just?” Okay, wrong way to phrase it. “I just figured she’s know about it, not everything maybe, but the gist of it.” Mike said.

“I’m sure she has ideas, but it’s not something that is up for discussion. Some things are better left unsaid.” I thought it was reasonable, I wasn’t lying to her, just actively not telling her something. That has to be a lesser sin.

“I told Margot everything.” Mike said with a tad bit too much self-righteousness.

“Yeah, but you never had to tell her anything like this. You think that you’d be sharing this kind of stuff over the dinner table?”

Mike winced, “I don’t know if I could even do it if she was still here. I only started because of how she died, and now I just have no reason to stop.”

“Sorry Mike, I didn’t mean to hit a raw spot” and I really didn’t.

Mike tilted his head in a half shrug. “It’s always raw, nothing you can do about it.” He seemed resigned to stay miserable, which was most of the problem.

Margot had died three years before, but the circumstances were beyond brutal and grim. Mike broke down pretty bad and he’s never been the same, but we found a way for him to work through it. Even now every time her name comes up Mike is too torn up to do much, so this conversation is pretty close to over.

“I do miss her, she was always a good friend to me.” I said.

Mike crossed his arms, grunted, and looked at the ground. Yep, conversation over. He’d probably drink himself to sleep tonight, though that seems normal for him nowadays.

“Alright Mike, I ain’t gonna force you into anything. I’m heading out, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He grunted again, not even venturing his face up for eye contact. This is what I get for trying to get him a social life.