Ambien and Me (closing moments of a relationship)

She appeared warm and fuzzy as the Ambien I had taken started to kick in. It tended to make me a bit chatty, euphoric actually, and on the occasion when I didn’t go to sleep, could angle me off to flights of fantasy that would lose their magic in the drowsy and flat light of the next morning.

I already knew we were done, so I guess I shouldn’t have been in her bed. “You can stay through September,” she’d said last week. It was early May. Some nationally televised golf tournament was shutting down her entire neighborhood with camera crews, and orange No Parking cones. I liked having my car in her garage. I liked the sexual part of the relationship. She liked marathons, traveling, and a monthly delivery of Virgin Wines.

Tonight I curled myself around the extra pillow on my side of the king bed and suppressed the words starting to queue up. A halo of happiness was infusing me moment by moment into passive contentment, a coma of calm. She scrolled her phone and laughed out loud, a fragment not meant for me.

That morning on the tennis court my old friend said, “I’ve got the truck this weekend. I can help.”

And that was it. It was our last night together, ever. I rolled over and wrapped around her once she turned off the lights, grateful for the pull of induced sleep. The next morning my friend arrived with the truck.

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.