Dinner and Politics

Dinner and Politics
by rachel forbes
If it’s difficult to love me then it means more when he does. When I am toe to toe and he looks into my face with smiling eyes, when I run and he is faster.
In the car I wonder if I could ever be the girl it is easy to love. I’ll pour him some wine when he walks through the door. Better yet, I’ll start crying during sad movies, bury my face in his chest and really let him feel me needing him. I don’t want to be the difficult one, the one he ends up leaving even though he hates himself for it; but could I be any girl other than the one who corrects his grammar, who forces him into uncomfortable positions, who demands to know why about things that are “just a matter of taste”.
When I see his eyes narrow and the veins in his arms reveal themselves, when he opens his mouth but closes it before a sound comes out, when he fights everything his common sense is telling him and makes love to me in the uncommon; that is when it means the most.
“No. You’re wrong” I interrupt his mother as the salads are served, “you can’t possibly think that’s a legitimate excuse”. Beneath the table there is a squeeze on my leg- a warning of yet another conversation gone awry?
When I look over his eyes are eager. He nods slightly, mouths ‘I love you’ and turns back to join me in battle.