Hiding in the Closet by Gary A. Berg
“They now thoughtlessly made love in back rooms during parties”
Fiction by Gary A. Berg
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This is crazy, he thought. He was hiding in the closet.
His old girlfriend had asked him over for a rendezvous. Sure, he had said. Why not? What they had become was a remnant of their past relationship. They had lived together for a year, and then gone back and forth. She wanted more, he wanted less. She was probably crazy, he was distracted.
So a truce, a demilitarized zone, had been created in the distance that had formed between them. They had given up on a future, and it was liberating -- intoxicating, even. They now thoughtlessly made love in back rooms during parties, underwater with bathing suits pushed to the side, in the bushes at parks.
So why was he hiding in the closet now? He had known her first. Her current boyfriend, a doctor, was outside her apartment, knocking on the door. She let him in.
In the closet, the old boyfriend heard tense voices and realized that there must have been an argument with the doctor -- that’s why she had called. Great, now they are going to make up, and I’m going to have to sit here in the dark and listen to them, he thought. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but he heard them move into the kitchen of the two-bedroom apartment. What if he just walked out now and said, Hello? Would that be a violation of the DMZ?
He was half-dressed. She had thrown his clothes and shoes into the closet after him when they were both surprised by the doorbell. He started to put on his clothes in the dark. She might have drawn the doctor into the other room, thinking that would create an escape path for him to leave. He finished dressing and slowly opened the closet door, with his tennis shoes in his hands.
He started for the front door, but heard the doctor’s chair screech on the kitchen floor. Then he heard footsteps coming down the hallway.
Panicked, the old boyfriend opened the first available door in front of him -- the roommate’s bedroom -- and went inside. He pressed himself against the wall inside to listen. He heard the doctor stop in front of the door, just a few feet away. Finally, the former girlfriend called to the doctor, and he went back to the kitchen.
Across from the old boyfriend in the darkness, the roommate sat up in bed and stared.
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Header image courtesy of Igor Moukhin. To view a photo essay by the photographer, go here.
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Gary A. Berg (MFA, UCLA), is the author of short stories and eight non-fiction books.