Hair of the Wolf by Peter J. Wacks

anymore, and we need time apart to sort through these things. To find ourselves again.”
    He spun around, pacing faster. “Are you done now? Do I have your permission to talk?”
    She motioned for him to continue, ignoring the passive aggressive attack.
    “Maybe, just maybe, had you sometime in the last fifty years, not assumed I was always wrong, I wouldn’t have to act like a viper. You treat me like you have to tolerate me, not like I am your husband and welcome in your life.”
    Rolling her eyes, she looked over at him, “And now the truth comes out, I see. You are as sick of me as I am of you.”
    “Like hell I am! I am your husband. Don’t you understand what that means?”
    She sighed. “What do you think that means, Jonathan?”
    “Partnership.” He stopped for a moment, accentuating his point. “We are supposed to be partners. That doesn’t mean that I am me and you are you. We have an obligation above that, to be us. We didn’t get married to be apart, we got married to be together.”
    “Damn it anyway, you are so thick headed. I didn’t marry a couple, I married a man. You act like you have long ago lost that person, and I don’t want you unless I can find that man again.” Mina’s voice was starting to crack a bit as tears forced a solitary march down her cheek.
    He crossed his arms, staring at her. “I am me. If you saw someone else before our marriage, it was because you were only looking at what you wanted to see. And in a hundred years, you are finally starting to realize who I actually am?” Jonathan rarely fought, but the ease with which she had approached the topic pissed him off.
    “I’ve always known who you are,” she practically spat the words. “The problem is that you don’t know who you are. You keep changing how you interact with the world based on who is around you. If you weren’t such a damned chameleon, I wouldn’t have to constantly check to see who you were. I want passion, not careful calculation.”
    “Great. Good to hear. Is there anything right with me? Or does everything about me piss you off??”
    “Jonathan.” Mina wiped a tear away. “I’m not saying that. This isn’t easy on me, and I’m not trying to bring you down or make you less. I just don’t … I don’t feel. This is the most emotion I’ve felt with you in almost two decades.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean? We are married, that is a choice we already made. We work together to make things better. That’s how relationships work.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “I feel like you are throwing away a hundred years of our vows!”
    She eyed him askance. “Our vows were ‘till death do us part.’ Technically, we’ve fulfilled that condition, Jonathan. We’ve been living with ‘already dead but still trying’ for years now. Do not try to guilt me with vows.”
    He stared at her silently for a moment, watching her cry. Her back remained rigid though, and the look of determination never left her face. Finally realizing how serious she was, how determined, he gave in. “I’m not going to win this am I?”
    “No.”
    “You’re leaving me then?” He sat back down, all the wind knocked out of his sails, keeping his distance from her.
    “No. I just need a break. I don’t know what the result of that will be, but I need to explore the possibility of what unlife is like without you. And you need it as much as I do, if not more.”
    He glared a bit. “I’ll thank you not to tell me what I need or do not need. That is a decision I am fully capable of making by myself, even if you are taking it away from me and making my choice yourself.”
    “Jonathan. I’m only going away for a while. I’m not making any final decisions.”
    “A break is the same thing. You don’t want to be together.” He looked away from her, out over the cityscape.
    “Jonathan. I’m just …” She growled quietly in frustration. “I just don’t know what to say. I mean, a break is a