“I know, Bunny. I know. I fucked up again. But I promise this was my wake-up call. I won’t fail you again. Have this baby with me.” I folded into him, unable to stand the distance. There had been too much distance already with him working so far away. I couldn't stand to put even more between us. I knew I was making a mistake. I could feel it with every fiber of my being. I should have held out, held on a little more to my resolve. I should have made him work harder for it. To really prove to me that this was the end of his partying habits.
But I was emotional and had already suffered so much just preparing to leave him these last few days. I had to give in to salvage any remaining sanity I had left. I had to admit it felt good to be in his arms this way. The moment I broke, he caught me. He held me close and whispered promises to me as his hands ran over every inch of my body.
Soft cries turned into ugly, gulping sobs, and I held onto him with every bit of strength I had left. “This isn't how I wanted this to go. What have I done with my life.”
“I swear, I’m not good enough for you, but if you let me, I will try my damnedest to be as good of a man as I can be because that is what you deserve. You deserve everything, you and this baby. And I swear I’m going to try my hardest to make sure you have everything. You’re my one true love.”
“You don’t even live with me. Knocked up at twenty-seven, unmarried and living on my own. God, this sucks. I always thought I’d be married, you know? When I decided to start a family. My parents are going to shit bricks.” I was rambling, but I shut up faster than Satan in a church when he cut me off.
"Then let's get married!" He stared at me with dark eyes so large they looked as if they'd fall out if he made the slightest wrong movement. His pillowy lips darkened from his crying, and I struggled to ignore how beautiful he was. He looked like an old Hollywood bad boy with a broken heart and a plan. All he needed was a cigarette hanging from those lips.
Still, I couldn't hide my shock from his words. Fredrick and I had been together for such a long time, it almost seemed that marriage and children were the next steps for us. But I was just now realizing we hadn't ever really planned on any next steps. We sort of took life one day at a time.
We hadn't ever discussed marriage or children or joint burial plots or whatever the fuck normal couples plan in their future. We didn’t even live together, for God's sake. I bought a house in Colorado with the money from my book sales, and he bought a house in California with the money from his music.
When he was in town, he lived here in my house. When he was in California, he lived in his house. It was as simple as that. Until now. "I think we should take some time and think this through, Freddy."
"The baby, or marriage?"
"Marriage! Oh my God, not the baby!"
"So, you do want to have a baby and you want to get married, just not with me?"
"Of course I want to get married to you, I guess, umm, I just need a minute to adjust.” He looked hopeful. No, scratch that. He looked damn near exuberant. Like this was the answer to all the problems. Like it was his fairytale. But even in the moments where we were somewhat happy, it was never my fairytale.
Is it awful that I immediately thought if I made him this happy by marrying him, then he would become this man of my dreams and suddenly work hard at everything and quit fucking up? It was a nice thought. “Everything is changing so fast. It's a lot to take in."
"Okay, well when you're done adjusting to it, marry me and have my babies." How could I say no to that?
Twelve
We got married on a Friday night. Almost all my family was in attendance, though I knew they had reservations about our marriage. They played the part and supported me. Leah stood beside me, but her father was noticeably absent. I didn't expect him to show. It was hard not seeing him for so long, but I knew it would have been even harder if he had shown up.
I often thought of what it would have been like if Mason had attended. Would I have gone through with it, or would it have been like in those movies and romance novels where the heroine stops mid-vow and her lover calls her name from the back of the church, demanding that she run away with him instead. The heroine would dramatically turn and run into his arms, and they would passionately embrace before running off into the sunset to live happily ever after.
Okay, so I know it wouldn't have been like that. That stupid shit didn’t happen in real life. In real life, he would have shown up, sat in the back with a sad disposition. I would have gone through with the entire ceremony without noticing him. We would have locked eyes at the very end as I made my way back down the aisle on the arm of my shiny, new husband.
My heart would have skipped a beat just seeing him, but I would have made no obvious movement. Nothing that would seem out of the ordinary. Mason would have made some sulking comment to Leah like, “The ceremony was beautiful, but I’m getting tired and I have work in the morning. Have a good time, and give Scarlet my regards. I’m going to head home.”
I would have subconsciously searched for him throughout the night, though I would have known deep down that he left early. But then on my third or fourth glass of wine, something poetic would happen. I’d begin to enjoy myself and forget about Mason showing up on what was supposed to be the most important day of my life.
I would relax and have a good time, and in the weeks following, I’d start to question whether he was there at all or whether I made it up in my head that he looked amazing in that midnight black suit and powder blue shirt that brought out his eyes. I’d begin to wonder if I was lying to myself.
The mind lies about memories. You never forget those moments of pain. Your mind just alters them a little, making the memory seem less and less painful over time. You do this out of self-preservation, so you can heal and move on.
Your mind alters those wonderful moments too. You don’t look back on a moment with a cherished lover and think, “it was simply okay.” No, you embellish those wonderful moments. The more you think about it, the more magical it seemed. Even when it’s all a complete lie.
Did it make me selfish to daydream about it on occasion? To daydream about him wanting me so badly that he’d risk it all just to make me aware?
Of course it made me selfish because I was selfish. The heart is always selfish. It wants what it wants, and fuck anyone getting in its way. It sees no reason, only a fiery, passionate motivation to get whom it desires. Its other half. Its soulmate.
Daydreaming of a man I’d never have somehow didn't stop me from having a perfectly ordinary life, with a perfectly ordinary marriage, and a perfectly ordinary husband. After getting married, Fredrick officially moved into my home. He still went to California on occasion to record music, but it began to occur less frequently, and when he was gone, it was for shorter periods of time than before our nuptials.
I stopped worrying about his cheating or his partying ways. It was placed firmly in the past. I was happy with our life and I put any thoughts of him being anything less out of my mind. He went out of town for work, and he came home ravenous and in love. What was there to question?
Our son came kicking and screaming into my world on a beaming, sunny Tuesday. We named him Ash, and he was beautiful. A captivating mixture of the two of us. His dark hair and eyes matched his father’s exquisitely, but his tiny heart-shaped face was all me. I fell in love with him instantly.
He was perfect in every sense of the word. It was the first time since loving my parents as a small child that I had experienced an uncomplicated, unconditional, natural love. Blissful and easy. I put my work on hold and decided to focus on my new family. Days were filled with motherly duties, and I was happy in my new role.
Fredrick took to being a new father easily, though he chose a more relaxed approach. He cooed and sang to our son, but he wasn't concerned with diaper changes and feedings that didn't consist of sitting next to my exposed breast. Still, he was head over heels for our son, and I loved that they had each other. I looked forward to a future with the
both of them.
Evenings in our home were spent listening to Fredrick play a soft tune on the guitar while I rocked our son to sleep. Fredrick had a pure talent for music. He was a songwriter, but being so in tune with music he played a wide array of instruments, and his singing voice was not too shabby either. So as he strummed along to a tune in his brilliant mind, our son and I were content just being in the moment with him.
My love for Fredrick grew over time with the life we created for our little family. I would hold fond memories of our time together until the day I die. Like our first road trip together. Fredrick’s friend that played in my bar and brought us together so many years ago, had hit it big. Or at least that is how he viewed it. He was playing a large concert in Las Vegas and insisted Fredrick attend.
Ash was almost a year and a half, and Fredrick had just gotten home from a week of business in California. He pulled up to the house in what had to be the tackiest Winnebago known to man. This thing had been painted shades of red and green that far passed holiday tacky. Multiple shades of each. I’m sure some of those colors didn’t even have crayons in their hue, they were so bizarre.
“What on earth is this, Fredrick?” I asked as I tried to make sense of my husband’s overly enthusiastic smile toward the glow-in-the-dark contraption taking up space on our side of the street. He ran up and grabbed me by my arms, pulling me into him.
“It’s ours, Bunny! I got a killer deal like you wouldn’t believe!” Fredrick had aged well. He was more loving, more physical than he was in our youth. But grabbing me out of excitement was still very out of his character.
I started laughing immediately. I couldn’t help it. However little he paid, I was certain he got ripped off; and I could tell by this new level of excitement that he believed this was his best idea yet. “Okay…So what are we supposed to do with this thing? I’m not driving it.”
“Let’s take it to Las Vegas! To see Alan’s band play!” I started shaking my head, but he wouldn’t even let me voice my decline.
“Come on, it’ll be fun! Our first vacation as a family.” And that was the exact moment I lost the fight. I caved. He was so charming as he did that thing where he looked back and forth between my eyes and my mouth.
I never was very good at holding on to my own opinions. “Fine. But we’re painting this thing. I’m not going anywhere with it looking like this.” Fredrick’s brows furrowed as if he hadn’t even considered that.
“What color?” he asked, turning back to me.
“I’m thinking grey,” I answered, and he smiled.
“Deal.”
True to his word, Fredrick painted the camper grey and we set off in the direction of our destination. I was nervous as a wreck to be taking Ash on the road that early in his life, but I packed extra of everything and off we went. I read somewhere that you should begin a long road trip with children at night because they will fall asleep instantly in the car, allowing you to drive further without interruption.
Whoever wrote that obviously hadn’t accounted for the fact that children are not all the same. Ash screamed for almost two solid hours on our drive out of our lovely city. I thought for sure Fredrick was going to lose his cool and run us off the road out of frustration. He kept looking back and making eye contact with me as I tried to soothe our little boy to sleep.
Nothing was working. I eventually took my shirt off and breastfed him to sleep. The look of relief on Fredrick’s face as our son’s eyes eased to sleep made me feel guilty for not being able to get him to sleep sooner. He looked about as exhausted as I felt.
We sat in silence, him watching the road, me watching our son in fear that we would wake him if either one of us spoke up. Hour four into the drive I moved to the front, and Fredrick immediately pulled my hand to his lips with a kiss on my knuckles. We sat holding hands until AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” came on. Fredrick started out singing it quietly, but his voice gained volume as the song played on.
When Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” followed that song, we both lost the battle at being quiet. I looked over and grinned at his serious rendition of the song. His voice was so elegant even singing classic rock songs.
Over time my attraction for him had grown, and it struck me then just how beautiful that man was. Inside and out he was stunning. I understood why women fell all over him, even if it hurt my heart to think about it.
He had the jawline and cheekbones of a man who had poisoned his body with substances and chemicals he shouldn’t have touched, and his eyes and lips were disproportionate to his other features. But through an artist’s eyes, he was a lovely, reckless masterpiece. He wasn’t a perfect man by any means, he had his faults. But he also had moments where he was so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
We stopped for gas in a small town around midnight, and I worried Ash was going to wake up when Fredrick took the key out of the ignition, but he slept right through it. Fredrick popped his head into the driver’s side, and I immediately knew something was up. He wasn’t out of the car long enough to have filled the tank completely. And he sure as shit didn’t look happy.
“We have a flat tire.” He sighed as he ran his hands down his face. What? I shoved the passenger’s side door open and ran around the front to meet him on the driver’s side. He bent down to the back tire and felt around.
“It’s flat. There’s a nail in the tire. I can see it from here. We have to stop for the night.”
Fredrick looked around analyzing our surroundings. I couldn’t believe that was happening. Just our luck, I suppose. He pulled out his phone and I watched as his fingers typed furiously at the screen. “It says there’s a Big O Tires nearby. We might have enough air in it to get us there, but they’re closed for the night.”
We pulled into the vacant parking lot at Big O Tires and just stared out at the empty road from our seats. Eventually Fredrick jumped up and went into the back. He came back a second later with a bottle of whiskey. “Come on,” he said as he exited the truck, and I followed.
“It’s late. We really should just get some sleep,” I said, staring at the half empty bottle. I already knew he brought it to have a few drinks once we got to Vegas. I also knew the responsible thing would have been to go right to sleep. But I really needed a drink after sitting still for so long, listening to our baby cry himself to sleep earlier, and having to stop way before we had planned because of a nail in our tire. I needed a drink. We both did.
“Take a shot, Bunny,” Fredrick challenged, offering the bottle to me. I did. I took one shot and then held my hand up for him to wait while I took two more. Then I handed the bottle back to him and allowed him to catch up. Fredrick lit a cigarette and then walked to the very center of the parking lot and laid down.
“You can see the stars so well out here,” he whispered with his cigarette between his teeth as he turned to look at me. I moved to lay beside him and looked up at the sky.
“Yeah,” I agreed, analyzing the patterns above us.
“It’s extraordinary,” he noted.
“Yeah, it is.”
Fredrick put out his cigarette and grabbed my hand, entwining our fingers together. “My partner in crime. Not quite the adventure I had in mind when I asked you to take this trip with me.”
I shrugged at his words.
“We’ll get on the road early and be there before you know it. Life happens sometimes. You can’t control it, Freddy.”
“How did an angel like you end up with a dog like me?” Fredrick asked, turning to look at me, and I mean really look. If he looked any harder, he’d be able to see that I was no angel. I was a little broken too.
“You’re not a dog, Fredrick,” I told him honestly. His pouty look was in full force, as he continued to study me.
“Sometimes I am. Sometimes you can’t control life, but what about those times you can. Sometimes I can control life and I still don’t and you deserve so much better than me for the rest of your life.” He paused in thought, then continued. “But
I got really lucky with you and I don’t know how that happened. I just want to hold on to it for as long as possible.”
I smiled at him. He really did have such a way with words. They were simple words, but they spoke to me like music. I knew he wasn’t a saint. I knew sometimes he was just as dark and contrite as he saw in those moments of self-reflection. But he wasn’t a bad person. He was just a normal human being that did bad things just like the rest of us, only his bad things were a little different than my own.
That didn’t make me innocent to his guilty though. It just made us both human. I rolled so that I was laying across his chest. “I love you, Freddy, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m here with you now and always.”
“I love you too, Bunny.”
We sang loud and proud the entire rest of the trip to Las Vegas. Because sometimes in life you can’t control anything at all, so you might as well have a little fun. We arrived and Fredrick went out to watch Alan’s band while I stayed at the camper watching movies and snuggling with Ash.
It was a surprisingly quiet and peaceful night. Fredrick came home shortly after one am, and crawled into the tiny camper bed with us. Beneath his breath, he hummed the tune of the song he helped his friend create, and I snuggled into him and let his blissful voice lull me to sleep.
We decided to keep the party going and continued our trip to Los Angeles from Las Vegas since we had a brand-new tire and a newfound appreciation for the little adventures. We walked hand in hand along the beach with our son in a cotton wrap around my torso and hoped for a lifetime full of adventures with him. I’ll never forget the way it felt in that moment as a complete, homegrown family.
Thirteen
This is Not a Fairytale Page 10