The Fool

by P. J. Belden

  Sitting in the apartment that I once shared with the woman that just tore my heart from my chest was becoming suffocating. I’ve lived in this one-bedroom, one and a half bath apartment for eight years. It has been the epitome of a bachelor pad as it could get. Girls coming in and going out. Parties. Boys watching sports and hanging out.

  But then I met Jenna. The moment our eyes had met across the bar… Okay, I’m totally kidding. It was a few dates before I knew that my days of being a bachelor were over. For the last year, I’ve been devoted to only to her. My eyes, hands, lips, dick, nothing never wandered to anyone else. I had really thought that when I had proposed, she’d have said yes.

  Laying on the bed as I stare up at the ceiling, I wonder for the millionth time what had I done to push her into the arms of the other man.

  A sad, humorless chuckle fills the silence in the room. “A fucking shriveled up prick.”

  He probably makes good money and can give her the finer things that I can only wish to buy her. Not that I’m a poor man. I work as an English teacher at the local high school. Most would think that it’s a respectable job. I think it is and love my job.

  Unable to sit in the apartment any longer, I force myself from the bed and into the shower. I’ll drown my sorrows in a bar. Then come back to the familiar, the ache of missing her, when I can pass out drunk.

  Within an hour, I’m sitting in a bar on the outskirts of town that’s filled with smoke, music, and people laughing and talking loudly. Oddly, it offers the peace I need right now. The silence does no favors in a situation like this.

  “Can I get another…” My order to the bartender is cut off when a beautiful woman practically flings herself on the counter.

  “Whiskey, now, please,” she huffs as she takes the seat next to me.

  My eyes stay trained on her. It wasn’t that I was in lust, but I know beauty when I see it. Her long, brown hair seems unkempt as it clings to her back and arms. Her light blue shirt hung from her body as if it may have fit at one point, but no longer did. The jeans she wore were baggy as well.

  Did she have a man at home that hurt her? Was this a place that sucked in people whose hearts were falling apart and need something to help numb it?

  Her emerald eyes met mine, and that’s when I confirmed my suspicions. The pain in her eyes muddled the color making them dimmer than I’m damn certain were the most vibrant jewels. It actually seems to damp the glimmer of her. Not that I know anything about the woman. She just seems to carry this life about her. Only that ‘life’ seems… blurred.

  Shaking my head, I’ve had far too much to drink tonight if I’m analyzing a woman I have never met before just by her look. Yet as she sits next to me, I can’t stop the urge to speak to her.

  “Met an asshole?” I question.

  Her eyes widen in shock for a moment. At that moment, her shot of whiskey is sat in front of her. She downs it and slams it on the bar and says, “Keep ‘em coming.”

  “Yes,” she answers quietly after a few minutes of silence. “And then some.”

  Holding up my shot to her when her next shot comes, “To meeting assholes.” Her face doesn’t change but she clinks my glass and says the same thing.

  I’m not sure how much time passes, but neither of us talks. We both seem to be intent on drowning our sorrows with liquid courage. No, not courage, it is more looking for a sedative. The problem with drinking, or at least with me, is it makes one a little loose lipped. I can’t stop myself. It isn’t that I was talking to her, but I am just talking in general.

  “I was with my asshole for a year. A whole damn year.” My speech slurs a bit.

  There’s a long stretch of silence. Anyone would take that as a hint, but again… not me. Nope, my fucking mouth keeps spewing out words like vomit.

  “I asked her to marry me. And you know what she said?” I look at her through a bit of a wavy haze. “She said it was too soon. She was living with me since a month of us dating. But one year is too soon to ask marriage proposal to her.” My words don’t even make sense to my own ears. Shaking my head back and forth, I downed another shot. “You know what I mean, right?” I ask as I turn to face her.

  Again, silence meets my ears. She continues to down her own shots. My mouth doesn’t get the memo to shut up. My brain is sloshing in my ears. My mouth is like a motor boat that just keeps chugging along.

  “She grabbed her stuff last week and left. She left me for a man that probably shoots dust.” I say as I lean backward.

  Had my mind been fully clear at the moment, I would have realized that there were no backs to these stools and definitely wouldn’t have landed flat on my ass on the floor. If I were sober, the next words would not have fallen from my mouth.

  “Whoa, who turned on the gravity,” I rub the back of my head that had hit something hard.

  A small amount of laughter breaks through the loud noise of the bar, and I look up to see the mystery woman that I have been talking to all night laughing into her shot glass. Bruised ego aside, the laughter is music to my ears. My laughter soon joins hers as I stumble trying to get up off the floor.

  By the time I’m off the ground, she’s standing from her stool. “Have a good night mister. Forget your asshole. She’ll realize the mistake when the wrinkles kick in. For the record, I think you’ve had too much to drink. Don’t drive home.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” I blubber stupidly. “You never talked about what you brought here.” My eyes look up at the ceiling as I try to figure out if that came out right before I shrug it off.

  “You talked enough for the both of us,” she pats my shoulder and starts walking out.

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, thanks for listening.”

  She chuckles once more. “You’re welcome. Get your life in order. You’ve got a chance to prove her wrong. Do it. Make her miss you.” And then she was gone.

  I lean on the counter, pay my bill and walk, well more like stumble, out to my car. When my hand touches the handle of the car door, I know I shouldn’t get behind the wheel. The mystery woman is right. Pulling out my phone, I call my buddy Andy.

  “Bud, I need a ride and someone to drive my car back.” I slur into the phone at my best friend.

  “Damn it! I knew you were going to do this.” A loud sigh fills the line. “Where are you?”

  “Uh,” I look back at the bar. “Hold on. I’ll go ask.”

  “What?” Andy asks, angrily. “What bar, dumbass?”

  “Um, a tree is in the way.” I slur.

  Loud banging fills the line, and I pull the phone away from my ear for a second. “Move around the tree, dipshit!”

  “Oh, okay.” I move a little closer to the bar. “Oh hey, there’s the sign,” I say excitedly.

  “Oh yay!” Andy says sarcastically. “Now, where are you?”

  “Hideaway.” I slur.

  “You fucking owe me.” And he hangs up the phone.

  Three

  Waverly

  The ride home from Hideaway, I can’t quit chuckling. That guy was plastered. Yet a bit of sympathy forms in my gut for the man that lost himself in a drink just as I had. Pain can do things to people who are vulnerable enough with others to give a piece of them. This woman that broke the man in the bar tonight may not even realize her huge mistake.

  Turning down the private drive, I continue down to what is supposed to be my secluded piece of heaven. Thankfully, no one knows where I am, or where this place is. It allows me the privacy that I need. The escape that being in the movie business takes from you often.

  As a screenwriter, I have the ability to work from home. Almost two years ago, I pushed my feelings into a romantic screenplay. The only positive thing to come out of my shattered heart was the multi-million-dollar deal. Buying this place was the reward to myself. I just needed away. Now, I’ve sold my place in town and have a post office box several towns over so no one can track me down. Even my landline is set up by diversion.

  My family is wonderful, my friends
the best, but it’s hard for them to understand how far I truly have sunk when they are so busy floating on their own clouds of happiness. They deserve it, and I wouldn’t wish for them to sink like this, but I also don’t want to witness it either.

  Opening the door, I set my keys in the bowl on the table next to the door. I walk through the living room and into the dining area and close the wall of sliding doors. Locking them up, I move into the kitchen and grab a can of pop and a bag of chips.

  The design of my house was to take advantage of every angle of the view around here, mountains, lake, and forests. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all open to each other. A large cherry oak island with light granite waterfall countertop is the most separation between the rooms. There’s a small hall that starts after the kitchen and leads to my office and a half bath. A grand rustic wooden staircase faces the front door and leads up to my second floor where four bedrooms and four bathrooms are located.

  I always laugh at myself because this is my sacred place and yet I put four bedrooms in my house. My heart thought my son would be in one of those rooms when I made the plans for the house. Now, it’s a sickening reminder of the emptiness that settles over me on a constant basis.

  Sitting on the couch, I grab my remote and turn on the television as I search for something to get my mind off my life for a moment. The mumbled sound of voices from a home shopping commercial drums on with the crap it’s trying to sell. The crunch of the chips I’m eating is the only other sound to fill the otherwise silent house. This is my life. This is what I’ve become.

  Laying down on the couch, I blankly stare at the television. The picture begins to blur, and my son’s tiny little face fills the void.

  “I’ll never forget you, baby boy. Mommy misses you so much.”

  Jerking awake, an all too familiar scream filters into my ears. Tears stream down my cheeks and my head throbs not from the alcohol, but from the pain in which I’m lost in all over again. The night terrors were much the same. Fighting the nurse and doctor as they attempted to take my son from me. The conversation with Legend’s brother. Each and every surgery. Each and every day that I spent at the hospital watching my precious baby suffer from a fate he didn’t deserve.

  With shaking hands, I push my trembling body from the couch. My knees wobble as I take small, tentative steps toward the kitchen. Tears blur my vision, and soon the grief brings me to my knees.

  “Oh God, why? You could have taken me. You could have let him live and taken me instead. Yet here I am trying to live through a heartache that will never heal.” I sob as I lay my chest to my legs.

  Grief is a vicious monster that sucks all the life from your lungs but leaves just enough behind to keep you living. It takes all that could make you smile and brings tears instead. A monster that makes the world fade away and a black hollow space to fill its once bright place. The only choice left is nothing. Nothing is what it leaves behind as it steals everything from you.

  Pulling myself from the floor, I change directions and head out on the deck. Lifting my chair from its knocked over position, I took my normal seat. Tears fall to my wrinkled shirt as the wind blows my tangled mess of hair across my face. The trees seem less colorful and more like… me. They were dying off, falling into a dormant, lifeless state. That’s where I lay. That’s where my heart will stay.

  The first drop of rain hits my pants, soaking through to fill me with its icy coldness. The more rain that falls the number I become. The thought of getting sick crosses my mind, but I don’t care at this point.

  “Do you know what I love the most?”

  Legend’s voice echoes in my head.

  “No, what,” I breathe my response out loud.

  “I love the way us feels. You and me. Me and you. Us.”

  A small, sad, smile spreads across my face. “How ‘us’ feels? And how is that exactly?”

  “It feels like heaven. The warmest beach. The highest mountain peak. The hottest dessert… It feels like forever.”

  “Like forever?”

  “Yes, Waverly Renee Johnson, you are my forever. Forever always. Forever still.”

  A sob escapes as I remember the way he looked me in the eyes telling me how much he loved me. We had made love so sweetly, and the way he held me was as if I truly was the only person in the world to him. Protective, loving, and yet he left me that night.

  To this day, I think it had been that night that I conceived Remy. If I had been his forever if that’s truly how he felt then why did he leave? Why was I left giving birth to a son alone that was destined to die? Why was I the one waiting to find out exactly what the cause of death had been? Why was I the one planning the funeral for a part of ‘us’ that barely had a chance to live?

  Even today, I still think that when my cell phone rings that it’ll be him calling me. Pathetic I know. Honestly, at this point, I think that my heart just wants to remember when it had life. His name is now a memory of all this… of the lowest depth I’ve sunk to. The level that he sunk me to.

  Anger slowly began to fill my chest but is quickly doused when our baby’s image flashes before my eyes. I’m going crazy. I’m losing it. Yet, I really don’t want to do anything to fix it. The nurse at the hospital suggested this group of grieving parents to help with the emotions that I would be going through. I declined. Being around people is not what I want. What do you say in those groups anyway?

  ‘Hi, my name is Waverly. I found out I was pregnant after the man I love the most in the world up and disappeared. Then I fell in love with the boy that I was carrying in my stomach, and he too was taken from me because I couldn’t do things properly by him either and he had to leave me too.’

  For some reason, I think they might kick me from the group. My thoughts, my feelings, they are my own. I will work through it or I won’t. At this point, I just don’t care if I never do. The cloud that surrounds me is too thick for me to even begin to work through and really I’ve given up trying.

  Laying my head back on the chair, I close my eyes and let the rain continue to fall down on me. Part of me prays it washes the dark depths away that seem to crawl over me, digging into my very being. The other part just wants to be with my son.

  Jerking awake, it is dark out. Unsure of exactly what woke me when I hear the loud crack of thunder. Honestly, I’m not sure if it was the thunder or the dream that woke me. Standing from my chair, I walk back inside, close the doors and grab the keys to my Jeep and head out to go to the bar.

  Hideaway is better than sitting at home with the constant reminder of what used to be and what could have been. The silence was beginning to become my worst enemy. So, a few hours in a noisy bar allows me the ability to think less and drink more, numbing myself the coward’s way.

  Pulling into the parking lot, I park off on the far end again. Walking swiftly into the bar, I immediately order my drink, tell him to keep it coming and move over to a table in the corner as far from everyone as possible.

  My wet hair sticks to my face, and I have to keep scrapping it off and putting it behind my shoulders. The bartender, whose name is Randal, brings me three shots. He smiles and tells me that he’ll be back with some water in a little while.

  I’ve been coming here every night for the past week. My heart hammers just being around anyone, but it serves its purpose. Randal reserves this corner table for me and keeps me well liquored up. I wouldn’t say we have really talked about anything. He had said one day.

  “I know pain when I see it.”

  I simply just nod my head at him. He surprised me by telling me that he’d help as much as possible and that’s when he kept this table for me so I can be left alone. He seems like a good guy. His wife, Daisy, is a waitress and helps keep me liquored as well. She tries to get me to talk, but I just don’t want to. They both do a great job of keeping the local male creeps away from me.

  “I was hoping I’d find you here,” a familiar voice says.

  Looking up from the shot glass I was
staring into, I see the face of the drunk man the first night I came in here. My brows raise in question, but I don’t say a word.

  “May I have a seat?” He asks tentatively, looking behind him and seeing the burly, Randal, heading in my direction.

  Shaking my head at Randal, he nods and glares at the mystery man. A not so subtle way of telling him he better tread lightly. I smile at his protectiveness.

  “You can sit for a minute. I don’t come here for chatter,” I say without emotion.

  He pulls out the chair in front of mine and sits down. “My, uh, my name is Alexander,” he introduces himself.

  I nod my head and sip on my shot again, purposely not giving him my name. Twirling the liquid in my cup, I watch the swirling action, almost mesmerized by it.

  “Uh, I wanted to thank you.”

  Looking up at him, my brows crease in uncertainty. “Thank me for what?”

  “For your advice, a week ago. I’m sorry by the way for interrupting your time.”

  “No need to thank me or apologize.”

  “I, uh, I took your advice,” he says nervously.

  “My advice?”

  “About taking control of my life,” Alexander says.

  “Oh right, your asshole,” I smirk. “Still an asshole?”

  “Yup, but I think I’m okay with it.” He says honestly.

  “Wow, one week did that for you, huh?”

  “No, actually, I had gone to a bar and drove home afterward and nearly killed myself. It kind of woke me up. I still love her. I’d probably still be dumb and take her back if she came to me now, but for now… I’m letting it go. Her not being with me is not worth my life. Her deceit is not worth breaking the hearts of my family and friends. And your advice helped too. She wins as long as I let her control me.”

  Downing my shot, I shake my head as the sorrow begins to fill my gut. Here this man is able to move on, and so quickly, while I’m stuck in a repetitious hell.

  “Well, I’m glad you realized that and are okay,” I croak out past the burning of the alcohol going down my throat.