The Trouble With Before

by Portia Moore

  He looks away from me. “Yeah, and I thought she was my sister.”

  He storms out of the room, and Lauren looks at me, her face full of sympathy.

  “He doesn’t mean it. He’s just been having a hard time lately,” she says quietly.

  I sit on the couch in disbelief. My best friend has just given me an ultimatum, and it’s pretty ridiculous. Lisa doesn’t even want me, but for him to do that . . .

  “I just want what you guys have,” I tell her quietly.

  “Well, if you’re familiar with our story, you know it wasn’t easy.”

  I groan. “They’re both fucking nuts.”

  “You really love her?” Lauren asks.

  I think about her question and how Grams said if you love someone, you’d go to hell and back for them. I should have fought like hell when Lisa started hiding behind into her new self-deprecating façade. She was trying to push me away. She’s still afraid to let herself be happy.

  “I do. I love her. I’m in love with her. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her,” I say, the realization hitting me like a ton of bricks.

  But in an instant, it’s as if a weight’s been taken off of me. I love Lisa so much that if I have to walk away from my best friend for her, I will.

  Lauren smiles. “Well, you go deal with your psycho, and I’ll go deal with mine.” She grins at me before wobbling off in Chris’s direction.

  And I’ll go find my girl, even if I have to drag her from hell kicking and screaming.

  Dear Brett,

  I’ve thought about how to write this letter to you a million ways. I hope this is one way that doesn’t read terribly. First, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me when I didn’t have anyone. You always saw the good in me when I didn’t see it in myself. You gave me the opportunity to start over, but I should have fixed the last chapter in my life before beginning a new book. I want you to know that I love you, even if you can’t find it in your heart to still love me. I’ll never forget what you did for me, and who you were. I wish I could have been the woman you saw me to be, but I was not. I am so sorry that I hurt you, and I do want you to know that while I was with you there was never anyone else. I made the guy I told you about . . . I don’t even remember what I named him . . . completely up. I was pregnant with our child. A child that I will think about everyday, who didn’t make it to this world, but will always live in my heart. I do believe you would have came around and been a great father. I know that one day you will be. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Today I am working on being a better woman, and when I am you will be a big reason for me accomplishing that.

  I DON’T KNOW what hell is like, but living with Evie and Jack must be pretty damn close. The first couple of days were the worst, seeing what my mom has become, how Jack rules the house like a king with an iron fist. Seeing his smug grin when I returned. The worst part is that they love to argue and have loud, disgusting sex afterward. The good thing about that is the sex doesn’t last long, and this past week, Jack hasn’t been around much.

  Each day I’m here, I have to remind myself why I left Aidan’s, even though being there without him was pretty much like hell. His missing presence was swallowing me whole. I missed him more than I ever imagined missing anyone, and it was because I’d pushed him away. This time, I can’t blame another person or circumstance; it was all me.

  Maybe I’m back here because it’s a pretty good form of punishment. Handing over six hundred dollars to the disgusting human being my mother calls a husband made me want to vomit. The way he looks at me when she’s not around makes me want to vomit. The way she’s been trying to act as though we have an actual relationship since I’m paying her rent makes me want to scratch out my own eyes, but I put up with it because at least I can’t hurt anyone here. No one cares enough about me for my actions to even be on their radar.

  I have enough money saved that next month, I’ll be good to move and get some actual furniture. Being so miserable here has given me enough time to finish my novel too. The longest month of my life. It still sounds weird to actually have written a novel. It’s really done. I found a few critique partners online who gave it a thumbs-up after my third draft. The biggest criticism I got was a request to change the ending so that Katie, the main character, doesn’t screw up her life and run off to California with a man she knows she doesn’t love. They want her to keep her daughter and develop her relationship with her sparring partner/best friend. If only I could rewrite life so easily.

  Writing has been good for me. Dr. Marella, the counselor I’ve been speaking with, says it’s a much better outlet than drinking or locking myself away. It’s helped me get clarity on mistakes I’ve made. It turns out, I tend to blame people for the mistakes I’ve made, and I use those people as excuses to keep making them. She’s suggested I work on my relationship with Evie—we’re civil now, so that’s a step forward—and most importantly, Dr. Marella says I need to forgive myself.

  Forgiving myself wouldn’t be so hard if I hadn’t pushed away the one person who truly cares about me. The one person I love so much I was afraid to drag him into the mess of loving me. Aside from Willa, nothing good has come out of anyone loving me or getting close to me. I don’t know if Aidan loves me, but I can’t think that I wouldn’t hurt him one day. He doesn’t deserve that. Still, I miss him, and I have to fight myself every day to not call or text him. I lost the one thing I was, in my own twisted way, trying to protect.

  I get out of the car after making sure to put on my sweatshirt over the top I wore to work today. The fewer reasons Jack has to ogle, the better. The light’s off in the living room, and I’m surprised he’s not parked in front of the TV with a beer in his hand. A shiver travels down my spine when I hear crying. I lock the front door behind me and follow the crying to Evie’s bedroom. She’s weeping, her body shaking. It doesn’t matter how much your mom sucks; when you see her crying like that, it makes you worried.

  “What’s wrong, Evie?” I ask, but she just continues to cry.

  I scan the room, and I don’t see any booze besides beer. I’m surprised at that. I haven’t seen her in one of these crying spells since my stepdad kicked us out.

  “I hate men, hate them!” she shouts.

  I let out a sigh of relief. It’s only something about Jack.

  “What are you two lovebirds fighting about now?” I ask sarcastically.

  “He’s leaving! He’s screwing some whore in Midland. That’s why he’s been gone so much, even though she’s fat and I’m so much prettier than her. She’s a nurse and makes more money than I do. Her dead husband left her a bunch too. Jack said that I’m worthless and my life isn’t going anywhere.” She cries harder.

  I let out a sigh for her broken heart and another for the fact that he might actually be out of our hair. I sit next to her on the bed. Wrapping my arms around her and pretending we’re close would be phony, but I do squeeze her shoulder.

  “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but you can do so much better,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t reply, just continues to sniffle.

  “It’s not too late for you. You’re not even fifty yet. You can go to school, take up a trade, meet a really nice guy . . . stop drinking,” I say.

  “Nope, I’m sick of the bastards. All they do is hurt you. It’s never enough for them,” she says angrily.

  “You’ll meet someone to fall in love with, I’m sure . . .” I try not to sound condescending. My mom falls in love faster than the electric bill comes.

  She sits up and looks at me. “No, I won’t. I haven’t been in love since your daddy. I was so stupid, screwing it up with him.” She wipes her tears on her shirt.

  “You didn’t screw it up with him. He walked out on us. He was an asshole!” I say angrily.

  “No, he wasn’t.” She sniffs.

  I stand up from the bed. “Yes, he was! He abandoned us!”

  She looks up at me, and her face twists with
something I’ve never seen on her—guilt.

  “He-he abandoned us, right, Mom?” I say in almost a growl.

  “No. Craig abandoned us. He left me when you were two because he found out you weren’t his. I abandoned your daddy. He would have been amazing if I’d just given him the chance.”

  I feel my blood boil. “I’m sorry, what?” I don’t want to comprehend what she just told me.

  She looks at me briefly, then back at her lap. “I was young and stupid. I thought I had it all figured out.” She laughs at herself.

  My breathing speeds up, and I swallow hard. Evie has never talked about my dad—well, the man I thought was my dad. Whenever I brought him up, she’d shut down the conversation by saying that he left us. Now she’s telling me that the man I thought abandoned me and never looked back wasn’t my father?

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She lets out a sigh and waves dismissively. “It’s all ancient history now.”

  I’m fuming. I stand in front of her and squeeze her shoulders. “No, it’s not! Do you know how much of my life has been spent thinking my father didn’t love me, that he was some jerk or deadbeat, and now you tell me that all of that was a lie? You lied to everyone and my dad was actually an amazing man that you abandoned? You better start explaining right now!”

  She looks at me defiantly, then rolls her eyes. “I met him in Chicago. Me and your aunt Danni went to see a concert there. Back when we were friends. He was a club promoter, but not the typical type who only wants to get in your pants. He was so handsome. Thick, coal-black hair and a smile that set my heart on fire. Something about him seemed broken though. After we talked for a while, he told me that his fiancée had left him because she wanted someone with more stability. He was fresh on the market.”

  She’s quiet. I want to push her to continue but try to give her space.

  “I saw him for months, but he was afraid of getting serious. He thought I would be, like, the one that got away. I was pretty, from a prominent family, so he thought I’d never accept him for who he was and would ditch him for the first blue blood I came across.” She chuckles. “I loved him, or I thought I did. Then your stepdad came back in the picture. We had been high school sweethearts. He was everything your dad was, except Craig was passionate and fearless and confident . . . your dad was sort of broken. I was already pregnant when Craig and I got back together, and your dad was in a different state. Things just seemed easier that way . . .”

  I can’t listen to her anymore. I go in the kitchen and splash water on my face. I can’t believe that she lied to me for my whole life like this. My mother has been a lot of things, but a liar? She’s never done that. Even if the truth hurt, she never lied to me. It was the positive trait she had.

  I hear her footsteps behind me.

  “You never told him about me?” I ask, my voice trembling and weak.

  “Yes.”

  I take a deep breath in. “And what did he say?”

  “He wanted me marry him and move to Chicago.” Her voice is shaky.

  I turn to face her. “And your response?” I ask bitterly.

  She looks down guiltily. “I told him that I wasn’t going to keep you and I’d met someone else.”

  I throw my head back in disbelief.

  “Your stepdad was the safer bet. He lived in this state, for one. He had a good job, we knew more about each other!” She’s yelling almost desperately trying to get me to side with her.

  “Your parents hated him!” I shout. I’m trying to figure out why in the world she’d choose Craig over my father.

  “They saw things that I didn’t really recognize at the time,” she admits.

  I shake my head. “Well, my real dad probably ended up being a prick too.” I laugh bitterly.

  “No, he isn’t. I bumped into him a couple of years ago. He married the girl he met right after me. He became a pilot. I made a terrible mistake.” She starts to cry.

  “Did you tell him about me?”

  “I didn’t see the point,” she says quietly.

  “Yeah, it’s not like meeting my father would be important or anything,” I say sarcastically.

  She looks at me with almost pity. I’ve never seen my mother look at me with pity. Not when I got my first period in seventh grade while I was wearing a yellow skirt, or the time I cried because she couldn’t afford to send me on our eighth-grade graduation trip to Wisconsin, and definitely not when I told her I was pregnant and she figured out it was Will’s. But today she does.

  She leaves the room, returns, and hands me her phone. I fight the urge to roll my eyes before I look at it. When I do, I realize she’s showing me a Facebook profile. I glance at her before really looking at it.

  “That’s your dad,” she says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

  I look at his picture. He’s smiling widely next to a woman and a girl about sixteen years old. I look at Evie, my lip between my teeth. “You’re serious? This isn’t some twisted joke?”

  “Yeah, it’s a joke. Because my life is full of hilarity and good humor that I want to spread to all.”

  I ignore her sarcasm as I sit down at our kitchen table and stare at his picture. He has grey eyes and thick dark hair and my nose. His name is Zachary Freely, and he lives in Naperville, IL.

  I can’t breathe. Suddenly the large kitchen my grandmother used to make cookies in seems to suffocate me. I leave Evie’s phone on the table and make a beeline for the front door.

  When I open the door, my breath is stolen again. Aidan is walking up the steps.

  I freeze, because with him right in front of me, I realize that I’m dreaming.

  This is a nightmare, a tease, because I’d give anything for him to be standing here right now, and fate isn’t that kind to me. I think about pinching myself, but I want to take him in a little longer, pretend that he’s really here and really looking at me as if he just found his water in the middle of a desert. I want to pretend he isn’t pissed at me for leaving and not saying good-bye, that he’s forgiven me for reducing him to a part of himself that he’s never been with me.

  “So, funny story, Evie just told me my dad’s not really my dad. My real dad doesn’t know I exist,” I tell him, tears coming to my eyes.

  He rushes up the steps, but I step away from him. I don’t know if this is a dream, but since it might be, I have to tell him more.

  “And even after hearing something like that, I don’t think it’s the end of the world because you’re here. Even though I don’t know if I’m dreaming, whether you’re dream Aidan or not, I need you to know how sorry I am and how wrong I was to say those things to you. I was angry and scared, and I pushed away the one thing that felt like home, a real one, where I’m safe. You make me feel better in the midst of chaos and sadness. You’re the one person who has never judged me, but you call me out when I need it and you’re there to pick up the pieces when I crumble and you never ask for anything in return. It’s no excuse, but I was afraid. I was so scared because I want you so much and I know I don’t deserve you. Then I screwed it up because I felt somewhere inside me that it was better to do it then, before I felt something even more wonderful with you. I’m still scared, but if you’d forgive me, I promise that I will do whatever possible to be the woman you deserve, and whether you forgive me or not, I had to say this because nothing would be as terrible as you not knowing how I feel.”

  I’m trembling, and my throat stings. That’s what lets me know I’m not dreaming. You don’t feel like this in dreams.

  Now I’m panicking because I said all of that to the real Aidan. But it all goes away when his fingers slide through my hair and he pulls my lips to his. I smile for the first time in so long. I hold on to him for dear life, because I’m going to float away. I’ve never felt this light before. I’ve had the feels, but nothing as spectacular and as right as this.

  He pulls away, our breath tangling together. His blue eyes wake up every piece of happiness I’ve buried becaus
e I felt as though I didn’t deserve it.

  He lifts my chin up to make me look at him. “Marry me, Lisa.”

  My mouth falls open. “Are you crazy?” I ask through tears and laughter.

  “I think I am. I’m crazy ridiculously in love with you.” His entire face is lit up. “Don’t think about it.”

  “How do you know?” I squeak, my voice breaking.

  I’m afraid to hear the answer. He looks at me for a second as if I’m ridiculous, and I regret asking such a question. Even if he isn’t in love with me, I can love him enough for both of us.

  But before I can even apologize, he snatches me back up in his arms and laughs. “Because if I had to go to hell every single day and drag you out kicking and screaming, I would.”

  Through my elation, doubts and worries are fighting to the surface.

  “Don’t think about it,” he says desperately.

  “But what about—”

  I’m stopped as his lips cover mine, and I let go of everything. I melt into his kiss, and every doubt and worry goes away with it. When he pulls away, his eyes are wide and his expression full of excitement.

  “God, you’re going to be a pain in the ass, but you’re going to be my pain in the ass.”

  “How romantic,” I say in a sarcastic tone.

  That’s so us, or who we used to be. I’m not sure who we are now. Not friends out of convenience, best friends, or even lovers. I think we’re soul mates, or something like that. As long as I’m with him, we can be two people in a donkey suit.

  “Yes!” I say frantically.

  I don’t think about it.

  “NO, NO, NO, no, no!” I plead with the chocolate cake that’s just fallen as if there’s been an earthquake in the kitchen. It’s a complete mess.

  Today is Aidan’s birthday. He’ll be home in two hours, and the cake I’ve made is a complete disaster.

  “Shit!” I whine.

  “Okay, hon, what are you in here talking about?” Grams asks as she come in wearing a grin.