After All This Time: Breaking Point

by Brown, Brittainy

  “Wow! That’s a while, but I don’t mind. What do I need to do?”

  The barwoman thought for a while. “You can drop your number, and I’ll call you. I won’t forget.”

  Liam nodded. “Do I get a pen and paper?”

  The lady dipped a hand in her pocket and passed him a pen and a torn piece of paper. He scribbled down his number and handed it back to her.

  “Thank you so much.” He brought out some cash and placed on the counter. “The change should be more than enough to show gratitude.”

  The lady smiled, she seemed pleased. “Wow, cute and generous, just my type of man. Don’t worry, I will call you.”

  Liam nodded, stood up and motioned towards the entrance, forgetting his phone on the counter.

  Reading The Signs

  “So thanks, love, for the beautiful plan you brought up. Have you paid for it?”

  “Yes babe, I paid as soon as you sent your half.”

  Liam smiled and drew her closer to him, into a warm embrace.

  Emily was confused, this morning he had left abruptly, as if he was hiding something, but a couple of hours later, a few minutes after she had texted him, he had sent his half of the money for their trip. And tonight he was back, and not only back, he even came with beautiful flowers for her, now he was hugging her and giving her. She was confused, but she leaned in into him so he could hold her tightly.

  “Baby, are you okay?” He whispered into her ear.

  She said nothing. Instead, she just sighed and held him closely.

  “Liam, you know I love you, right?”

  “Sure darling, you know I love you too.”

  “If anything is wrong, you’ll tell me right?”

  He nodded slightly.

  “No matter what happens, don’t ever change, okay?”

  He smiled and pulled away, now looking into her eyes.

  “Baby, why are you saying all these things?” He asked, but she just shrugged.

  “No reason. Just because I want to tell you, that’s all.”

  Liam smiled and squeezed her hands. “Everything is fine, okay?”

  She nodded with a big sigh; she would have believed him, except that he was giving her a half-smile again.

  * * *

  Charles was her first. It was what you’d call love at first sight, except that hers had lasted just eight months. They had accidentally run into each other at the store. He had the kind of a face that would stop every lady, both homely and beautiful, in their tracks; tousled dark brown hair and almost perfectly symmetrical features. He was one of those men who had grown accustomed to the sudden pause in ladies’ facial expressions when they looked his way, followed by a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile. This was exactly how it had happened. She couldn’t look away and he had caught her staring. He seemed to be looking for something in particular when her eyes found him, and even though she tried to avoid him for the rest of the time she spent in the store, he seemed to be everywhere she was, even when she had gone to make her payment. Finally, he had caught up with her at the garage while she was trying to get into her car.

  “Hi, I could have sworn you were trying to avoid me.” He had said to her and the way she had blushed was inexplicable. When she tried to talk, it was like her voice didn’t belong to her.

  “I think you’re really beautiful, and I would love to know your name.” He’d said, and the next day, they’d gone on a date. Later that week, they started their relationship.

  Thinking about it now, she still felt a pang of regret for rushing into it but she’d had no reason to back out. They had loved each other, there had been no reason to take things slow. Or maybe she just read the wrong signals.

  Just like all beautiful relationships, at the beginning Emily felt it was going to be her very last, that it would lead to marriage. The first few months were the best of her life then. They did everything together, went on many trips and eventually started planning on moving in together. In the sixth month of the relationship, though, she started noticing some changes. First, it was the calls; they reduced drastically. At first she thought it was probably his job that was taking much of his time so she didn’t mind doing the calling until she realized it wasn’t his job at all. Then, she had asked him many times if everything was okay between them and she was assured every time that they were good. But other things followed. He stopped taking her out, started planning things without asking her like he used to, until one day he finally broke up with her. She could still remember vividly how everything had happened. He had shown up at her doorstep, and with the way he was looking that day she had known something was definitely wrong.

  “Hi, babe.”

  “What is it, Charles? You’ve been avoiding me lately and now you just showed up at my doorstep unannounced.

  “Yea, um, can we go inside?” He asked.

  She thought for a while before opening the door for him. When they were finally inside, he didn’t bother to sit and neither did she.

  “What is it? Why have you been avoiding me? Did I do something wrong?”

  He seemed to be having difficulty in saying whatever he had to say.

  “Charles, you can’t come in and just stay quiet. I wasn’t able to get through to you for days now...”

  “I’m seeing someone else, Emily,” he blurted out abruptly.

  When she heard, she wasn’t a bit surprised. She had expected that a man wouldn’t start avoiding his girlfriend unless he had some big secret he didn’t want to reveal.

  “You’ve been seeing someone else? Since when?” She asked.

  “For two weeks now. I’m sorry, I just had to come and tell you so you can stop disturbing yourself over me.” After he said this, she watched him walk out of the room and right out of her life.

  Emily gave off an exasperated sigh as she tossed and turned in bed, recalling those horrible times in her life. Everything had started with the phone calls and it was like history was repeating itself.

  For two days now, she had been the one calling Liam and most of the time her calls would go to voicemail. It was also two days since they had last seen one another. It was so unusual and she was beginning to panic.

  She promised herself she wouldn’t call him until he called first. Four hours later, she was home and she had no messages from him on her mobile phone or answering machine. It was painful. Could he be involved with someone else too?

  Normally, they had a routine of calling. He would call in the morning to wake her up before she went to work. Nex,t she would call as soon as she was through with her bath and then he would give her a call so they could chat endlessly while they both rushed to their different places of work. Then the first person to catch a break would call and then he would be the one to call later for the rest of the evening. It wasn’t like that any longer. This morning, she had gone to work without hearing from him at all. She tried to call but it went straight to voicemail. Everyone knew something was wrong with her but she didn’t want to make it real yet. She told herself probably he was busy. When she caught a break at work she thought about calling him, but she changed her mind.

  All day at work, she kept glancing at her phone hoping she would at least miss his call.

  Now she was at home, lying on the couch and surfing the internet for ‘signs your boyfriend is no longer into you.’ While she read, her heart kept racing as ‘changes in communication’ stared back at her.

  She checked the replies and comments of the people who had looked at the site months earlier. The comments worried her and sapped her hope. While some testified to this being one of the reasons they had to break up, others said it was not a genuine reason to think he was no longer interested. One man testified that, when a man communicates less, it doesn’t mean he is not interested, it could actually mean that he has other things in his mind. There was a woman who commented that she was already losing her mind when it got to the third day and, unable to take it any longer, she had travelled down to his house, only to find him on t
op of another woman. At this juncture, Emily turned off her phone and threw it on the other couch. The thought of her boyfriend on another woman was something she just wasn’t ready to picture again.

  When Charles had started misbehaving, she had never pictured another woman interfering, but when he had to come to tell her himself she’d felt so stupid for not having thought of it at all.

  She realized that the weather had changed as the room became darker. The breeze began to blow heavily followed by a long low rumble of thunder.

  She hated the rain, especially if it was a heavy thunderstorm, though she liked it more when someone was with her.

  Suddenly, her phone rang. The vibration startled her. She hesitated, but then she reached out for it. For some reason, she couldn’t check who the caller was, she just didn’t want to experience any disappointment again, so instead she just picked the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, babe.”

  Something melted deep down in her tummy as she heard his voice, she almost jumped for joy…

  “Baby, are you there?” He asked again.

  “Yea, yea, I’m here.” She replied, quickly and cautiously. She didn’t want to sound too excited. “What happened? You haven’t called me for days.”

  “Yea, I know, sorry, I misplaced my phone and just found it. Will tell you everything later.”

  The sigh that escaped Emily’s lip was sudden, as if she was finding it difficult to process the fact that her boyfriend lost his phone for days and couldn’t find any means of contacting her.

  “So, how have you been?” He asked again.

  “Good.” She replied quickly.

  “Have you gotten any reply from Outer Banks yet?”

  “No. not yet.” She replied, waited for a while before saying, “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  She knew he’d hesitated. Or maybe it was her imagination. Or maybe nothing.

  “So, are you coming?” She asked expectantly.

  “To?”

  “To my place of course, where else?” She replied.

  He was quiet for a while before replying, “Baby, I would have loved to but it’s about to rain and I don’t want to get drenched.”

  She felt that familiar hot wave of disappointment wash over her. What kind of an excuse was that? He would be in the car all the way so how would he get drenched?

  “Okay, no problem, whatever,” she replied quickly, “I’ll call you later.”

  “Tomorrow is Saturday, any plans?” She asked, hoping he would at least make effort to spend time with her.

  “No babe, sorry, I’ll be busy tomorrow morning but I’ll come later in the day..”

  “Fine.” She said quickly, ending the call and throwing the phone on the couch. She lay huddled in one corner, with her face in her hands, biting her lower lip painfully. This was one of those times she actually wished she had girlfriends she could talk to, but she didn’t. When she’d been with Charles, Charles had been her friend, confidante and all she could ever need. Now it was Liam. She remembered promising herself she wouldn’t make the same mistake again; letting her man be her only friend and confidante. It had affected her greatly when Charles broke up with her, and now she was experiencing the same with Liam.

  Maybe she was just over thinking things, though, maybe everything was alright, just maybe! She remembered the conversation she had at the salon some days back, now she was going crazy gradually.

  It rained throughout the night. She was alone and sad. Scrolling through web pages wasn’t helpful and going through her and Liam’s pictures left her with an emptiness she hadn’t felt in a while. She found many signs to look out for on the internet when she searched, 'how to know if your boyfriend is avoiding you,’ but she wondered if every one she recognised was in her imagination. He had given excuses for not calling her and now he had cancelled their Saturday plan for the first time in their five months of being together. She must be the cause of this and she just wished he would talk to her.

  It was like replaying a painful part of her life all over again and she kept trying to check where she must have gone wrong. Could it be her? Did she say something she wasn’t meant to say? She was already doing it, she was beginning to blame herself for things she was probably not responsible for. Well, she knew she couldn’t possibly conclude since they have not actually spent time together for him to say whatever was wrong, the last time they were together, he left abruptly because of the vacation which she had planned. But there have been several times when she had done things to surprise him and he loved surprises so what was wrong with this one? Still, that wasn’t enough for her to draw a conclusion. She was going to wait until tomorrow, when he would come over. By then, she hoped, things would have gotten better.

  A Cookie Of Frustration

  Things didn’t get better.

  Liam had gotten to her place an hour earlier, while she was in the shower. There had been several times when he would join her in the shower and the day would run smoothly from there, but this time, he didn’t.

  Later, she had to ask, shouting at the top of her voice, “I’m taking a shower, care to join?”

  “No, I’ll sit here, will keep myself busy with the T.V.” He had replied, to her disappointment. Well, maybe he didn’t want to get wet, she thought, even though she felt it was unusual of him. One of their favorite things to do was taking a shower together, but people change, right?

  She hurried up with the shower, dried up, rolled her hair in a ponytail, tugged on something really short, and then hurried out to meet him.

  “Hey, babe,” he greeted her, kissing her lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Hi,” She kissed him back before embracing him, “I missed you.”

  “Yea, same here.” He replied, pulling away slightly.

  Emily felt him pull away but she said nothing. Some minutes later, they were both sitting on the couch, staring at the T.V.

  Emily kept wondering how to start a conversation. He had never been this quiet, he had always been the one who would keep the conversation going between them. She was the quiet type, as well as a great listener. He would go on and on, making her laugh, and later the day would end with them making love. But today was different, it was as if there was nothing to discuss and it was killing her inside. She looked at him; he seemed to be quite engrossed in the Doctor Sexy soap opera that was on the TV, but she desperately needed to hear him say something. Maybe she could try and say something.

  “Urm… Liam?”

  “Yea.” He replied, without taking his eyes off the T.V.

  “You said you lost your phone for two days, how did it happen?”

  He shrugged. “A funny story, actually, really a funny story,” he replied and that was all, she had lost him again.

  “I would really love to hear the stoy,” she said, emphasizing the last two words. This must have caught his attention as he looked at her, smiled and then brushed a hand over her hair like he had always done, but this time, it felt odd.

  “Well…” he started, with a big sigh. “I, uh….” he stopped, staring blankly into an empty space. “I was running and it must have slipped from my side pocket… yea, so, someone found it the following day. I knew you must have been worried, I just, I got so distracted you know. Nothing to worry about.” Then he pulled her closer, kissed her on the cheek and then continued with the TV.

  Emily was quiet. She knew something was definitely wrong, she could tell any time he was lying but she didn’t want to accuse him of anything, she was willing to believe every word.

  She slid her hand into his and leaned snuggled closer to him. “You know I love you, right Liam?”

  “Yea, sure.” He replied, without taking his eyes off the TV.

  Emily immediately thought of the number three sign on the website she had been checking the previous night. It stated that the third sign to look for is ‘when he no longer pays attention to you.’ Could this be it? She thought of confronting him about everythi
ng that had been happening, for him to see the difference in the way he spoke to her many for months and how he was presently treating her, but she didn’t want to nag and she knew how much he hated her nagging. Just then, she remembered what one of the women at the salon had said, “We want to make everyone happy. sometimes, we just need to try and make the effort to make things right. We know that if we don’t things might not get better”.

  She needed to make things right... she needed to try.

  “Liam, are we okay?” She asked again, unable to stop herself. He looked at her and frowned. “Sure, babe, sorry, I just really need to concentrate on this soap.” He replied, shifting his attention back to the TV.

  That actually hurt her feelings but she said nothing, instead, she stood up. “Maybe I should excuse you then.” She said, walking away and hoping he would at least pull her back or follow her as he used to do, but he didn’t. She reached her room alone, threw herself on the bed and had a little, silent cry. She was so confused, and tired of trying to make things right. She could feel something was wrong and he kept shutting her out, she didn’t know what else to do, eventually, she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Liam watched as she went into the bedroom. He felt a strong urge to follow her, but he changed his mind. What would he possibly tell her without having to explain why he had been keeping to himself lately?

  The truth was, he couldn’t tell her he had forgotten his phone at a bar because that would mean explaining why he had gone to the bar in the first place. If Emily found out he was having issues dealing with the marriage of his ex, she might interpret it as something it wasn’t and he wasn’t ready for that. The best thing was to lie, to cover it up.

  Or should he tell the truth? He thought for a while, then shook his head. He had done a lot more for Kate and she had abandoned him at the altar. He wasn’t ready to put everything out on the table and then discover he has been inadequate all along. He did so much for Kate, far too much for her to have left him like that.