After All This Time: Breaking Point

by Brown, Brittainy

  It's just a thought, only a thought

  But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy

  Well I deserve nothing more than I get

  'cause nothing I have is truly mine

  But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy......

  Even though he had been keeping his emotions in check all the while, somehow the lyrics of the song penetrated into his heart and broke down his defences. He couldn’t hold on any longer and he wept quietly.

  .....I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea

  To travel the world alone and live more simply

  I have no idea what's happened to that dream

  'cause there's really nothing left here to stop me

  It's just a thought, only a thought.....

  He had messed up what mattered most to him just because of his own insecurity and he had no idea how to fix it. He’d been living his life scared of getting hurt again, and now he’d spoilt this chance of being happy...

  He felt a light touch on his shoulder and he jerked back in shock. That was when he realized the driver had pulled over and was now facing back, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  .....While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down

  While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try

  Well, how can I say I'm alive.....

  “Do you want to talk about it?” the man asked. He looked much older than Liam had expected in his funny looking bowler hat.

  “The song is already saying everything I need to say,” Liam replied, unable to stop himself, he burst into tears.

  The man chuckled slightly and patted him on the back.

  “You see, we sometimes take life lightly because we are afraid if it gets too serious, we might get choked. We do the same with love... I assume that is what the problem is?”

  Liam nodded, blowing his nose into the handkerchief in his hand.

  “You see,” said the taxi driver, “I’ve been married for more than twenty years and she is still my everything.”

  Liam looked up slightly at the man, whose hand was on the locket pendant that was opened on his chest. Half of the locket contained his own picture, with a woman who looked in her early fifties. The other half had a picture of three men who seemed to be within Liam’s age range.

  “Wow! You all look like one big perfect happy family.” Liam commented and the man smiled proudly.

  “Big happy family? Yes but perfect, no,” the man said, closing the locket. “My father used to tell me something when he was alive. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. Now, I don’t know what you did or what has happened to you but I want you to think of what I just said. Do not make any drastic decision. Go home first, sleep and think about your actions and see if you regret it or if you think it’s for the best. Whatever decision you make will make you feel better and you will know how to move on from there or how to take back what you might have lost before it’s too late.”

  Liam was quiet and he felt a little better, as if half of his burden had just been lifted off his shoulders.

  “Thank you so much. That has really helped me.”

  “Good. Now, I believe you can tell me where we’re headed right now.”

  “Sure. My house is just two buildings away.”

  “Alright.” The man said, turning back to his former position to kick-start the engine.

  Dealing With It

  Emily got to her house and started packing her stuff immediately. She was determined to leave immediately.

  She packed her shoes and some other important stuff while ignoring the pictures she had initially assembled to bring with her. They were her and Liam’s pictures together, but she hardly needed them now. She absolutely didn’t want anything that would remind her that she had been so stupid to have fallen for the wrong person again. It was just her luck that all the men in her life were just the same. Selfish, and great liars!

  Finally, she zipped up her travel bag and glanced around to check what other things she might be leaving behind. As she did, her eyes fell on a picture on the bed, one she had ignored. It was her first picture with Liam. It had been taken on their one-month anniversary.

  They were at the beach and she was holding him from the back when the picture was taken. She looked surprised and excited at the same time as she hugged him like that. He, on the other hand, looked quite comfortable and relaxed.

  For a short moment, she stared at the picture, and then reached out to take it. She watched him closely, especially the expression on his face. He looked happy, so what went wrong? When did he stop being happy with her and why was he even begging her tonight?

  She collapsed on the bed with a big sigh and began to remember how they had started as friends, before they got separated and finally reconnected again.

  * * *

  Emily had just been newly transferred to the Kingston College and for the first time, she had left her pens at home. That morning had been rough for her, she had taken the wrong bus and later had to walk back to the bus station to get the right bus. By the time she got to the class, everyone was already settled.

  “Hello Class, meet Emily Larry,” the teacher had announced, and the class was as dead as a graveyard. She found a seat, but… no pen. To her surprise, the boy in front of her had turned around and given her a pen as if he could read her mind.

  “Thanks,” she said with a grateful smile.

  Later that day, she had gotten to know that his name was Liam Benjamin and he was actually the football team captain and one of the most popular boys at the school.

  Somehow, she had discovered they also stayed on the same street so it was easy to develop a friendship with him. They became good friends until they left college, and he went to for further studies while she got a job.

  She also remembered the day he had shown up at Lyn’s restaurant. She had just been dumped by Charles that week and she was still feeling sorry for herself. She remembered how haggard she looked before leaving home that morning. She had just given up on trying to make herself look beautiful. She had just realized painfully that whether you are fine or not fine, if you were going to get dumped, you would still get dumped.

  She had left home without brushing her hair and was still in her pajamas. It was early in the morning and she just wanted to get a quick meal and then return to bed.

  While halfway through her food, she heard her name.

  “Emily?”

  She didn’t care to check who it was, she kept on eating. She didn’t know anyone at Lyn’s restaurant and that was why she had chosen to come here. She wanted to be invisible, so she was quiet. She thought it was probably another Emily.

  “Emily Larry, 2006 Kingston’s college.”

  Crap! It was Emily as in her alright. She shut her eyes angrily, not interested in whoever it was...

  “It’s me, Liam, your lab partner.”

  Immediately, Emily sprung around and found someone who looked so familiar and yet so different all suited up. He looked quite dapper, and more mature and she became aware of how awful she must be looking. At first, she was embarrassed and couldn’t bring herself to hug him, but he pulled her closer before she could decline, squeezing her tightly.

  “Oh my God! How many years has it been?” he asked, still holding her hands.

  “Seven, I guess,” she had replied.

  That day, he’d ended up paying for her meal and they had exchanged numbers. From then, they started hanging out almost every day. He had come at the perfect moment; she really needed him. The time they spent together meant less time to feel sorry for herself, less time to think about Charles. She started taking care of herself more, and she cared more about her looks when they were together. When he finally asked her out, she wasn’t surprised and she didn’t decline either.

  He had just moved back, since he was through with studi
es now and he wanted to get a job in an area he was familiar with.

  Their relationship was perfect. Within the five months they spent together, they were one another’s best friend. She hadn’t bothered to bring up any talk about her ex because she just couldn’t deal with the embarrassment of being dumped. If she had been the one who had dumped her Charles it would have been easier for her, but for some reason she kept it to herself. In fact, neither of them brought up any issues with their exes. Not even when she started thinking about hers, when Liam started misbehaving. She was seeing some similarities between them even though she had tried thinking it was just her imagination.

  Just like with Charles, everything had started so well. They were incredibly close and they shared everything together until she started seeing the signals as well. The calls reduced, he changed their plan of moving in together to another time, excuses not to spend time together mounted up, and then one day, finally, he told her he was seeing someone else.

  With Liam, everything was even better than the times she spent with Charles. Times with Liam were the happiest moments of her life, at least until recently when things started going sideways. It was really sad, considering they were going to clock another month tomorrow. She missed the good times, but she needed to be brave. She had been so weak trying to make excuses for him. Breaking up with him was a huge decision and she didn’t think before carrying it out. Yet, she didn’t regret it. In fact for what’s worth, she was proud of herself. She had just proven to him that she could live her life with or without him.

  Emily sighed and looked at the time. It was almost time for her to start going to the bus station. She planned to take a night bus so that she could sleep all through the night and by morning, she would have reached her desEmilytion. Sleeping here tonight would only make mean staying awake all night and she was tired of that. She needed a vacation, a place she could be alone and think about her life. She actually needed to think about why the wrong ones had been coming her way for a while now. She was going to figure out if she was the problem, and find out a way to solve the problem. She was so tired of allowing men to mess with her.

  Taking one final look at the room, she stood up, grabbed her bag, and walked out.

  * * *

  Liam collapsed on his bed as he got to his room. He felt completely drained, yet there was this feeling of fear deep down somewhere.

  If he hadn’t spoken to the driver, probably he would have just gone to her house directly and he would have started pleading all over again.

  He sighed. How did he even get here? Oh yea, he had been mopping around because he found out his ex had gotten married. But who wouldn’t have felt so bad when someone makes you feel like a failure? She had no specific reason except that he was inadequate. This was someone he had spent about a year with, someone with whom he was ready to spend his life with, and she just bailed on him.

  His mind drifted back to the day: July 7th 2015. It was supposed to be his happiest day.

  That morning, he and Kate had spent time sending several messages to each other. He kept recounting how they had met and how everything had clicked perfectly.

  They had met on Facebook. You know the kind of friend you’re always chatting with because they get you perfectly? That type you can’t end the night without telling her everything that happened to you in the day? Yes, that was how Kate was to him. She knew everything about him and he was a great talker. Even though she didn’t tell him much about her, he liked her all the same, she was a great listener. They stayed in the same city so they decided to finally meet.

  All this happened while he was spending his last year in school and Kate was working as an intern in a pharmaceutical store.

  When he saw her on Facebook, he knew she was beautiful, but seeing her in real life, she was the type that would grace the front of a billboard magazine with her flawless black skin and her tall, slender body.

  The date had gone perfectly and they had shared a kiss, making them officially a couple. They became closer and soon, started planning on moving in immediately after his education and before he knew it, he asked her to marry him.

  They were already living together before they started planning their wedding so he didn’t understand how he could have missed all the signs that she was clearly distracted or not interested in getting married to him. He had thought they were actually on the same page. How could he have missed that!

  He remembered his wedding day-he thought it was going to be his happiest day but now it was a day that kept haunting him for many months.

  He remembered waiting at the altar, looking at his bride as she walked in, in her beautiful white gown. She made his heart skip as she walked closer. Everyone in the chapel was looking at her and he was thinking of how lucky he was to have such a woman in his life.

  They finally met at the altar and joined their hands. He smiled at her but she didn’t returned a smile. He thought she was nervous. He had been so stupid to have thought that.

  The priest had just begun his reading when she slid her hand off his, with that ‘I’m sorry’ look.

  The priest was confused and the music stopped playing.

  “Baby, what is it? He had asked.

  “I can’t do this, Liam. I’m sorry.”

  That was all he got, and before he knew it she was running out of the chapel. Liam still remembered the shame and disappointment that exploded inside him as the congregation stared at him.

  Not waiting for a second, he ran after her. But she was gone. Throughout that day, her number was switched off and no one knew where had gone. The worst part was that she had packed every single one of her belongings from the house.

  He checked his social media, his status still read ‘engaged to Kate Statham,’ and there was no recent update from her. He sent several e-mails and Facebook messages, he got no response from those either.

  He was very disturbed, until two days later when she had uploaded a picture of herself, in Paris with some other man, changed her status to ‘complicated’ and then replied his Facebook message with, “I’m sorry Liam, you didn’t deserve that, you were just inadequate.”

  It made him furious. So all the time they had shared was nothing? He sent several messages to her only to realized that he had been blocked. Tired of everything, he left and decided to go back to East-End, where he had grown up. He wanted to start all over in a friendly environment. Everyone who knew him with Kate felt sorry for him and he was tired of the pitiful look he got any time he went to the store.

  Getting back to town made him realize how much he had missed the environment. His parents were both dead a long time ago, and he was an only child so he had no reason to come back but he did. When he got back to the town, the second day he was there, Lyn’s restaurant had caught his interest and he was very hungry. He couldn’t even remember if he’d eaten at all since two days back when his bride had bailed on him.

  On getting inside, he could see there were few customers in the restaurant; two couples, two men and one single lady who looked like she was having quite a rough day. That was when he had found her, seven years after they all graduated.

  For some reason, he was happy to have found a friendly face and someone who wasn’t feeling sorry for him for getting dumped on his wedding day, someone who clearly didn’t know anything about him at all from the past few years.

  The driver had said he needed to think about his whole life and his decisions and here he was, thinking about his ex. The truth was, he had never actually given himself time to mourn that heartbreak.

  Being reconnected with his college classmate, lab partner, and friend was the antidote he needed at that time. She gave him the distraction he needed and soon, he gradually stopped thinking about Kate and instead, he started spending more time with Emily and finally asked her out.

  Everything was going fine between them until he got a Facebook notification on his phone at Lyn’s restaurant. Someone on Facebook had just shared Kate’s picture. Her hand wa
s raised up for everyone to see her left fourth finger, on which was a shiny diamond ring and beside her was a guy in a suit. They looked so happy and at that moment Liam felt someone had just stabbed him in the back.

  All the time spent with Emily gave him little time to remember Kate, and seeing her happy with some other man, seeing her getting married, was like a blow across his face. He couldn’t handle it. The shrink was right, he needed to deal with his past if he ever wanted things to be right with Emily.

  And he did want to make things right with Emily. He had messed things up for both of them and he couldn’t even begin to say how sorry he was but, he needed to do something first. He needed to deal with his past.

  He stood up and walked to the couch where his laptop lay. He switched it on and typed ‘create a Facebook account.’

  He had a plan, he was going to create a new Facebook account and would then add Kate, then, he would give her a piece of her mind. After this, he would fly to Outer Banks and try everything possible to get Emily back.

  A Moment To Reflect

  Emily sat at the far end of the bus. Checking the time on her wrist-watch, she realized it was some minutes past midnight, yet she wasn’t feeling sleepy even though half of everyone on the bus was already asleep.

  At least she was not alone tonight, and she was comfortable on the bus. She glanced through her phone and was surprised not to see any missed calls at all, well, she was glad. He actually listened to her for the first time in weeks. He hadn’t contacted her, just like she’d asked.

  For the first time in years, she was in a total control of her life. She had always been the one at the receiving end, trying to please everyone and make them happy to the detriment of her own happiness. She had done that with Charles and with Liam, but no more!

  This time, she didn’t get dumped, she had willingly accepted to walk away and that meant a lot to her. She wasn’t going to spend one more minute in a relationship with someone who would not respect her. She wasn’t sad, she wasn’t happy either. She was just proud of herself.