by Harlow Hayes
Chapter 31
I had six missed calls from Frankie and even more texts. I assumed that he made bail but I didn’t want to talk to him, not yet. I didn’t know what I was going to say or how I was going to say it. I wasn’t ready to forgive him, but I knew I wanted him to get the help that he needed. He was a full-blown alcoholic, and I had been watching him wither away day by day and said nothing, did nothing, and saw nothing.
I had never been angrier in my life, angry for what had happened to me, angry for what happened to Frankie. If that man hadn’t ruined my life, I could have been looking out for him and it would never have gotten this bad. I spent the entire year being so self-absorbed, obsessed with forgetting and obsessed with the idea of falling in love, feeling something again, that I didn’t see that I was losing him to the bottle. I stood outside of Frankie’s apartment, staring at the door and fingering the key that I had used to let myself in so many times. I didn’t want to use it anymore. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I knew that things would never be the same again between us. We had hurt each other continually throughout the years, and at this point we were more harm to each other than help. I put the key in and turned the lock. I opened the door and called out for him.
“Frankie?” I didn’t get a response.
“He left a while ago.”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, and when I realized who it was, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” I said.
It was Chris, Frankie’s neighbor. He walked lightly, because I didn’t even hear him come down the hallway. I had been in and out of that place the whole year but I hadn’t seen him in months, and he looked so different. He had shaved his beard, cut his hair short, and packed on a few pounds.
“Everything okay?” he asked, not really seeming too concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just in a hurry. Thanks for letting me know.”
“No problem,” he said, opening the door to his apartment.
His stench was still in the hallway and it made me gag. The smell of cheap cologne. As expensive as these apartments were, he could have afforded some better stuff.
I took the elevator down to the parking garage, a shortcut to the train station. It was quiet and cool down there, and my nerves were beginning to get the best of me. My anxiety attacks weren’t as frequent but I didn’t want to be there alone. A feeling of uneasiness came over me. I didn’t want to have an anxiety attack right there, so I focused on my breathing. Breathe in for three seconds, hold it for three, let it out for three, hold it for three and so forth. I walked and breathed, then noticed Frankie’s car in the parking lot and was relieved to see it. The lights were still on and exhaust was coming out of the tailpipe so I figured he had just pulled in.
I moved toward the car and remembered what it was that I came over for. Ending us, our friendship, and it wasn’t going to be easy. To think that we wouldn’t be anything anymore was a cut so deep, I thought that I would bleed out and die. But I couldn’t do it anymore, and I had a million reasons to justify it, but the main reason was that I was tired. Tired of it all. I walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side, taking deep breaths with each step. I was playing out my speech in my head, but my thoughts were interrupted when I saw I Frankie through the tinted window hunched over, limp. He had passed out from drunkenness. I tried to open the door but it was locked, so I tapped on the window.
“Frankie?”
There was no response, so I tapped harder.
“Frankie?” I cupped my hands to the glass to peer in. A small bag half-full of pills rested in the passenger’s seat. I slammed my hands into the glass so hard they stung.
“Frankie!”
There was nothing, only stillness.
“Frankie!” I cried out, banging on the car window.
My body was sweating and I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t think. I could only scream.
“Help!”
I stepped away from the car, hoping that someone else was in the garage and would see me. A woman was pulling groceries from her car.
“Help!”
It was a dizzying struggle to stand. I went back and banged on the window again. I stopped and pulled out my phone, but I was shaking so much I could barely hold on to it.
“Frankie! Frankie! Help! Somebody help me!” I kept screaming until her head peeked around the corner of the car.
“What is it?” she asked nervously.
“He’s in the car! He’s locked in the car! He’s not hearing me!” I said, pulling back and forth on the door handle trying to get in.
The woman came close to me and snatched my phone from my hand. “I’ll call 911,” she said.
“I got to get him out,” I said, falling to my knees.
Tears blinded my sight. I was too late. I was too late to save him. The woman reappeared with a lug wrench and busted out the back window on the passenger’s side. The alarm blasted throughout the whole garage, echoing off the cement. She reached in and unlocked the door.
“Grab him,” she said.
I got to my feet and opened the car door with so much strength I thought I would rip it off. I sat Frankie up in the seat. He was still breathing, but it was shallow, weak. I kept patting his face, trying to get him to wake up. I called out his name and pleaded. Pleaded with him to not take his last breath, begged him to keep breathing, worried that each one would be his last. I could hear the sirens in the distance, and everything that had transpired in the past several weeks flashed before me. Those moments before the paramedics arrived seemed like years, but I was begging for more time.
Not for me, but for Frankie.
November 30
GOD
I have spoken to God on several occasions in my life, but I’m not sure if I was heard. It always ended in frustration as I tried to understand this infinite being that had control over my life and wanted nothing but good things for me, but the good never lasted too long and the bad always came after it. I guess the light at the end of the tunnel is knowing that nothing ever stays the same, so the bad won’t be around for too long, either.
I remember my mother telling me that God doesn’t change, and each time I would brush her off because I was tired of hearing the same old played-out version of what people expected God to be. He is Omnipotent, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and each time it was like listening to nails on a chalkboard. I don’t think people who believe in God even understand the limitations that they put on Him, Her, or it.
There is always a battle going on, good versus evil, right versus wrong, and with that thinking comes problems. One person hating the other because who they perceive as God is so much better than the other, but death and destruction seem to follow them all. Every last one, missing the point of it all. I know over the past year I have had little tolerance for idle conversation, frivolous talk, and any other interaction that didn’t feed my soul, and what I have noticed is that my soul can’t be contained and I can’t toe the religious line.
My life is not what my father or mother thinks it should be, or anyone else for that matter. It is what I think it should be, and when I was in the dark alone, I didn’t have a book or set of rules to pull me out. I looked out at what was in front of me, and what I had at my disposal to pull myself out of my darkness, and in front of me was the earth, just as it exists, and the people on it who I cared for and who I loved. The things that happen here happen, and I can rationalize all I want if that makes me feel better, but it doesn’t. When I can accept what is and realize that the limitations I have are the ones set by my own mind, then I will finally see and recognize God.
Chapter 32
Three days had passed since I found Frankie. He made it to the hospital in time, but my mind could only think about what would have happened if he hadn’t. I sat outside of the counseling center in my usual spot, in the cold, mind absent and body numb. When I came back to myself, I wondered what was the fucking point, an
d in that moment I could sympathize with how he must have felt.
As soon as I start feeling good I start questioning myself again, full of self-doubt. To have come this far to end up right back where I started was crushing to say the least. I don’t know why I didn’t head home to warm my body and drown myself in a bottle of wine. At the time it seemed like the logical choice, but my body wouldn’t move. Niko. That’s who I was waiting for. That’s who I wanted to see walk out of those doors. It had been a few weeks since we spoke and I just wanted to know if he was all right, that life was at least doing him a favor and laying off on dishing out any misfortune.
I looked down at a puddle of water that stood to the right of my feet and stared at my reflection. I looked depleted. Void of all things ever suggesting that I had once been happy at all in my life. My heart ached something terrible and I didn’t know how to stop it. I was nothing more than an eggshell that had been broken into too many pieces, and no matter how hard I tried to piece it back together, it would always be misshapen with holes and cracks.
“Mara.”
I turned to see Niko standing to the left of me. When I looked at him, he wasn’t the same man that I remembered. Though still beautiful, it looked as though life was fading from him, too, eroding away; the man that once seemed to be strong and vibrant and full of form seemed shapeless.
“Niko.” I stood up, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” There was a long pause. “How are you?”
“Um… I’m all right, I guess,” I said, fidgeting. “Look—”
Niko put his hand up to stop me. “I just wanted to say hello, that’s all. I don’t want to take up your time.”
I felt like I was going to be sick and I wanted to kick him in the ass at the same time.
As quickly as he came, he went. It was so abrupt, but it was apparent that my hopes were still too high. Niko was a kind man, and a sweet and patient man, and I was a big bitch, growling at everything if it got too close. I needed him to know that I was sorry. I couldn’t afford not to, and yet I couldn’t because of my mouth. Maybe it was better this way. But seeing him with my eyes made every negative emotion that I had been feeling ease. I wanted to call him so many mean names to alleviate my frustration, but I wanted to be held by him at the same time.
I stormed off in the opposite direction, mad at myself for not making him stay, but leaving was his right. I’d ruined whatever feelings we had for each other and I didn’t have the right to disrupt his peace again. I had hurt him. I did the worst thing a human being can do to another human being because I made him feel shameful for being who he was—or who I perceived him to be—but the reality was that he was amazing. In that moment I felt so small, my reasoning so stupid. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, and my heart trembled in fear to think about it, but what I did know was that even if I never saw Niko again, I was forever changed by him. I did not want to be the same, think the same, love the same, and I would not make the mistake of going back to who I was.
December 3
BLESSINGS
‘I’m so blessed.’ I hated hearing it. I hated seeing it all over Facebook. Duh, I would say. We are all blessed, so what’s your point? It used to upset me so much, and then I’d try to figure out why there was something always getting in the way. Jealousy, envy, I wasn’t sure. I think I believed that they were more blessed than me. I believed that they had more than what I had and that I was lacking in some way by them simply stating that they were blessed, when the truth was I had just as much, but it took me a while to see it and claim it. My life is my own, and whatever story has led me to this moment, that is the story that I want to tell. It is the story that I want to keep writing. I am blessed every day. When I see one of my clients smile after never smiling in session, I’m blessed. When Rosalina offered me kindness and friendship, I was blessed. And when Niko came into my life, I was blessed. Even with Niko being gone, I don’t feel angry or cheated because he was still a blessing all the same. Because now I will live differently. I will be a better person.
Chapter 33
We sat at the coffee house down the street from our house. Rosalina was quiet and unopinionated, which concerned the hell out of me. I sat next to her wondering where her mind was going, but knew that it wasn’t too far from her mother.
“Are you okay, babe?” Melanie asked Rosalina.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said before she took another sip of her drink.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go home tonight? To be with your family?” Kate asked.
“No, I just want to get back to my routine.”
We all nodded our head in agreement and sipped our lattes. I guess no one had anything else to say, but what more could have been said that we hadn’t already said a million times? I’m here for you. Let me know if you need anything. Time heals all wounds. All of the crap that is said with no thought or originality behind it to those who are grieving, some knowing, but most not knowing that the grieving person doesn’t care. Words. That’s all they ever are. That’s all that I ever got from everyone else, words. If they really cared, they would have given me their time and not some soppy, sappy words in passing. That was what Rosalina needed, not for us to fill her ears with words, but to just be with her.
Sophie eased herself into our friendship circle a few weeks ago and she usually had no problem starting conversation, but today she was quiet. Melanie and Kate sat stirring their lattes, and Rosalina looked out the window. The quiet between all of us was uncomfortable. The busyness outside was still the same: cars passing, people meeting and greeting in the streets. And inside was erupting with the sound of steamed milk and the smell of coffee beans being ground, but it did nothing to drown out the silence. I sat, elbows on the table and my chin propped up on my hand, trying not to land face-first in my buttered croissant. I had been in and out of Frankie’s and in and out of clinical, and I felt as though my head was going to explode. Do this, get that, run here, file that. I was over it. I didn’t want to do it anymore. All the other noise in my life had become so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself screaming. Finally, Sophie broke the silence.
“So I have some news.”
We all perked up a little eagerly.
“I’m getting Isaiah back!”
“That’s wonderful!” Rosalina said. The news seemed to perk her up too.
“Yes, congratulations!” said Kate.
“Yay! I’m so excited for you!” Melanie said.
“What? Really? How?” I asked, so excited I bumped into my mug, spilling some of the coffee out.
“Steven is in jail,” she said with a smile across her face, but the smile quickly disappeared. “But the reason he’s there is because he beat his girlfriend.”
We all looked around at each other, mouths to the floor.
“And I know that it’s terrible, but I’m so thankful… I have to thank her… I owe her,” Sophie said, looking out the window, eyes dimmed.
“Thank her? Thank her for what? Getting beat up?” Kate asked.
“No. For being brave enough to not tolerate it,” Sophie said. “Because of her, I get my baby back.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she lifted up her hand to wipe them away as they flowed freely. “If I would have been that brave from the beginning, I could have had him and…”
I could hear the anger building up in her throat. She was mad at herself.
“Don’t do that to yourself,” I said. “These are not normal circumstances. It is not right for the man you thought you knew and loved to hurt you the way he hurt you. It is not wrong for you to do what you did to try and protect yourself and your child. You have won. Don’t forget that. It may not have been the way that you wanted, but you won.”
She seemed to take in what I was telling her. Then Kate interjected.
“Oh my God, this year. This year has been insane. I’m so glad that it is almost over.”
“Yeah, same here,” Rosalina said.
“Well, I’ve been wanting to tell you guys something, too,” said Melanie. “I’m kind of seeing someone.”
“Who?” Kate asked.
“Mara’s friend Charlie. You guys remember him, right?”
“Good for you. I’m happy for you!” Rosalina said.
The news was new to me but I hadn’t been the best about keeping up with Charlie and Neale either.
“What about you, Mara? Your life, what’s happening?” Rosalina asked.
“It’s all right. I just got some things to think about and some choices to make.”
“You should talk about it at group. It will make you feel so much better,” Sophie said.
“And if you can’t do it there, we’re here,” Melanie said as she stretched her arms around Rosalina and Kate with a huge smile on her face.
“Yeah, you have us,” Kate said.
It was nice that she was offering. I was happy that they were all offering, but for Kate to say something like that meant a little more. Life is incredibly sad but undeniably beautiful. The thought flashed across my mind. I don’t know where I heard it or read it, but I wasn’t likely to forget, even though I found it to be corny. I didn’t want to focus on the incredibly sad part, not anymore. I wanted to feel again, but deeply, and I wanted to connect with others, deeply, and to commune with someone, anyone like myself who was searching for that, too. I was going to try to choose the beauty and believe in the healing it could provide.