The Reason I Stay

by Patty Maximini

  I revel in all those little things, just as someone looking through the lens of a telescope would marvel at the magnificence of a supernova. I see the explosion happen. I see the beautiful haze of colorful dust that tears the star apart and scatters its broken core. It’s stunning and perfect and can make you forget that you’re witnessing death. But then a salty droplet touches my lips and I’m no longer the watcher. I’m back to being the star, and pain stronger than any I’ve ever felt rips through me as I shatter into a cloud of nothing.

  Her lips pull away and my fingers clutch her closer, refusing to let go. “I love you, Lexie.” The words pass directly from my lips to hers.

  “I love you, too. So much,” she whispers and sighs. “But we’re done.”

  The last time I cried was when my mom died. The tears I cried then don’t compare to the ones I cry now. Silent big fat droplets fall from my eyes for countless minutes, as I weakly beg “no,” over and over again.

  I feel her crying against me. Her body trembles with suppressed sighs, but still, she lets go of my hair and tries to pull her hand from under mine. I won’t let it go, though. I won’t let her go. I curl my fingers over the hand on my cheek, and bring our joined hands to my chest. I press it over my heart and hope that she can feel it breaking.

  Tears fall from her eyes, and I kiss them away as I plead against her skin. “Please. I love you. We’ll sit on our bed, and we’ll stay up all night talking. I’ll tell you everything. No secrets. I’ll be completely honest. Just please, please, please don’t leave me. Please. I love you. Please.”

  I lose track of how many times I repeat those words. The more I speak, the harder she cries and the more I ache, the more I die. I don’t care, though. I’d die a million deaths to keep her. So I continue to beg for a long time. I continue until she stops crying.

  I pull back from her face and look at her. My eyes are filled with tears and hope that she’ll give me another chance. However, all I see is a hardened expression I never imagined could exist on Lexie’s face.

  All air is pulled out of my lungs, making my muscles weak. She takes advantage of that moment to push against my chest, and free herself from my grasp. My arms fall down to my sides as she takes a step backwards.

  I look into her eyes, but she doesn’t look into mine. Her eyes stay firmly focused on the wall behind my head as she says, “I’m going to take a shower. You need to get your things and leave.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I’m not going.”

  She exhales. “Mathew.”

  “No! I’m not leaving. This is my home.”

  Her eyes finally focus on mine. The tears and sadness that, up until a few moments ago, poured out of her, give room to anger. Her fists shake as she takes a few steps in my direction.

  “This is my home,” she yells. “And I don’t want you here anymore. You are hurting me, so we can either end this nicely, or I can call the cops and get you forcefully removed. I really don’t want to give Kyle the satisfaction, so I hope you choose option number one.”

  Not a second after those awful words pass her lips, she stomps toward the bathroom. Hurt and desperate, I blurt out the first thing that pops into my mind. “This is what he wants, Lex. He wants to tear us apart. I’m begging you not to let him do it.”

  She stops walking but doesn’t turn to look at me. “I don’t have to. You did that all by yourself, Mathew. You ruined us when you kept me away.” She sighs, and the tired, broken sound pulls all air from my lungs because I know what she’ll say next. “Goodbye, Matt.”

  Broken and alone, I stare at nothing. I feel nothing, and I wonder if that’s what being dead feels like. You suffer to die, but then it’s just numb, this nothingness that gives you the most awful peace.

  I hear the shower turning on and I stand there like a statue. I’m both sure that I should do something, and completely unsure of what that something is, so I do what she told me to. I gather my things and I walk out of the only home I’ve ever had.

  I sit inside Rosie for what feels like hours, during which I see Lexie’s shape pace on the other side of window. I see the lights go on and off. I punch the steering wheel, and curse at my own weakness and stupidity. And then, decided that staying here is stupid, I get out of the truck and run back to the house.

  Lexie’s cries reach me on the outside of the front door. The sound is awful, haunting and broken. It makes me wish I was as dead as I feel, because living with the knowledge that I did this to her is torture. My head falls to the wood in front of me, and my fingers clasp around the doorknob.

  A silent war rages inside my mind between following her request, and opening this door and showing that I’ll fight for her. Before there’s a winner, I hear a deep sob and mumbled words.

  I close my eyes and focus on her voice in an attempt to understand her. When I do, a cold chill runs down my spine because, although her words are jumbled and nonsensical, they are all curses directed at the universe for making her love me. Unable to leave or cry or walk inside my home, I stay there, torturing myself with her curses until I can’t hear them anymore.

  In that God-awful time, I think about all the times I chose myself over someone else. I think about all the times I’ve been selfish and forced my will on people, Lexie included. And I finally know that it’s time to stop. Despite the dread springing from every cell in my body, I do the only thing I can do to make things better.

  I leave.

  Aside from the pounding in my head, and the stinging in my eyes when I wake up on my first morning after him, I feel absolutely nothing. My stiff fingers tell me that the air is chilly, and the pressure in my stomach tells me that I should eat something, but I don’t feel cold or hunger. Not even the hollowness in my chest is enough to bring about the pain and sadness I should be feeling. I’m simply numb and empty.

  I look around my bedroom, which bears not a single trace of him. The walls that have been my safe haven for twenty-two years feel like a prison, cold and solitary. It’s as if all the life and joy that once existed in this place left the moment he did. It feels like the life and joy that once existed in me left the moment he did.

  I want to cry, but all tears seem to have dried from my eyes. Not a cell in my body wants to get up from this bed. I know I should say that I’m Lexington Blake, and as such, I can take whatever life throws my way and turn into something positive. I should dust off and get on with my life like I’ve done after every tragedy I’ve had to face. After all, walling is for weaklings, and I’m not one of those. However, according to Jill Valentine, a vase can break only so many times before the superglue stops working. I’m pretty sure this was that final break for me.

  I reach to the side table, grab my phone and type a message to Jen.

  Me: Feeling like crap. Can u take my shift?

  I press send, content with the vagueness in the message. This is essentially true, and since I have Mrs. Crane, who by now must have noticed that his truck didn’t spend the night in my driveway, I’ll let her do the job of sharing the merry news with the townsfolk. I never imagined I’d be thankful for my nosey neighbor.

  A couple of seconds later, my phone beeps.

  Jen: Sure. Is it true?

  Oh, Mrs. Crane . . .

  Without replying, I put my phone on mute and place it back on my nightstand. In order to avoid the temptation of hugging his pillow, I settle on my side, my back turned to the left side of the bed—his side—and drift back to sleep.

  Cash’s cries wake me. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping, but it must be a long time because the poor dog sounds desperate and the light coming through my shutters is dim. Feeling like the worst dog owner in the world, I remove Snow from my chest, and stand on wobbly legs.

  The cold air bites at my skin as I take a look at my phone. It’s almost five p.m. and I have twenty-three texts and eleven missed calls. Too tired to even roll my eyes, I just reach behind me for the blue blanket over my bed, and pull it around me without another glance at the
device. Another dog cry reaches my ears, prompting me to walk to the living room.

  I open the front door to let poor guy out. Tired beyond measure, I rest against the doorframe and watch him do his three-legged run toward the first patch of grass he sees. My gaze drifts to the street and the pulled back curtains at Mrs. Crane’s. I close my eyes, and lower my head in frustration. After a deep breath, I open my eyes again, and my weak legs almost give out.

  Lying over the welcome mat at my feet is a single red rose resting over a folded sheet of paper. My breath hitches, and I clutch the blanket tighter around me as my hands tremble. I stare at it until Cash makes his way back inside and then, in a haze of movement and thoughts, I have the flower and note in my hands, the front door is closed, and I’m standing on my back porch, looking out at the ocean.

  I bring the rose to my nose and inhale deeply. As I breathe in the delicious perfume, the first cracks in my numb shell start to form. With all the memories connecting roses to him, it’s virtually impossible to smell them without also smelling him. I close my eyes and he’s here. He’s everywhere, and my eyes sting with tears I no longer believed I could produce. And still, I can’t find the strength to lower my arm. I can’t find the strength to stop remembering him.

  My unsteady legs finally give out, and I fall back on the porch swing behind me. I look at the note in my hand and I know I shouldn’t read it, but I do, and my heart pounds faster in my chest at every word.

  I read those three little lines over and over.

  Each time, it breaks through my numbness a little more until I finally realize that he did as I asked—he’s actually gone.

  I no longer feel nothing.

  I feel everything.

  I feel anger for what he did. I feel pain for what happened. I feel the loneliness that will follow me. I feel the misery of a future without him. I feel hatred for the hate I can’t feel for him, and for the love I think I’ll never stop feeling.

  The stinging in my eyes becomes too much, and I finally cry. I cry for the past and the future, and everything that I lost. I cry for so long that the sun sets, and I fall asleep.

  When my eyes finally open again, my head rests over Tanie’s legs, and her round face looks down at me with love and grief. In silence, I look at her and know I don’t have to say anything. If she’s here, she knows, and even if she didn’t, she knows me.

  Still, something inside me feels the need to say the words. “We broke up. He left.”

  Her mossy eyes become rimmed with tears as she nods. “I know. Want to talk?”

  I’m so weak with sadness and lack of food I barely manage to shake my head. Luckily, she sees it.

  “Okay. Wanna eat?”

  Once again, I shake my head.

  She smiles a sad smile. “Too bad—you’ve got no say in that. I brought pizza and ice cream, and enough Nicholas Sparks movies to last us all weekend, and since Anna will be taking your shift tomorrow, you’re partaking in everything.”

  Tanie stays with me the entire weekend. Despite her efforts to make me talk about him, I don’t. I can’t, so we don’t talk much at all.

  We cuddle together on the couch, stuff ourselves with junk food, and watch the movies. I cry a lot, but I guess that’s the point of watching Nicholas Sparks movies when you’re depressed. You get to pin the blame on the film.

  In between movies, Tanie changes my sheets and towels, cleans everything that might remind me of him, and deals with my phone as I lie on the couch and cry some more.

  And somehow it all helps.

  Behind my still closed eyes, I see Lexie’s face. Her heart-shaped lips spread in a smile as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, and she giggles. I fill with joy, and though my mind tells me not to, my arm moves to the right to touch her. All I find, however, is a cold, empty pillow, and a surge of reality I don’t want to face.

  Flashes of my last hours in Jolene, and of the days and nights I drove, feeling too numb and broken to even cry or scream, pass through my head. They mix with happier memories that are now equally painful, and with the most absolute sense of guilt I’ve ever experienced in my life. I wonder if this will be my life from now on, remembering and grieving, and feeling trapped in my own skin in a life I no longer want.

  I open my eyes and raise my body to a seated position, trying to escape the panic and hollowness inside, but I only find dread.

  Instead of seeing the light colored walls and mismatched trinkets that fill my and Lexie’s bedroom with life and memories, I see the charcoal and teal walls of the apartment bedroom I own but don’t call home. I look at the carefully-crafted decoration, with vintage concert posters, rough wood furniture and collectable items that belong to the pages of a design magazine but hold no significance to me whatsoever. It makes the hole in my chest ache as the finality of being here dawns on me.

  The life I chose for myself, the life I built and loved, is definitely gone. I’m back to the place that made me all the things I don’t want to be, and that cost me everything I wanted.

  My head pounds and I close my eyes again, trying to escape this reality. In the middle of my shit-losing moment I hear a noise coming from the kitchen, alerting me that Fitz is here. I groan in frustration. Having a flatmate never annoyed me before, but right now, when I desperately need some alone time, it does. However, a second later the enticing smell of Three Grilled, my favorite grilled cheese sandwich and Fitz’s specialty, fills the room, and I thank the heavens for him being here.

  Moved by hunger, I get up from the bed, and like a cartoon character I let my nose guide me out of my bedroom and into the open space that contains the living, dining and kitchen portions of the apartment. From the threshold leading into the space, I see Fitz at the stove.

  Before I even say anything, he sees me, and in the traditional over-the-top Fitz fashion, he opens his arms wide and grins. “Darling, welcome back.”

  The greeting creates an uncomfortable lump in my throat. I really don’t want to be welcomed back, since I viciously hate that I’m here. Still, seeing my best friend’s face again is nice. With the exception of his hair, which is slightly longer, causing dark curls to touch the tops of his ears, he hasn’t changed at all. He has the same round, bearded face, light gray eyes behind thick black glasses and casual attire I’ve seen since middle school.

  I can’t help to smile. “It’s good to see you, sugar.”

  He chuckles and blows me a kiss before turning his attention back to the stove, as I settle into one of the chairs at the breakfast bar.

  “I call dibs on that Three Grilled. I’m starving.”

  “I’m making two, so dibs aren’t necessary. But Caity will be happy to know you’re calling it on a sandwich, and not on my brain.” Fitz chuckles, and when I don’t, he stretches his tattoo-covered arms in front of him and grunts, “brains,” as if the joke needed further explanation.

  Out of respect and consideration for the trouble he’s going to in making me breakfast, I refrain from rolling my eyes, and pull the corner of my lips in the most half-assed smile I’ve ever given anyone in my life, acknowledging the joke by lifting my chin. He narrows his eyes, but continues to laugh.

  Out of curiosity, I ask, “Why did Caity think I’d turn into a zombie?”

  He places the sandwiches onto plates. “You really don’t remember?”

  “No. I remember driving and then waking up.”

  He curses under his breath and places the plates in front of me, then returns to the kitchen to get the coffee. “Last night, Caity was here. We were watching a movie when you arrived. You looked like shit, man. You had dark circles under your eyes, a bird’s nest for hair, and you smelled like crap—actually, you still do. To make matters worse, as soon as you walked in, you face-planted on the floor and started hallucinating.

  “I tried talking to you, but you just kept calling for Lexie, and babbling about supernovas and black holes. It scared her so bad she went home. After that I figured you were drunk, so I gave you some Advil an
d I dragged your ass to bed to sleep it off.”

  For some reason, I feel a need to explain. “I wasn’t drunk.”

  Fitz places a mug of coffee in front of me, and flops down in the seat beside me. “I figured. You stunk, but I didn’t smell booze.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  He takes a bite out of his sandwich. “Since around nine thrity p.m.”

  I look at the microwave clock. It says 10:48 a.m., which means I’ve been asleep for more than thirteen hours. It also means that it’s Monday, and that I should be working at the high school garden. I drop my head into my hands and sigh, as I try to think of a way to fix this mess I put myself in, but the only thing I can think is fuck!

  Fitz’s hand falls on my shoulder. “You’re the only person who comes back after a year-long vacation on a sunny beach and seems more stressed than when you left. Seriously, Matt, try to relax.”

  I open my eyes, and look at him with my lips turned in a frown. “That wasn’t a vacation, Fitz. It was my life. I had a home, and a job, and a girl. I had friends, and pets. I was happy. It was an amazing life, and losing it has been fucking stressful.”

  He cocks a brow and sighs. I look down at my plate and pick at my sandwich.

  After a moment of awkward silence, a first for Fitz and me, he asks, “So it’s really over?”

  Reluctantly, I nod. “Yeah. It’s really over.”

  “Shit.”

  I give him a forced smile, showing gratitude for his sympathy.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  I’ve never been one to talk about my problems, and though Fitz has always been my best friend, ours was never a friendship of deep conversations. Nevertheless, today I’m so anguished that I don’t wait a second after his request to start pouring my heart out.