by Lexie Ray
Not just because betraying them meant betraying her, but Haley hated cheaters. Daniel cheated so many years ago, and she never forgave him. Not ever. And she wasn’t sure she ever would, either. Now, she was hoping, praying, and a part of her even somewhat expecting the generosity of Marissa to come forth and forgive her.
But then it hit her – as everything had been lately – why was she such a fucking asshole? No, not ‘why was she such an asshole,’ but why was she such a self-absorbed, entitled asshole? To think – and expect – that Marissa would just forgive her?
She started laughing again. Her mind – in all its reeling glory – was the pinnacle of crazy. In fact, you could call her fucking looney tunes even – because she was. Her cackling laughs continued as she made her way to her bedroom and sat on the floor.
It was odd – to just sit on the floor. But what the hell? It was time to redefine everything she was and everything she did. She had to rediscover who the fuck Haley Bercham actually was, because obviously she didn’t know anymore.
Wow. Bercham. She hadn’t really thought about – let alone ever dare even utter – her last name in quite some time. Bercham. That was her maiden name, the name she went back to after her divorce with Daniel. But the big thing about it was that she had never really identified with that name. Hell, she felt like a Lancer more than a Bercham.
She wished someone could shed some light on the question always on her mind, because honestly she didn’t know – where the fuck was her family? When her parents died, she had no one else. No family to speak of. No one. Dust. Poof. Nada.
It was what it was, though.
She couldn’t change the stars. And she couldn’t have made her parents stay in love, and she sure as hell couldn’t have saved their lives. She had Daniel once upon a time, she supposed – but she never truly thought of him as family. He wasn’t her family, and maybe that was the problem.
Or maybe she did once upon a time. She didn’t know. She couldn’t really recall many happy emotions regarding him now. So she supposed if she had ever had any sort of familial bond towards him, it had been long forgotten. So thus there was nothing. Dust. Poof. Nada.
She did truly hope he was happy, though, despite everything that happened. She would still scowl when his name was mentioned or his face even thought of, but she could relate a little more to his affair now. She could only hope that his hadn’t ended as horribly as hers had.
She could only hope that they hadn’t crushed too many spirits in the process of their love making. She could only hope that somewhere he was happy, because she wasn’t, and she wouldn’t wish this sort of unhappiness and despair upon even her worst enemy.
Enemies. Isn’t it funny how we begin to trail with thoughts when we feel despair? She thought Daniel had been her enemy, and maybe once upon a time he was. But in reality, she knew her only enemy was herself. She had been the one to destroy her life.
Yes, her parents died. Yes, that hurt. Yes, that left a scar deeper than any and one that would remain for all of her days – but everything else was her fault.
She had the power to move on from the pain of that dreadful time in her life. And even through the loneliness of tears and heartbreak for so many years, she still had the power to turn it around. Yes, Daniel cheated. Could she have prevented it by being a more devoted wife? Maybe, maybe not, but that wasn’t the point. Her marriage be damned: it was probably doomed from the start and held no merit now.
She had sulked around for so long and done the unspeakable to those that did care. The ones that did give her a chance. Once she found herself out of the darkened crevice, she seemed to always snake back in with a slithering descent. This time was no exception.
Daniel left. She could have picked up the pieces and moved forward after that. Hell, Marissa had given her plenty of branches; so had other people, for that matter. But here she was – once again. Here she was in that crevice below the world, lower than scum – lower than everything as she hid within the darkness of her hole.
As she sat on the floor, she peered up to the ceiling, making nonexistent and somewhat delusional shapes out of the dots that were plastered across the entire surface. She scooted herself against the door and drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. She felt like she was staring up at the stars and making shapes, like she used to as a child. But, she knew it was far from that. She was being weird. But she was also OK with that.
She had to figure out some kind of pastime to get out of the boredom that was likely to commence with nothing to do and no job to speak of. If looking at dots on a ceiling helped her accomplish that, then so be it! She continued to look up at the plastered ceiling and began rocking back and forth as she hugged her knees.
She was still laughing like a lunatic; at what was she laughing, she really didn’t know. She knew she was crazy – and then she thought that maybe, just maybe, that meant she really wasn’t crazy after all? Maybe she was just having a bad fucking day and wanted to blow off steam by laughing like a weirdo in a straightjacket as she made shapes out of dots on a ceiling. Maybe.
Regardless though, she was happy in that moment. It was temporary happiness, sure, but it was happiness nonetheless. She wanted more of it. She felt like she needed something else, something a little more real, something to keep the happiness around a little longer without the effort of using her imagination to create images in a ceiling. She stopped laughing and rocking suddenly. Epiphany! She needed more happiness! She needed something – and she knew exactly what it was.
She felt her body moving in an almost involuntary fashion towards the kitchen. It was as if her body itself was willing her entire being. It was as if it moved without needing any sort of intervention from her brain. It seemed to know what it needed, and as she reached to the cabinets above the stove, she knew it was right. She felt the satisfaction hit her all of a sudden as her eyes befell what lay behind the cabinet door, and she hadn’t even taken a drink yet.
Merely just laying her eyes upon the bottle seemed to cause a shiver to roll across her spine. She really did need this drink. It had been a long fucking day. A long fucking couple of months. Hell, a long fucking life for that matter. A drink sounded great.
She was ready to clear her mind and get out of the funk that fogged it. She had to run far away from the crazy woman she was becoming. Hell, she would much rather be a drunk than a crazy woman. So bring on that damn booze! Haley Bercham was redefining herself, and by God, she was going to do it right!
As she popped the cork from of the tequila bottle and brought it to her lips, a part of her wondered if it was the right decision. She knew – in her heart of hearts – that drinking was never the answer, especially when depressed. But then she shook it off. Fuck it. She needed this. Even if it was some sort of temporary relief. She needed it.
Hell, we all know that flu medication doesn’t cure the flu, but we still take it, do we not? Well, that was exactly what she felt like she was doing. She wasn’t causing anyone any harm, and she was getting some temporary relief. So fucking be it. She leaned her head back and flung the bottle’s butt end as high as she could into the air. She felt the liquid flow across her tongue and hit the back of her throat. It burned – but man, did it burn good.
Her feet quaked beneath her with a satisfactory pleasure, and the instability of the wobbling caused her to choke a little on the fiery, water-resembling substance. She coughed a bit and wiped her lips of the remaining drops. The sensation hit her all at once. It made her head light with intoxication, and she felt as if she was floating. This was definitely going to be her company for the day; this was her date – her sexy man.
She traveled back to the bedroom with it under her arm for safekeeping. And as she stumbled to her room – the effects of the alcohol already boldly influencing her stability – her gaze fell upon a picture frame. It was a picture taken around four years ago of the entire Lancer family – as well as extended members – at a BBQ get-together. Haley was in the forefront of the g
roup, laughing with a much younger Sophie and Lucas.
The depressant aspect of the bottle she held onto dearly started to take hold, and she felt herself growing sad as her eyes continued to scan the photograph, which had been a gift from the Lancers. It had been a room-warming gift when she moved in after her divorce with Daniel. A tear fell as she looked onwards towards the memory. “Not at this party – no, ma’am. No crying,” she slurred to herself. This was a party of one; there was no sadness. Anger, sure. But never sadness. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel sad anymore.
In order to rid herself of that sort of emotion she thought the best start – the best course of action – was to get rid of that fucking picture. The insufferable fucking reminder of what she had just lost. Not only lost: it wasn’t merely taken away by virtues of fate’s hard dick ramming her in the ass. No, sir. Not this time. They weren’t lost because she had been fucked cruelly by fate. Nope. It was because she was an idiot. She did this. This was her.
Get rid of the picture. That thought kept coming back to her full force until she finally had enough and before she knew it – it laid in pieces on the floor below. Fuck reminders. And fuck guilt for interrupting her satisfaction, because as soon as she had launched the frame, guilt had pounded against her gut with great intensity. She felt sick. She felt as though she needed to vomit with the most disgusting projection she could muster.
The sickness had almost begun to overwhelm her, until she bent over to pick up the pieces of one of the only prized possessions she had ever had. In truth, it had been one of the only things she actually did have before she moved into the apartment.
As she ruffled through the mess to make sure she hadn’t broken off anything sharp, something caught her eye. There was a piece of folded paper sticking out of half of the frame, just behind the photograph.
Curiosity edged her forward to pick it up, but when she finally unfolded it, she wished curiosity would have jumped off a damn cliff rather than voicing its opinion. Because what she read caused her heart – which she had been trying to harden – melt into goo and sink below her feet and into an abysmal existence.
Dear Haley,
You won’t ever see this letter unless you break the frame, which you probably will. I know that I would be breaking a lot of things if I was in your position. It isn’t actually broken, I’m sure. We got this frame to assure it would never be broken. It has a hidden compartment, which is where you found this letter. It will click back together. I promise. If not, then we get to turn it in under the lifetime guarantee! So good for you! You broke the indestructible! Congrats! Feel better?
We got you this frame to tell you how much we love you and because the guest room is absolutely dreadfully impersonal. It isn’t quite appropriate for a young woman, such as yourself, to call your room – you know, being in the state that it’s in. Hopefully this will make it a little homier.
You always have a home here with us, which we have already told you. If you do happen to read this, know that we are always here for you – especially me.
P.S. – Now that you’ve found the note, click the frame back together and keep your secrets inside. No one will find them! Remember the movie we saw that said, “You can hide your weed in there”? – I thought about that when we bought this, and when I cleverly came out with it in the store, no one got it! I know you would have.
Your friend always,
Marissa
“Way to cut me where it hurts, Marissa. Jesus Christ,” Haley muttered. Guilt resonated with her all over again as tears burned the brim of her eyelids and the salty drips welled up within her. She swallowed a large lump in her throat. Nothing seemed to make sense. Not a damned thing.
She had laughed when she had gotten to the end. She didn’t even remember the name of the movie anymore, but she knew the line very well. They had gone around for days afterwards saying it about every nook and cranny that no one had noticed before. “You can hide your weed in there” had become a bit of an inside joke to the two of them. Funny how you never think of certain precious memories until it’s too late.
She knew that Marissa cared for her, but she didn’t quite know how much. She was pretty reserved for the most part and really made little effort to express her emotions outwardly. She did so with kind little gestures, and Haley hadn’t even known about this one. She knew the woman cared for her before; now she knew she cared for her even more than she knew.
Bringing her right hand to her burning eyelids, she wiped down the entire length of her face. She wanted to quell the painful sensation. Fed up, she sucked in a final breath of air and threw the picture and frame down again. She watched as the picture flopped weightlessly behind the desk and the frame hit the floor again with a bang. This time she didn’t care if it hit the floor. It was apparently indestructible and hadn’t broken. Thus, guilt didn’t plague her.
Still, she groaned, though, and stepped around the mess with an amplified pace. She didn't stop until she reached the front door of her bummy, shitty little apartment, and that was only for the brief moment where her hand met the doorknob. Turning the circular knob, she freed herself from the confines of that hellhole, the airless pit that she dared to even try and call home. Her footsteps were quick and light, almost as if she was running. Towards or away, she didn’t quite know. She just knew this wasn’t her home. And she didn’t want to be there.
She didn’t even notice taking the stairs down because the next thing she knew she was on the sidewalk, walking away from the building entirely. She sucked in the air deeply, relishing in the fresh air. Smiling slightly, she stood beside the street and let the crisp and cool wind shift through her brown hair. It tickled her scalp almost therapeutically as the strands whipped softly in rhythm with the gusts.
Though she enjoyed the fresh air, she felt a sadness still threatening to take over. She felt homeless, although she had shelter. She felt beaten and battered, although she had no wounds or injuries. She felt disgusting and dirty, although she was hygienically clean.
She felt an intense suffocation, and it seemed almost never-ending and cyclic – just like her romance with Preston had been. She knew she – and only she – had the power to control it all. She just hoped that she would listen to her instincts, unlike before, with him. It was her story, after all, and she had the pen to fill the chapters how she so pleased. She just hoped she could have the power to do so.
She began to cry again – for probably the millionth time since the affair began – and as if on cue, her phone rang. It was Preston. She cried harder when she saw his contact name pop up, and when she noticed she was wailing with tears once again, she cried even harder – until she was hysterical.
The tears made her angry. She hated it. She hated crying. Not in the typical way, though. Haley hated it so much she loathed herself when she seemed to leak even so much as a single droplet. She hated it because she knew that tears led to a lonesome life. Tears make others reject you out of annoyance, fear, and possibly just discomfort. Tears make you reject yourself out of resentment and disgust with your own vulnerability. They lead to so much loneliness that an anger envelops even in the lightest spots of our souls.
~~~
An influx of emotional terrorism invaded Marissa’s mind. Tears flowed effortlessly, and her sadness was entrapping her senses so much that she fell to the floor in anguish. It was almost reminiscent of the day her father died; the pain was all too real, and all too similar.
She wasn’t sure how it was similar exactly, but what she did know was that the distress had started to diminish all of her composure. The large spectrum of feelings she had begun to experience angered her. It was enough to drive anyone insane. Perhaps, though, she thought with some sort of humor, maybe – just maybe – she could plead insanity when she finally did look upon Preston’s face and snap.
Admittedly, she had dreamed of their happily ever after ever since the first kiss she experienced with him. As stupid and silly as it all sounde
d, she thought that nothing could divide the two of them. He was her best friend, after all. In fact, that had been true ever since her college years. He had always been there for her, and even though recently his presence, as well as his efforts, had been slightly – or perhaps, even significantly – lacking, she couldn’t dismiss the years he actually had been there.
Marissa fingered through the various hanging fabrics of his side of their shared walk-in closet. She shifted through his dress shirts with a tinge of sadness pulling the threads at the ridge of her eyes, begging for her to allow tears to fall. Sweeping the wooden hangers lightly to the side, she could smell the aroma of vanilla spice waft over her nose and into her senses. And then she remembered the day she first caught a whiff of that magical scent.
It was their first date. She remembered it all too well, actually. Most people are close enough in proximity to one another to smell the other before a date, but Preston was different. Though she had gotten close enough to him to smell your average-everyday-typical-man’s cologne, his aroma actually wasn’t of cologne. It was much more subtle than that.
They had been in one class together. With such a large difference in majors it was a miracle that they had ever met, let alone had a class together. But, she didn’t really think of it as fate or anything; they were brought together by a silly core class that she now couldn’t recall for the life of her.
They had sat next to one another and were forced into some sort of stupid group project together. And that is when they had first spoken to one another. He was charming and good looking; she remembered that all too well. And as she recalled these ill-placed memories, she remembered the infamous spell he seemed to cast over her from the very beginning.