“I told you. I made him leave. It’s all my fault. Aiden has been nothing but wonderful and sincere and …”
“And what? Mysterious? As far as I know, he still hasn’t told you anything about himself, right? You wouldn’t be panicking if he had. You have nothing on him, no way to reach him whatsoever. How do you know all this hasn’t been his plan from the get go? Maybe he isn’t who you think he is.”
“I never would have made him leave if it weren’t for you, you know. You’ve been planting things into my head about how he’s hiding something from me since the first time I mentioned he moved in with me. You made me doubt him, and now he’s gone.” I pointed my finger at her face and squinted my eyes.
“You aren’t seriously blaming me for this, are you? ‘Cause I can tell you right now, that’s not gonna fly with me. I have been by your side for how many years now? I’ve held your hair while you puked. You stood by me when I told my parents I was a lesbian and they accused you of being my lover. You stood next to Gina and I as our maid of honor the day we got married, when none of our family would stand by us. You’ll be there the day we deliver our baby and through every day after. We’ve never had a fight, not even a misunderstanding, until this guy came into the picture. Now you’re turning on me because I told you to look out for yourself and get to know him? Now he’s gone and somehow it’s my fault? I haven’t even met him yet.”
“And I guess you never will, since he’s gone forever.” I felt like the worst person in the world. Now I had hurt her, too. I didn’t really blame her. I was responsible for my own thoughts and actions.
I held my head in my hands and the tears flowed freely. Hell, I was full-blown sobbing all over Cheryl’s couch. She placed her arm around me and tried to comfort me with words of encouragement about meeting someone else, or things not being meant to be, or him coming back. I even think she recited the poem about loving something and setting it free.
“I’m sorry, Cheryl. I didn’t mean any of that. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
“Listen, babe, I know you’re lashing out at me because you’re hurting, and badly. And I forgive you for it. I remember doing the same thing to you at one point in time. Remember that day my family turned their backs on me? That’s why we’re friends. We have each other’s backs. We’re each other’s sounding boards. So no, I won’t hold any of this against you, but I might make you buy me lunch to make up for it. I love you. You’re my best friend. You’re my sister.”
“I love you, too.” I proceeded to soak her pajamas with my misery.
After my tears had subsided to sniffling and breath catching, Cheryl left to rifle through Gina’s prescriptions to see if she could find me something to ease the pain. She returned with a hot cup of chamomile tea and a sleeping pill. Neither was going to stop the pain ripping through my heart right now.
“Take the pill and the tea. You need some sleep. I’m telling you, tomorrow morning everything will be back in perspective and you can reevaluate it all with a fresh mind. Trust me.”
“Trust me. That’s what Aiden asked me to do, and I didn’t.”
“Sydney, don’t make me practice my mom skills on you. They’re going to be mad skills and I don’t think you want me to open them up on your ass right now. Take the damn pill.”
She shoved her hand right in my face. It cradled a small white oblong pill. If Aiden didn’t return to me, I’d consider taking the whole damn bottle. I slowly reached for the pill, hesitated, then realized I’d rather be sleeping than awake, living the torture I was presently experiencing. She dropped the pill into my hand and stood over me until she was sure I had taken it.
“Let me see under your tongue. I can’t believe I have to do this. I’m going to get you a blanket and pillow. Sorry, babe, the couch is all I can offer you right now. We just don’t have the room for guests. We’re going to have to convert the office into a nursery as it is. I don’t see us swinging a house right now or anytime in the near future. This whole pregnancy thing has cost us every bit of savings we had. I guess having a baby is more important right now than retirement. But isn’t that always the case? Why keep it? You can’t bring any of it with you once you’re gone.”
“I’m sorry. I’m ruining all your good news today with my problems and making you think about your problems.”
“Oh honey, just you wait. Payback is a real bitch. I’ll be on the phone with you at those three o’clock in the morning feedings. Believe me, you’ll be getting phone calls at all sorts of ungodly hours.”
As promised, Cheryl brought me a cozy blanket and pillow. She fluffed the pillow for me, patted it to suggest I place my head on it, and then tucked me in. She was going to be one fantastic mom. Hell, they both were.
“Okay, I’m going to head back to bed. I’m worried about you. Are you going to be all right?”
“Can you just stay with me? Until this stupid thing kicks in?”
“Hell yes! Want me to hold you?”
“Yes, hold me please.”
Cheryl sat down on the couch end, and I rested my pillow and head in her lap. She stroked my hair until I dozed off. I’m not sure when she left, but it was before the nightmares started.
Chapter Fifteen: Aiden
I must have been dreaming. It had to be a dream because I couldn’t actually feel the pain I knew I should be experiencing.
I opened my eyes. Everything was so dark, and I was trying to adjust them so I could see. When my eyes were finally able to focus, I realized I was in my own bed at home. The sheets were soaked with sweat, and I was cold and uncomfortable. I sat up and ran my hand through my hair.
I remembered he was no longer in the room next to mine and began crying over his loss again. All of the pain rushed through me at once. My heart felt like it immediately stopped beating. It seemed each time I remembered he was gone; the shock of it hit me as freshly as it had when he walked out the door. I imagined it must be like that for a widow. Wake up from dreaming of your love, only to be hit with the hard reality they were gone and never coming back again. It must be torture. It was for me.
I pulled myself out of bed, feeling the uncontrollable urge to be in his room, as though it would let me feel him with me somehow. I threw myself down on his bed and began bawling. I tore at the sheets and wrapped them around me, so that I could pretend they were his arms that were holding me.
Although I was completely bundled up, I felt the temperature in the room plummet. I could see my breath as I sighed, knowing that had I not turned my back on him, he would be here with me now, keeping me warm and safe. Why was it so cold? I realized it was because my pajamas were soaked.
As I got up to change into a pair of sweats, I could feel someone was in his room with me, watching me. All the air pushed out of my lungs. My breath became stuttered as my heart stopped. I was frightened beyond belief. But my apprehension was soon replaced by what felt like relief.
That’s when I began to feel like Aiden was there with me. I scanned the room to search for him.
He was standing in the darkest corner, only feet away from me. I could feel emotion pouring out of him and over me, almost as though he was trying to lessen my pain. It seemed to be working. His presence alone, knowing he was here with me, was enough to start my heart beating again. He had returned. After everything I had put him through, he came back to me.
“Aiden,” I called out. He didn’t respond. “Aiden, talk to me. I need to hear your voice. Please say something. Tell me you forgive me.”
Again, there was no verbal response. I started to feel anger growing inside. More mind games? He just stared at me with a blank face. This whole thing was starting to verge on the edge of creepy.
“Stop whatever it is you’re doing. Just come over here, and hold me, love me. Please. I need you.”
His eyes softened and he smiled warmly at my plea, but made no move to come closer.
“Aiden, why are you doing this to me, to us?” I covered my face with my hands and cried. He was h
ere with me, yet he wasn’t. I wished he would stop messing with my emotions. I just wanted to feel his arms around me. I wanted to know he was real. I looked at him, but he was no longer there, and all the pain of his being gone spread back over me again.
I screamed for him. I couldn’t move and wasn’t sure if any sound was actually coming out of my mouth. Hands were on me and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Damn, you’re the only person I know who can wake themselves out of a pill-induced sleep.”
I groggily opened my eyes to find Cheryl hovering above me with a worried expression on her face. I was in her apartment, still on her couch. I must have been dreaming. I’m not sure if I could consider that a nightmare or not.
“When I mentioned being up at three-thirty in the morning, I was talking about the baby, not you. Close your eyes and go back to sleep before you’re too awake. Then it’ll be impossible to fall back to sleep unless I give you another dose. And honestly, that idea scares the shit out of me.”
She tucked me in once again, shut the light off and left me alone. This would be my life now, alone without Aiden. Sleeping on my friend’s couch. I knew I had done the wrong thing. I just had no way to take it back.
The rest of my night was uneventful. I believe I was able to sleep for a few hours with no nightmares. Occasionally, throughout the night, I felt like Aiden was there next to me, holding me. I would turn towards him, only to find he wasn’t actually there, and the darkness would take hold of me again. I woke up before the sun, so I decided to take my leave and head home. I was dreading it, but I knew it was something I’d have to face at some point or another. I thought it best to get it out of the way now.
Chapter Sixteen: Sydney
When I drove up the driveway, I had a terrible foreboding feeling overwhelm me. I imagined again, this must be how a new widow feels coming home for the first time to a newly empty house. I’m not sure why I associated all of this with a widow instead of simply a break-up. It was probably because Aiden had been living with me. I knew I didn’t have to worry about his things still being there. He’d taken what little he had with him. There was nothing left to hold or touch. I didn’t even have any pictures of us together to reminisce over. How could I not even have a picture of him? We had spent an entire day at the park and it never crossed my mind to take a picture? Now I was kicking myself in the ass because it was too late. There would be no pictures of him or us together.
My house would simply be as it had been only days before, as if Aiden had never existed. Even from outside, my house looked empty. No, it looked more than just empty. It looked abandoned. There was no life to it at all.
I sat in my car in the garage, not wanting to move. I didn’t feel like being alone. At least in the car, I could just rev it back up and leave with no effort. Once inside, I was afraid of being trapped there, with no one to help me or hear my cries. Silly really, to think I would feel that way. I could leave whenever I wanted, couldn’t I?
I couldn’t run away from being alone, though. I had been alone before Aiden and it had never bothered me like this. Even being at Cheryl’s made me feel out of place, like a third wheel. It had never really occurred to me before, but with the baby coming, things were already changing.
After I while, I convinced myself everything would be fine. How could one man in my life for only a few days change how I had lived for the past seven years? I had been alone that entire time. I took my time gathering myself together, took a deep breath and withdrew from my car.
When I entered the house, it was so cold. The temperatures outside were quickly declining. Aiden had said we were in for an ice storm later in the week. For some reason that storm kept coming back into my mind. I would need to turn the heat on and shut the outside water valves so they didn’t freeze. Aiden could have done that for me. Funny, we were only just at the park enjoying the warmth of the sun and each other and now everything seemed frozen. How easily thoughts of him being a part of my life had replaced my regular train of thought. The feeling overtook me and my hand shot up to cover my mouth. Oh my God, Aiden was gone.
The pain ruptured my heart almost as quickly as the fleeting vision of him had come to me. I felt like he had died. Having no way to speak, text or email him, it felt just like he had. No widow could reach out to a lost loved one, and here I was with no way to reach out to Aiden.
I had no idea where he was or who he was with. I had never given him Cheryl’s friend’s information. I thought about calling the base, but losing my job was not on the list of things I wanted to add to my misery right now. All they needed to do was get wind that Aiden was living here and I would be gone in mere moments. My performance record would be wiped clean. I deserved it. I had failed him. I had failed him in more ways than work.
I was only a shadow of myself now. There was no happiness and I felt there was no reason to exist like this. If I weren’t so afraid of what awaited me in the afterlife, I would consider throwing myself off a bridge. I laughed at myself for even thinking about suicide. It wasn’t the first time I had entertained the thought in the past twenty-four hours, but it was something I could never bring myself to do. I was a strong woman and certainly not a quitter. I knew it was my own way of feeling sorry for myself. I shouldn’t, though; I should feel sorry for Aiden. What I had done to him was so cruel and heartless and I wouldn’t blame him if he never tried to contact me again.
I wandered around my house like a lost soul, looking for anything that remained of him. There was nothing, not even a wrinkle in the comforter on his bed. It has been perfectly made so you could bounce a quarter off it. He had left nothing for me to hold, not a shirt or even a stray sock. I knew this would be the case, but actually experiencing it was quelling me.
I sat in the dreary light of the gray morning, my arms encircling myself, just so someone was holding me. I remained like this for hours, staring at nothing or crying hysterically. I continued to wait for him. He never came home. He never came back to me. I kept expecting the phone to ring or a knock on the door, but Aiden had completely vanished from my existence. How was I going to live without him?
Time was passing by so slowly. Sitting there in the silence of my house, I could hear every tick of every clock there was in the house. The clocks clicked at different times, causing a dissonant cacophony. I could count the seconds in my head. One. Two. Tick. Tock. I looked at the clock and only a mere hour had passed. When Aiden was with me, time always seemed to fly by. There weren’t enough minutes available in the day when it came to being with him.
I started to pace around the room, straightening a book here or picture there. I wanted to touch anything he had touched. Even if his fingertips had just grazed something, I wanted it. I found myself sitting on the stairs, knowing we had climbed them together, only to wander back to my spot on the couch to pay more vigil for his return.
Every so often the heat would come on, but it never warmed me. Nothing made a difference. Everything just seemed so lifeless.
I hadn’t eaten a single crumb since yesterday’s lunch with the girls. The thought of food made my stomach lurch and only made me think about my last meal with Aiden. I had ruined that as well. Why was I constantly sabotaging my own happiness?
I sat and thought about that for a while. Why did it matter to me what Aiden’s past was? What difference would it have actually made? He wanted to be with me, right here, right now. I didn’t know of any girlfriend or wife waiting for him, looking for him. Why couldn’t I just be happy with what we had and who he was? No, instead I had to badger him for information; accuse him of hiding things. If anyone had the right to break up in this relationship, it was him. Which probably made it easier for him to walk out the door. He didn’t beg me to stay, did he? But he had. He had asked me not to send him away. He had pleaded with me not to do it. I thought I was doing the right thing. I had forced him to go. What if he was only concerned about having a place to live? I don’t even know if he had money for a motel. I was a disgrace. I
was a heinous excuse of a human being.
I could no longer sit and needed to do something. I turned on the TV, hoping to occupy myself with mindless nothing. I flipped through the channels, stopping on a news report focusing on a Marine killed that morning from my local region.
“Another one for Cheryl. Such a shame.”
I listened as they gave the details of his bravery and demise. Happy pictures of him with his wife and child flashed on the screen.
“He had a family. They wanted him back and he’ll never be able to come home. I had a man I could have spent the rest of my life with, and I sent him away. And here I am, acting like a selfish bitch, crying over my own stupidity, and feeling sorry for myself. That poor woman, she has the right to feel like she lost someone. I threw my someone away,” I said aloud to the empty room. I winced at hearing my voice slightly echo.
I guess I should just suck it up, shake it off, and get back to the life I had before Aiden. It should be an easy adjustment. It’s not like we’d been together for years, for God’s sake. It had only been days. What was wrong with me? Was I obsessed with him or something?
I gathered my strength, plucked myself from the couch, and hauled myself to the kitchen. I turned on the tea water and scrutinized the contents of my fridge. Nothing jumped out at me. I decided to make toast with cashew butter because I needed comfort food.
I dropped the bread into the toaster and went for the flatware drawer. I removed a paring knife and began trying to cut the seal off the cashew butter lid. I must not have been paying attention because the knife slipped and plunged into my palm only inches from my wrist.
“Son of a bitch!” I screamed and pitched the knife into the sink.
The sharp pain that ensued brought a different kind of agony to my body. It made everything feel real. I saw the amount of blood streaming down my wrist and knew it was a deep cut. Good thing I had been a nurse before a poor excuse for a case manager. Blood didn’t bother me in the slightest. I wrapped a clean dishtowel around my hand, collapsed onto the floor and began to turn on the waterworks again. It wasn’t because it hurt, either. My hand was throbbing, but not enough to surpass the ache in my chest. I wished Aiden were here with me. Had he been, he would have been using the knife. He was, in his own words, a master in all forms of weaponry. I laughed through my tears, which only made me break down more.
The Purple Heart Page 10