Chapter Forty-Three
I agreed to go to LA today. I promised Ben. Nick was too cryptic. Whatever this is, somehow Ben feels Nick has something relevant to discuss. He feels if I don’t go, I will be tortured with wonder. Frankly, I feel that is more his reason for thinking it is best I go. I am still Bipolar. My mind is still twisted.
Friday after our bath, I selfishly didn’t want to miss a single moment of our time left together. However, I could not possibly object to Ben going out. His AA meetings are as important as I am. As he said and I do know, (I have always known), his struggles are as hard difficult as mine. I can never be so selfish as to interfere with his needs outside of us. He attends as many meetings as he can when he is home. It is an absolute before he returns to work. The extravagance and at times careless behavior of his clientele, is challenging aside from his actual stressful role of Captain. There is always a nonstop flow of alcohol. This tests his strength and I am so proud of his commitment and perseverance. I will never stand in the way of his need for the different support and accountability he finds in his meetings.
Not wanting my back damper our time, I tried something different. He has shown me intimacy comes in as many forms as making love does also. Making love is sharing and trust. Intimacy is allowing one into not solely your body but your thoughts and your heart.
That night when he went to his meeting, I set the rooftop with candles and put the beach chairs we keep up there out. When he got home, he found me with a smile, two decaf coffees and some trusted irresistible Oreos waiting. That and a sky filled with what seemed the brightest stars. It was already a great evening.
The evening air was as refreshing as it was comforting. My fear of silence is lessening also. I am finding a new understanding. An equal amount can be spoken without words. We sat and held hands for what seemed like forever. When we finally finished the sleeve of cookies and yes it was not difficult to do, I told Ben about Nick’s texts. I am really trying to display my trust, my desire to continue to learn more in every way. This from simply in the bedroom so to speak. Be honest. Open. Remember I have cement walls. This takes a demolition in all directions.
We arrived at the same decision, well arrived and I am trusting him more than myself. He was very persuasive and had a strong opinion. Ben was also so thankful that I asked his opinion. Again, right now I would probably do anything he thought I should do. He said this would have definitely been something I did on my own. That I would have either acted in haste or run from it. I am trusting this is the right choice right now. Nick, hhm, well he is the last person I want to see right now. With all that is happening I just want to stay home and maybe write or sleep. No, you know what be perfect? Pulling out my KitchenAid and baking! Yes, set a play list and start baking. I may not cook often but an amazing baker. That sounds so much better than going to LA. Actually sleeping sounds so much better than it all. I am still Max, haven’t lost all my stripes. This all this physically and emotionally draining. Not in a bad way but it is all pretty exhausting.
Oh God! I do need to get up and throw something together. I need to leave right after Ben. I will go deal with whatever Nick wishes to discuss. Whatever it is. The reason for going now, don’t matter. I am going whether it is because of curious or my insane compulsive behavior. What is moment important is getting back to here. Get back home and get hope the time Ben is away goes quick. I have a lot to do. I am sure it will. I can’t but continue to smile. I feel kind of silly for even thinking this but life all of a sudden feels limitless for Ben and I to.
I jump up. Yes, surprising myself. Steady on my legs. I pull my overnight bag from under my bed. Another day. I can handle this. Ben may not be physically by my side when I go, but I don’t feel like I am alone going either.
Chapter Forty-Four
I arrive at LAX at 3:11 p.m. I await the seat belt sign to turn off as we taxi to the gate. I am again wondering yet trying to trust it is the right choice for me to be here. I am trying to understand why I printed the ticket, even got on this damn plane. I still have time to decline. Maybe Ben and I made the wrong choice. I have an unsettling feeling. Nick is my past. That is unfair thought. Every second of my present includes my past. Twisted. Truly.
The plane finally arrives at the terminal. The light dings and I stand to retrieve my bag. I didn't pack much. I am not staying long. Dinner, sleep, go back home. Of course, Nick purchased a first class ticket. An hour flight and he purchases a first class ticket? I can on imagine he put this on the company's tab. It would not surprise me. Maybe that is what this all about again? He is an editor for one of the largest media communications companies. Malburn Incorporated. It consists, I am not even certain, at least three hundred magazine publications. Last, we did speak; he was in an executive position. In the time that has past and his personal drive, it would not surprise me if he has only continued to move up the corporate chain.
I exit the plane. It will not be the first time Nick’s offered me a job. I have freelanced for a few of the magazines Malburn publishes, but never through or because of Nick. I made it clear a very long time ago, his position there would never play a role in my career. I have independently pitched and earned the pieces I have done. He has voiced more than once, he felt a more stable, steady work environment was one he felt, I would benefit from. That would have entailed two things, I quickly dismissed. One, returning to New York. Two, being told what to write and when. I chose and I much prefer freelance writing, it is my path. I make a fine enough living. I am known, well enough. Enough that I maintain steady work and the freedom to choose what interests me.
"This better not be a proposition to get me back to New York." I honestly do not care who hears me speak aloud to myself. Entering the airport, I move quickly in and out of the masses of people. I am anxious to get to the hotel. I want to close my eyes before meeting him.
It's been two years since we last spoke, almost five years since we last saw one another face to face. The idea alone is making me anxious.
There is tremendous history between Nick and I. Nick was so much to me for many years. An absolute part of my heart, he also a thorn in my side. Sometimes I've wondered if Nick means as much as Ben. Very different, but as significant when I face much in therapy.
Ben is my existence, Nick, was my choice. Nick was the young man who I, for the first time in my life, honestly wholeheartedly trusted. Yes, the disaster that I am, I believed in another man, besides Ben.
With Nick, life has always been complicated. Most people in my life have been complicated. I feel like a magnet. For God’s eyes, the things he gave me to face are a little too much. The good Lord and I have one long judgment day ahead of us when the time comes. ‘God won’t give you more than you can handle’ or ‘everything happens for a reason’. I have issues with whoever originated both of these statements.
As for Nick, he leaves. Simply put.
Nick I chose to leave him only once. It was a difficult time in life for me. Nick can be, well is relentless. He is in the best and worst kind of way. I improved on that characteristic in myself from him. Lord it was almost seven years into the on and off friendship. I left him. It was before I moved to San Francisco. We were actually trying to write a story, novel- I am still not even certain what, except we were trying together. Nick's odd behavior pushed us sadly to part ways.
I never understood what changed, but he changed. He usually always left, because of “me”. I did something wrong or cared too much or I was simply “crazy” in his eyes. The last always stung the most. Nick though does always return. At times, it has been because I asked. At times, he simply came back to me. Today, I truly have no idea why he has returned again.
If I start at the beginning, we met on my nineteenth birthday. Meeting Nick was; hope. Hope something new could possibly grow again. There was always something about Nick. He made me believe everything would be alright. I needed that hope. Even with him beside me, nothing proved it would ever be alright.
He did ma
ke me feel like so young from the moment I laid eyes on him. Enamored by him from the first drag I saw him take of a cigarette across a club. (I actually met him in the same bar I meet Ben. It seems ironic to think of that fact. I am sure my therapist would analyze this detail to great length.)
Anyway, leaving with his phone number that night was exhilarating. He was pure danger, a mysterious I had yet to encounter. A mania I am now certain, I was seeking to quiet, unaware of its existence. Nick was also an endearing and immensely compassionate young man. A dick at times also, but he always knew how to make that not matter so much. He has always had an air about him; one can't put their finger on. You simply accept it. Being in Nick's life is like a moth to a flame.
I used to fall asleep to his voice, phone receiver pressed to my ear. It is among some of my fondest memories. God, it was better than sex. It was comfort. Safe. I felt happy. Nick was many things to me at that time in my life; everything but a lover. I had many lovers during the time we were close; none of which I ever shared to tell him. The boys I will say because the never proved to be real men, I sought to fill parts of me, that were not fillable. One cannot fill a cup when there is a crack where all seeps out.
Nick and I were inseparable, yet detached in some very odd way. Two years into our friendship, my first tattoo; a lotus and ‘Hope’. On the left side of my belly, exactly where my ribs end. This tattoo, the only one he ever saw on me. He knew nothing other than I liked the design. It was literal in its interpretation. He never had reason to question it; much less think it had anything to do with him. It did, though. A lotus, growing from a muddy beginning into beauty. The first word I tried to alter my journey with. Hope. Nick convinced me there could be such a thing. Nick, unaware he was there before and after life changed me for what I then thought would be forever.
It was about that same time in our back and forth relationship, I convinced myself I loved him. Yes, more than being my best friend. I was in love with Nick Gallo. I knew so little of what the words, ‘I love you’ truly meant. What I once believed they meant compared to the definition they grew to be are very different. I chose to create my own definition. Find ‘hope in the future I could never grasp.
I took a chance on that hope and told him of my feelings. No. He did not respond well to my feelings. He cursed me. He physically pushed me away. I recall his mother screaming at us both, the scene we were making on the front lawn. I was being banished. I broke for the fourth time in only twenty-one years.
I will not deny my timing was awful when I did share how I felt. He was dating someone. Not certain if their dating was serious or simply intense. I was so privately overwhelmed. He had essentially already left me before I shared the feelings I became engrossed in needing. Hoping. Believing. It was love, not sex. I had felt replaced. Deep down, I knew the foundation of the friendship is what I cherished most. He unknowingly kept me glued together. I never needed Nick to fix me. What I needed was Nick beside me as I kept trying to fix myself.
I kept secrets from Nick. I keep secrets it seems from everyone. Nick’s reaction to my feelings struck emotions of abandonment and worthlessness. I felt thrown away by a man again. I sacrificed myself to love Nick. Nick, however never loved me back, never the way I hoped.
It was not long, we both found our way back to one another. Lord, then the night he introduced me to a woman, who in my eyes at the time, appeared my mirror image. Who knows if she really was or wasn’t. It is what I saw. It pained me beyond words. It never made sense to me, to be broken again. Too soon after, she pregnant with his child. I rebelled that same night he told me. I met and claimed the weakest of men. I then married that man a year and half later. I hated men. I wanted to fit into some mold, instead of being who I really was. Twisted. Truly.
My ex-husband David, he was sweet and unthreatening. Unthreatening, being his most significant trait. Honestly, deep down I knew he was gay. It was not very difficult to deny. He was a devout Catholic; I knew he would never come out. He worked in a Catholic school. His family’s beliefs and opinions for that matter were quite vocal. I think David was seeking the ‘picture’ no different than I was at the time. I think we both tried to deny who we really were. It does make me sad for David. I hope he is now living the life he deserves. When David and I were together, I believe he had convinced his own self that regardless of how God created him, his “faith” and his family believed it was wrong. It feels almost tragic when I look back. However, at the time for me, it was convenient. His sexuality was an absolute I never needed to concern myself with. Do not mistake he was a good man, but he was boring even as a companion. I locked away every passion within me. I needed love and sex at that time to become obsolete. Banish all desires for life and danger, including the true mirror reflection of myself.
That did not sit well for long. Turned out, I knew not how to be confined. Regardless of the mold, I tried to push myself in. I thrived on one truth; control. House, white picket fence, was never going to be me. My innocence was already gone. I was never going to be that woman.
David and I separated within a year and divorced another year after, all in spite of the annulment I sought as early as our honeymoon. I was truly fucked up. Twisted.
David denied my repeated requests to dissolve our union. Divorce was not in his vocabulary either. That was absolute he refused to allow, no matter what the truth really was. Therefore, I sought a lover to force his hand out of the marriage. I was exceptionally brazen regarding the affair. My adultery; one of only ten things God asks us not to do, right there with murder. The Ten Commandments were not written as a not multiple choice. Yet I committed one. (Alright more than one, but that is neither here nor there now.) I did that. Hello? Well, it was a foolproof way he could not allow himself to stay. My infidelity provided him the religious opportunity to annul our marriage and not simply make him a product of divorce. He would be granted the opportunity for another chance in the eyes of his faith. My actions, guaranteed he and I never even existed. I am not proud of myself. David deserved better. He did from day one.
I had so much insanity within me. My truth again. One, I did enjoy the affair. Emotionless sex again, how could I not? Two, it solidified the question I consistently asked. Do I truly even exist?
There was Nick. Always that seed in the back of my mind. I will always allow myself to recall the positive regarding him. I cannot deny, he was my protector when I needed, desired so badly to be protected. He was the artist I shared the same passion. He was warmth. He was my lullaby to sleep. He was my smile many times I could not find one. He knew I was different before I fully understood. There was always the bad with the good. As I said, Nick left me. Often. He would return, but one cannot return without first leaving. He always left. It was simply always a question of how long he would stay.
Within the first year of our friendship, I broke worse than anyone should ever. It wasn’t because of Nick, but I needed Nick more than ever before. Maybe he knew this and it was too much. Whatever his reasons he chose to break me himself. More than once.
He found toying with my feelings acceptable many a time. When I would ask him to stop, it is then he would leave. Worse than any of the moments he left, he denied me what I always knew to be true. In some odd way, whatever the actual definition of love really is, he did love me. He pushed me physically away that night, not because he didn’t really love me. I know deep down it is because he feared loving someone like me.
I did not believe in any form; he was ‘in love’ with me. Back then, there was no longer any comprehension of such a belief in my heart or mind. I did believe he loved me some way different from a friend. Regardless of what I thought or think, he plain denied me.
I had wanted to try this ideal, my definition of love again. Feel. Not the emptiness, and pain that had found a home inside of me, left within me. The one Nick did not know of. I was so willing to risk the pain all over again. Risk a somewhat deeper concept of love. The one, I solely believed caused and encompassed pain. I
wanted to be wrong. I trusted Nick before I shut that feeling out of my life permanently. I completely stopped trusting after him. He helped nail the coffin, I still find myself fighting to escape.
There was only one time in all our years together. We found ourselves in a momentary sexual tryst. Momentary, key in that statement. True intimacy was out of the question at that time in life for me. As for Nick, maybe he drank too much that night, or maybe it was simply because I was there.
One night as we visited a friend in college, I am not sure it somehow began. My reality and beliefs surfaced. I spoke and told him I couldn’t have sex with him when things became, well, real for me at that moment. What he didn’t understand, I said no because I truly loved him. I needed him in my life. That was a lot for me. I knew I couldn't fuck him. He was not empty feelings. He, I never sought to quiet the monster within me. I did not want to lose him again.
Fear paralyzed me. Life would fail me yet again. Hell, to this day I do not even know what his intentions were that night. It may have been a game. It may have been real. As I said, may have solely been because I was just there. I still do not know. Maybe, he wanted to mess around and actual intercourse was not even in his head? He, have sex with me? It was probably a preposterous thought. My head was so fucked regarding men and sex. It actually proved to be true. The idea of me ended up a repulsive one for him. Bottom line, sex and love proved yet again, to have no place associated with one another.
He replied to me that night, “I don’t want to have sex with you”. Even if, in my heart I said no for my reasons, his blatant declaration, I never felt so foolish. I had many one stands he never knew about then. Nick would never be a “fuck”, that is something he never was meant to know or understand.
We drove home the following day quite silent and awkward. I obviously wondered as I drove what he thought. Why did it happen? I knew he was aware of one particular lover I had taken before that night. A very twisted relationship, if one could even call it that. This boy/man, whatever one is considered at that age, we were engaged in an “interaction” I would call it. He was far more experienced than I was. I knew of him and his many conquests. I basically, recruited him to teach me to fuck without emotion. To teach me complete control while fucking. How to toy; play games with another’s mind to satisfy any desire and separate them all from love. If I was going to be used as I was, to hell if I wasn't to learn how to be the user. I only saw this lover when he visited home from college and holidays. When it suited him, his own lesson of control over me.
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