Chapter Forty-Nine
Nick quickly gets up to follow me. He grabs the rest of his things. I hear the book close as I walk away. I hear him call for Tigger fake lashes. He must've thrown money her way or told her his room number because he is quickly behind me. He knows not to go beside me. He stays a few feet behind. I never needed a smoke as bad as I do now. I need a handful of Xanax, but they are up in my room. I will tend to that soon enough. I arrive at the gazebo again. Light a cigarette and with one drag, I am done. I can't stop myself. I drop to the floor and sit on the rough cement. It is all too much. Nick is quick to my side, sitting on the pavement beside me. I am weeping.
"Max, I'm sorry."
"For what? For what Nick? Why are you sorry? Which part? All of it or some of it? You have no right to any of it. You want me to believe you did this for other women. You are a fucking liar. You wrote this to make money. You did this for you."
"You are right Max. The book is done though. I need to know about your life now. I need to know. God dammit Max. Does Ben know about that night? The pregnancy? The miscarriage? My God, that you even lost your virginity to him a year before that night? Any of it?”
"No! Ben doesn't know! I said that already! He is not the same man! I didn't even accept I was pregnant after. You know I didn’t hear a word from him after that night. I did miss my period. Yes. I had all the signs. My doctor thinks I was few days over seven weeks when I miscarried. No one has ever known except my doctors. I was in denial! I never even stopped smoking. In fact, my stress level was so high I smoked the most then! Christ! I was in denial until the car accident, when someone actually said it aloud! Nick, I have no idea what to say to you. I'm drained. I have no idea what to say to you anymore.” I finish my cigarette, lighting another. I can only manage a whisper now. "Oh my God I have to tell him. I am going to lose him."
"I read every poem, every thought you wrote to yourself in those journals. It was why you changed. That is why you were broken. You would have kept that baby wouldn't you? You don't believe in abortion. I know you. You have wanted two things in this life; your writing and to be a mother. Were you even going to tell him if the accident never happened?”
I wipe the tears from my face. "Why do you even care?"
"Because Max, I read it all. You finally made sense when I did. The recklessness, your control issues. Your love and hate. Didn't you ever want to tell anyone? I know you Max. I know you still. The scars, on your back, they have to remind you of that baby that might have been. That is why you made us stop writing. I was getting too close to the truth."
I turn toward Nick. "You want to know about Ben and me? I'll tell you. I found Ben months after the miscarriage. After the accident, I was so lost. Broken. A disaster inside. I needed him. I needed him to be my first love only. Solely for him to be the boy I gave my virginity to. The first boy I thought ever loved me. Even if I was wrong. I needed my innocence back. I needed my once angel to no longer be a devil within me.
We began to stay in touch. You didn't know. I couldn't let him go. I still loved him, in spite of what happened. I have always loved him…” I light another cigarette and take a long drag. “He didn't remember that night after the club at all. Nothing, none of it. All he remembered was seeing you and me dancing. Sick part, he thought you were my boyfriend. Me in your arms, in your jacket-” I inhale the nicotine deep into my lungs. I exhale through my nose. I always love how the sensation feels slightly different. “He was an alcoholic Nick. Yes, I lost my virginity to Ben. He was my first love. First heartbreak. God, I loved him with every ounce of me, but he did not feel the same at that time. It simply was. Turns out, I was his first also. I learned of this during amends. Pretty fucked up I know. I never could tell him, he was mine. When he shared that with me, it was as if I was receiving a gift. I meant something to him. He may not have loved me, but I was good enough for that. Truth, as young as we were, I would have run anywhere in the world with him, waited patiently as he finished at the academy. I loved him and not the love that you decide. A love that simply is.”
I look down and press my cigarette into the pavement. Nick tries to take my hand. I pull it away. I do not want him to touch me. I look directly back at him. “Ben and I began to stay in touch. I was grateful for the friendship we were nurturing. Grateful he remembered nothing. He still does not. Not any of it. I stayed and even listened as he shared he loved another woman. A new trust began when I found him. I had never stopped trusting him. I stopped trusting myself. I never told you Nick because when you came into my life, you filled so much in me. You will never understand who you were to me. What you meant to me. Hope. An illusion I realize again.”
I want to run. However, all I can do is bow my eyes. “I wanted to feel for you. You. Ben was not in love with me, he was my friend, regardless of the feelings I buried so deep within me. You, I wanted to try love with. Forget it all. Feel God dam safe again! See a different man in my heart. For all the pain you too brought me, you made me smile. You did give me hope. As for telling him the truth of what happened, it was never an option. He had a right to his life. I loved him that much. I still do. I was never going to disrupt his life with something he had no control over. Back then, when we were, God so young, he had made his choice. He no longer wanted me.” I shake my head. “God we were so young.”
I pause to regain the strength to find Nick’s eyes. The strength is still there. “Though now, now Nick, he said it has always been me also! That he has always been in love with me. With me! Can you imagine someone loving the disaster I see in me?
Back then, I knew he loved alcohol more than anyone or anything. He was consumed in his drinking. Partaking and hiding it. He was never a drunk, but he changed. His eyes changed. That night was an accident. He never meant for what happened to happen. It was wrong and it did break me. It changed me. But I know it wasn’t him that night it was the alcohol.”
I grab the pack of cigarettes. Nick takes them from my hands. He takes two out, puts both between his lips, lighting them. He inhales both and hands me one of them. I welcome the smoke fill my lungs again. I need to tell him more.
“We had been intimate so many times the year before. You don’t understand he was not the boy I knew that night. After, after it all. I came to believe he didn’t think what he did was wrong. God Nick, you don’t understand. I was so drawn to him. I looked past him drinking that night. I still loved him. I made a choice going to his room. I was wrong to have gone. He kept asking about you and I. Asking why was I there with him now. I wasn’t sure myself at that point. I couldn’t find him in his eyes, but I did still love him. I went to leave and he kissed me. For the briefest second I felt him; the Ben I knew. I kissed him back, but then he was all over me. Then it was happening and I couldn’t get away.
Nick, it was not him that night. God he even questioned why I was fighting him. He said to me, ‘it’s not like we haven’t fucked before’. That is not Ben! That was never Ben! Do you realize when it was over, he stood up and said, “Come on, let me walk you to your car.” Like nothing! Like nothing had just happened. It made no sense! My clothes were ripped. I had long stopped crying, after he put the pillow over my face. I had to focus on breathing. When I quieted, he moved it. I do remember staring at the ceiling. I do remember thinking of my father actually. Thinking of how badly this will hurt him. His baby girl. Thinking of how I wished to be hugging him, sitting beside my father right then. Father’s protect their daughters from things like this. I walked into it. I went to his room. I kissed him I failed my father. Ben he had no idea what he had done. The young man I knew was not behind the eyes I saw that night. You need to listen. He is not the same man now. He is peaceful and serene. He is sober. He has come so far. You do not understand. You need to understand!”
Nick has long put his cigarette out. Mine burnt out before I fully consumed it. Nick is shaking his head looking away from me.
“I handled it! What would have been the point telling him? It would have destro
yed him. He was battling so much to get clean for so many years. It killed me slowly back then! It did not need to destroy us both. All I needed was to find control over anything, something in my life. I did that! I handled it!"
He shoots his glance back toward me. "Control? Jesus. You and control! He took from you! You begged him until he put a God Damn pillow over your face! You said no! Period! I am sorry you seem to find yourself somehow the Immaculate Conception thereafter! Why have you taken responsibility for it all? Come on Max!"
"I hate you!"
"Yes, I am well aware! You keep reminding me!"
You can almost hear the blood in both us pump and boil. This isn’t done. I need this to be done. Nick is not going to let me be.
"If the accident hadn't happened you would have had his child."
"It doesn’t matter! I did miscarry. My car smashed into a truck and I miscarried. You know what Nick! Maybe, I could have turned the car away and avoided the accident? Maybe, my subconscious kicked in! I saw a way out of not just what happened to me, but my entire existence. Maybe I could have and I didn’t stop the accident? Do you want to hear that? Maybe, I wanted to die. You read the journals! Is this what you want to hear me say aloud? The accident did happen! I lost the child. I fucked up my back forever. I am the God Damn bionic titanium woman now because of it! I suffer physical pain to this day because of it. Every day I face reflections in the mirror. Scars I must see! Reminders of it all! Do you want me to bleed more?" I cannot control my weeping.
Nick wraps his arms around me. "No. That is not what I want. Not what I want at all. This wasn't your fault or all on you though Max. He has as much a right to know. That is all I am trying to make you see. He has a right to know now. If he is truly a different man. He needs to know what he did. God, it is even part of recovery."
“He will not be able to live with this. He will never be able to look at me the same. I know him. I know the heart and the man he has worked so hard to be. The man he is. This will be the end. It finally was the beginning. Nick he loves me. Bertha the broken, crazy, one breasted freak. He loves all of me. All this time, all this fucken life later, he is in love with me. I let go. I let go. Nick I let go! I was learning true love. I let go of this obsessive control for him. I let go, because I love him. My past, my present, now no longer my future."
“Oh Jesus! Oh, God Max! Fuck!” Nick drops his arms around me. He lights another cigarette. "I don't know! I’m struggling with your feelings! I’m struggling with reality! It kills me! You went through it alone! You never told anyone! Why? Dammit Max I can't even stop the distribution of the Goddamn book! It is impossible."
"It has nothing to do with you. I kept it from you also. My life is so many secrets. I fail more times than not. Even when I don’t fail, life hands me a card, I never asked to even have, much less hold."
"Why that guy Craig? That whole teacher shit thing. You wrote how much you resented sex, hated it for Christ sake!”
"Control. I lost all control over my life. I needed it back. I had no control over the accident, or fuck, maybe too much. I still haven't really figured that out. I lost the baby inside me. I could have been a mother. I failed myself. I needed control. I did resent sex but I hated myself more. I don't know. I wanted reiteration what I then believed. There was no love in sex. Use or be used. Everything hurt too much inside. I made a proposition and he accepted. I never considered the others, the many others. Whom the fuck knows how many other women he was fucking also. It was a game. One I paid dearly for."
"That's why you said no to us that night?"
"Us? That night? You didn’t even want me! Even if you had, I cared about you! You weren't about sex! You were more than that! Though you used my feelings, you knew I had. That night I made a horrible assumption, I may actually be appealing to you! Fuck me as other boys did. Actually, that is not right! You most definitely declared you did not want to have sex with me! I sucked in bed! Do you even remember the morning after? I was your fucken game! No! I trusted you! You were such a dick! You only broke me more. Look, how you treated me after! You think you are so different? You were worse, you were consciously aware of all you did! You signed, sealed and delivered a destiny I have lived for so long. Until recently-"
"Of course I do. I carry it with me. I can never make up for how cruel I was. I will never even allow myself. I was a dick, Moe. We all have regrets."
"I do not believe you. You were selfish. You still mock my need for control when you, you are the most controlling man ever!"
"I was angry. I knew how I cared about you. I had no way of showing you how scared in a way I was. Max you had such instability. You had no idea who you were. I had to push you away. It was easy. You acted irrational, yes, crazy many times. I didn’t know if you could love. Maybe I thought you loved too much. Yes, I was selfish. I am well aware of my own shortcomings. All I have done."
"Should I be feeling sorry for you? You didn’t know if I could love or love too much, that is funny in itself! It's bullshit and that's it! Really? So, you left me again, was what, spite? You find me reckless but you find no fault in Liz's pregnancy? Was a condom out of the question in your life? How twisted since you knew it all.”
"I've paid my dues in this life. I have lost also in life."
"What do you lose now Nick? I am very clear what I lost and shall lose again. I feel this pain and I know how much worse it is going to get."
"You were in touch with Ben the whole time we were so close, so soon after?"
"You can't help yourself still. Yes! He was at sea. Finishing at the academy. It was easy to keep it from you. He was paying his own dues. We wrote for a few years. This friendship developed different from any other. Despite his alcoholism, which he had not come to terms with yet, he was open and honest any chance he could. I shared with him, my struggles as my mental health fluctuated itself. I too, not coming to terms, still not fully diagnosed. Certainly, not medicated to help ease the madness. We understood each other. Especially when we faced reality individually. We both then understood the only way we could exist and survive in life was the same principle. Five minutes at a time. We understood each either even if we are different.
Neither of us was perfect. Even if he did or did not really love me when we first dated. He cared about me deeply when we reconnected, as friends. He had girlfriends and was at one time very much in love with one woman. Through it, we stayed in touch. After my divorce, we started talking on the phone more. Then after the second back surgery, the real one, I had to leave New York. I had to leave it all behind. You know that. The relationship he was in, I don’t know, had run its course. She was moving to Paris to further her fashion career. She wanted him to go, but he said no. I suppose he could have gone to work internationally, there are enough charters and wealth there also, but I do not know, he still stayed here.
We had this unique friendship. We had grown so close. It was enough for me. I couldn't stand being so far from him. So I moved to San Francisco to be closer to him. He is my beginning. I knew I could somehow start a new if I went back to my beginning. He was only a boy when he left me the first time. God, who doesn’t get their heart broken by their first love? We were young and stupid. Even that night, when it all happened. I wept in my car for hours after. Not one tear I shed though, did not include his forgiveness.
Look, I don’t know if I believe in soul mates or the love of someone’s life. These titles seem foolish to me. I only know he has a home in me. I feel him in a place I believe is my soul. Above all, loving him is not a choice. My father once told me love is a decision, because there are many times we do not act very loveable. Well, I not only do not have a choice in loving him but I decided to love him also when he was not loveable.
Even if you want to dissect all the years, we were only friends. He never left again and he too decided to love me as a person. A person who more times than not, I am not loveable either. There is only one thing I do know about love. If love is real, it is unconditional. Even i
f we never became romantically involved, that love we shared would have been enough to last me the rest of my life.
You want to know the irony in it all. You had taught me the definition of unconditional. You. And yes Nick, the only child that rested in my womb, even as brief of a time that it was, was Ben’s. Yes, I mourn it still. I even rebelled because of it. My mental illness and its unpredictability scare the fuck out of me. I am a grown woman and I still do things that make little sense to others. I had a tubal ligation seven years ago. Do want to know why? Two reasons, my fucken bipolar disorder because God knows I would fail because of it and second... so I never would have to have protected sex with Ben. The only intimacy I had allowed, I masked it in fucking. He is the only man, except one- just one single time in this whole lifetime who has ever climaxed bare inside of me. I know I am twisted. Truly.”
“Well it certainly was never going to be me.”
“Oh my God do you see! You still can’t stop! This is exactly it! He never had expectations of me like you did. He never made me feel like a fool. He never dealt with my truth, being mentally ill when it became known with humor that hurt me so! I was so ashamed of who I was. I had been ashamed as far back as I can remember! Fuck I began life with sadness, hello puberty I have one breast! Like really!!! Why? Why was I born that way? I was already cursed! He certainly never pushed me out of his life. He has had his own battles. He found sobriety!
He and I ended up being there for one another. You, you always left! Even when I moved away, you would come back into my life and leave again! He and I worked. Living together made sense. We never suffocate each other. He accepted all my needs for control, all of my behavior! We never asked more than the other could give. We accepted the good and bad in us both. Slowly we found ourselves friends with benefits. It was a good situation. It was good for me. I like to believe for him also.
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