"May I?” He holds out the leather for me to put on.
I have nothing witty, sarcastic, or even angry to say at this moment. This is goodbye for us both. I slip into his leather jacket. It is not the old broken down motorcycle jacket of days gone by, but the smell of leather and him hit me hard. I pull my hair out from the back. He takes my glasses off and puts them with his phone on the nightstand. He taps the arrow to play. He continues smiling at me. I witness a single tear escape his eye.
Control once again escapes me also. He pulls me gently against him. I put both arms under his. The way he always let me hold him. He takes a deep breath against my neck as he moves in closer. The drums and guitar begin. He moves me slightly back and forth. It is then Robert Smith begins to sing. I cannot stop myself. I hold onto him tighter as Nick begins to sing in my ear as he did so many times before. ‘Just Like Heaven’.
We both hold one another even after the song ends. I try to hide my crying, but my tears right this moment are not only for the past and for my present but the loss of my future as well.
"Can you ever forgive me Moe?"
"You know me. All I know is forgiveness. Well, except the concept of forgiving myself."
He releases me slowly. Nick places his hands gently on my face. He wipes the tears that still fall with his thumb before he speaks.
"Please don’t disappear. Show yourself, that not me or anyone else can break you. You can’t even break yourself. Please see who I see. Every day I am going to be pray you to survive the pain I am accountable for bringing you. I will may make my knees bleed praying that none of this changes what you have now. I need to believe it won’t. You need to believe it also. He loves you Moe. He won’t leave. You can both get through this. You have to. If not for any other reason but to say- Fuck you Nick.”
Still holding me, Nick places a soft kiss on my lips. He then pulls our foreheads against one another after. "Oh God, Moe…Please know, I love you. I’ve always loved you. We simply had different definitions. I will forever continue to love you. God I am so sorry Moe. I only wish I can undo what is now done."
I can feel the wetness on his thumbs. He is crying. My eyes I keep closed.
He then lifts his head and holds his lips to my forehead. His lips are soaked with tears. I feel it so clearly. His kiss on the place I hold most tender over pours with deep regret. I feel he is shaking slightly also.
A forehead kiss. What should I feel? This one I know is my kiss of death.
I say nothing. I let go of him. I slip out of his jacket and place it gently on the bed. I put my glasses back on. I turn and zip my luggage. I put on my denim jacket. Finding my laptop and phone I place them in the front pocket of my carry on. I grab my purse and wipe away my tears one final time. Nick stands in the same place with his hands now in his pockets.
"I have to go Nick."
"I know.” He walks over to the coffee table and picks up the book. He puts the envelope beside it under its cover. It is all surreal watching him walk back to me. He holds it out for me to take. My future lay in my palm of my hands. The irony.
"My car will be waiting for you downstairs. Go to the first class counter at United. A ticket will be waiting for you for the next flight. No stand by."
I cannot say thank you. I am not thankful for any of this. I only feel relief to be moving away from this moment. All I can do is nod. I look away from him and walk with my head down to the leave. I do not want to see his face as I say my final words to him. I need them to be behind me. I have enough of my past between my fingers in front of me. I open the hotel and speak as I walk through it.
"Goodbye Nicholas. I forgive you.”
My three word once again. I don't wait to hear his reply as I let the door shut heavy behind me.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Deciding to stay in Malibu was an easy choice. I couldn’t go back to San Francisco. All I fought to protect, all I finally opened up too and all loved are gone. I still love. The love in my heart is not lost; Ben’s heart is another story. Forever Ben shall dwell within me, same as he has since the day I first met him when I was eighteen. I wish it were a choice, but it isn’t. All that talk, ‘I will never ever leave you again’, well everyone leaves. It is all I know.
Ben staying in the apartment was an easy decision also. I received one sole correspondence from him after he left me. He wanted to continue to live in the apartment. I owed him, in the least that. Somehow he still finds it home. He knew I could not return. He left me. Instead of running further, I stayed where the pain floods daily. This pain far exceeds any behavior I have endeavored over my lifetime to fill any high or low. This place, this is the perfect punishment.
Ben and I did go away when he returned. The hotel was breathtaking. Our room was spectacular. It was pure class, private butler and all. From the customer service straight from the linens to the soap, everything was impeccable. However, I could not enjoy a moment of it. From the second we began our drive I knew, I felt death following us. Hovering. I always wish for Peter Pan to be my shadow, but the grim reaper always seems to push him aside.
I did still try to enjoy myself. Make the memories I so desperately wanted. I tried so hard but I could not connect, the anticipation of our impending doom did not allow me. I had disconnected from the simple moments when we sat and ate to when we tried to make love. My eyes had closed yet again. Ben did not understand. It was breaking him. I was hurting him and he did not understand why. My eyes were closed not because I did not want to see forever in him I knew would be there, I was afraid he would see through me.
Finally, he demanded to know what happened in LA. He even asked if Nick and I had been together. So much happened between Nick and me, but obviously it was not at all what Ben worried.
He and I being there under almost false pretense, trying to create memories was selfish. I was also deceiving Ben every time I said I was all right. I tried so hard to save what little we were sharing. In his demand to know of LA, I lied. It did not come easy, as lying once did for me. Uttering it was nothing really, nothing, that cannot wait until we get home. I shook inside hearing myself. All my hopes for one last time with the only man I gave myself to were slipping through my fingers faster than the sand we laid on. A pathetic hope we could make memories over those few days that I desperately thought would so foolishly see me through the pain I knew was coming. The pain I deserved. Pain I was avoiding truly enduring myself but also a reflection Ben would not comprehend seeing in himself. All of this, I had to face. What he was about to see in me, hear from me was going to be horrific. I could no longer betray the love, the sexual intimacy I fought against my entire adult life for. I could not let him think even a moment that I cheated on him. Especially, since it was the only betrayal I did not commit. Another moment could not pass. Finally, I gave up on a fantasy I could not make happen. I gave up on me. I asked Ben if we could go watch the sunset and talk. It was our third night and he said yes before I even finished asking him to go.
My God, so many secrets. So many secrets I never shared all had to be released. I placed myself completely bare, naked of every wall, every barrier I ever held up. That night I told him our truth, all I kept to protect he and I. I told him everything.
I began with the truth about my virginity also and how I fell in love with him the moment I laid eyes on him. I shared even when he broke up with me I was not capable of letting go. Then, when I saw him again almost a year later, I had to be near him. The draw to him was stronger than anything I had ever felt. Next, I had to tell the man I love all he did not recall, all that happened, after we left the club that night. I explained how it was not his fault. I believed he did not think my "no", was no. I told him what he said to me during. It killed me to repeat the words he had once unknowingly spoken. I expressed I believed, he did not feel at that moment what he was doing was wrong. I did not believe he ever heard me say no. My no was yes to him, because we had many times before. Most painful was telling him, how he physically overtoo
k me and held me down. I expressed how he wished to walk me to my car after.
I begged him to see through to his sobriety, how far he has come. I argued regardless of anything that happened he was not then the same man then, he is today. I told him how wrong it was of me to have gone to his room that night. I was well aware of it being federal property. I was well aware he had just been admitted back into school after being kicked out. If I was found in his room, he risked having to leave again. I told him it was my fault I loved him. How I knew he no longer loved me. I wanted to move on. I even said how I thought I loved my best friend. I played a game maybe I didn’t know anymore. I had wanted to matter to someone. I had initially kissed him back. He never realized I could not. My heart loved him but it was still broken. Again, I reiterated, I knew he did not love me then, that is why I had sought to leave because I loved him still. I feared my heart being hurt. But, I had still kissed him back. I shouldn’t have. I gave him the wrong idea. Hearing me say no after could not have made sense. Repeatedly I told him how in my heart he has no fault and I forgave him the second after.
I was silent for a while after. I feared more what I needed to tell him next. Ben still did not utter a word. He cried silently. I tried every technique I have been taught to calm my heart, lessen my anxiety before I continued. None of them worked. I wept harder when telling him of the baby we created that night. Then how the accident took from me all I ever wanted with him, regardless of how we conceived. I told him as he turned his head from me, the punishment I believe my back is from that accident. I feel my body failed me. I believe the physical pain I endure and the scars my body bares are from all I could not handle. They are daily reminders of who I truly am. How wrong I have been for never telling him our truth. Scars of punishment.
I told him of my life after the miscarriage and the destiny I sought to seek control. I spoke about my journals, the ones stolen and the ones left to burn. I told him the truth about Nick. I told him all of who Nick was once to me and what he now did to me.
I then backtracked again and shared the surgery due to the dysplasia and precancerous cells found. It was then I was again forced to share more of us, not me. The very hard truth of why when we began living together I had a tubal ligation. I explained how he was and could be the only man left within me. I explained this is why I only asked that one thing of him. The reason I honestly only gave my body to him. I told him every part I never included in our letters or the many talks we had as we stayed in touch for so long ago. The whole time he stared out into the ocean as the sky changed colors. Same as the colors of our lives changing forever.
I tried to touch his hand and explain my love for him now. How I wished, so many times to have handled life differently but it never changed the pull, the undeniable existence of only loving him. He pulled his hand away and my heart broke more. What I had to say next stirred embarrassment in the shameful ways I still battle my addiction with control.
Through the silence he displayed that night, I had to finish. I had finally believed in the comfort one can share with another. I had learned comfort in silence as long as I was beside him. That comfort was gone. I was ready to place my head in the guillotine and pull the cord myself. My heart broken, it was time to say goodbye to my head, my mind.
The life we built in San Francisco was next. I told him about my inheritance, my net worth. That I owned the apartment we shared. The rent lease we supposedly shared was not real. I actually had set up an account in his name saving and reinvesting it. I gave his money over to my financial planner knowing he would make it grow. Even as I spoke the truth, I heard the reality of how wrong and twisted my own mind is. I, explaining my hope to one day give him all this money back so he could buy the yacht of his dreams. Be his own captain and sail for himself and no one else.
If only it ended there. In my eyes, what was worse than the deceit regarding the money was why I came to San Francisco. Why I never let go. Why even during his amends, I never told him the truth. I was always seeking more from him than he could give me, until recently. The truth being, I needed to return to him; my beginning or else I believed I would never be whole. I had lost too many parts of me along the way. I needed him. He filled my empty spaces I could not. No matter how hard I tried to fill them myself. He has always been, and is unconditional. Even if he never ended up loving me as he grew to, I could not live without him beside me. I was so sorry. I was so sorry about all the money and lies. All the things I expressed I was aware I could have, should have changed. I again reiterated. I knew I should have never gone even in his room that night. I do not forgive myself for that. I gave him the wrong impression of my intentions. Almost every step of my life thereafter I have done wrong.
My definition of control finally surpassed any meaning he could surmise. I overstepped beyond boundaries. I hate money. It has never meant very much to me. Except those times, mania takes over. Then, we'll spending is a necessity.
That night, the secrets were far from done. Bertha and the book were then revealed. It begins with my adolescence. My birth defect, my one breast. How Nick incorporated things we had once wrote together. Then I explained what Nick took from me. My thoughts, my emotions, my experiences. He stole them from me. So many of my secrets he revealed. The book includes his and Nick’s roles in my life, my marriage, my adultery and chapters upon chapters regarding my behavior before and after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he knew from our friendship, not solely the journals. My private mental illness he put on display.
Supposedly, he did this all because he felt women, so many would relate to one or many pieces of me. I spoke of my anger with Nick. Why I ended up so intoxicated. I wanted to be numb that night. I wanted it to be gone, a bad dream. I wanted to be numb because I knew the truth between he and I would finally need to surface. I lashed out with such hatred at Nick for feeling he had some right to my life. I explained the money Nick gave and why in the end I chose to take it. I wanted Nick to pay in some way and the only way he would, was through money.
Even though I know what happened in LA and that it was not my doing, I know I broke Nick in ways also. I did not share that nor the feelings it was evident Nick still feels for me as a person. I was not solely a character within those pages. I was once, someone.
I told Ben why I wanted this trip. Also my decision to have the reconstructive surgery. It is through his encouragement and concern I am ready. How fitting I found it all to use Nick to pay for it all, even though I could pay on my own. That was the only moment Ben looked back at me. It was the slightest moment. I could not find his eyes. His tears were also streaming so hard. He made no noise, but his chest heaved heavy up and down. My heart broke more.
I tried with everything to explain how in coming back to him I found myself. I was trying every day to undo my controlling behavior. My therapy every week for this sole purpose alone. I explained if it not for him I would never make it through my mania or my sadness. He is my happiness, and my laughter. My glue as I feel I am his rock at times. He is my comfort. He is my light. He is home. We are one another’s future. We are finally, where we both dreamed.
It did not matter. Nothing I said to try and make it better did. Ben stayed silent, weeping. As I wept also, I pleaded and begged him to forgive me. I told him how deeply I loved him. I begged him to say something, anything to me. I hyperventilated, panicked and cried harder than I have in all my life.
I had finally found the smallest of courage left in me. I tried with desperation to touch Ben’s face and turn it to me. I needed him to see infinity again in my eyes. I said my last truth. Everything in this life happens for a reason. If none of what happened in our past, neither of us would be who we are today and to each other. It is all how we fell in love now. I have no regrets in this life. I only have hope and love. Everything was meant to happen as it did so we could one day find love as we have.
Ben took my hands gently from his face and finally spoke his last words to me. “I can’t be near you. How d
o I look at you? You had to run from yourself to live, yet to survive you had to run to me at the same time? This all began because of me. The control I have grown to accept but despise. The girl I once knew, I am the reason you changed. I am the ghost who follows you? My God. And why deceive me so? We were always the best of friends first, above all. I can’t Max. How I have loved you. All my heart Max. So many secrets. What I did that night! I, I have to go. I have to get away from here. From us.”
He stood and walked away from me. I screamed for him not to go. I yelled how I am found. I am found only because of him. I am whole, I screamed. I begged him to please come back. He never turned back.
In the darkness that had fallen, I wept and watched him walk down the beach until I could not see him anymore. I stayed on that beach until the sun came up. I shook from the cold of the night and the absolute emptiness in my soul. I screamed at God. I had many horrible thoughts of not deserving to live any longer. I thought how easy it would be if I walked into the ocean. Simply walk and walk until it took me. Allow the water to fill my lungs and no longer exist. The reality of that only further disappointed my twisted mind. I would only destroy the man I loved more. My destiny is to live with this all. I swore that night I would never ever love again. It was only when the sun rose I had to accept and face my failure. Life had not failed me this time. I failed it. I failed Ben.
There was so much to swallow much less process that night. I find it hard to think of it, yet I do daily. Telling Ben, the story of me, the story of us, the one he never knew for over twenty years. The new life and love that we built, finally surfaced. How far we had come didn’t matter. The foundation was filled with secrets from almost the very beginning. Secrets I chose to keep, deceiving myself it was to save us both. They were life changing secrets. I did, I genuinely honestly believed I was saving us both. I experienced the moment I must live with forever. The reality love doesn’t mean two people will overcome. Survive. Love does not conquer all. There is no hope in love. It is all like a breeze off the sea. There one moment, gone the next.
I Walked With Her Page 30