AnguiSH

by Lila Felix

  I looked back to him and his face had changed to relief.

  “If you don’t like them, I can return them,” I offered.

  “No, this is really great. Thank you. How’d you know what size?”

  “I have my ways. Now what amazing thing happened while I was gone?”

  Please let it be that he went somewhere by himself or did something that would help my case.

  “Holly called,” He was grinning so wide.

  “That’s not really what I call amazing news.”

  He got close to me and said, “I told her to go to Hell. I told her not to call back ever again. And I told her to quit sending Memphis around here to check on me.”

  He was so damned proud of himself and I was too.

  “I’m proud of you. Did you mean it or did you just say it?”

  “I meant every word. I’m ready to move forward—with you.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  We made an attempt to go camping the next day but the rain hadn’t let up and it ruined all my plans.

  The next couple of days went slowly for me. The few days before my birthday were always heavy since it was when my mother had died. I kept as busy as I could, cleaning and re-cleaning. I even spent one entire day pulling out each book from the library, dusting every shelf, and then replacing all the books in alphabetical order.

  I’d gone to dinner with my dad and Patty the night before the fourth. Patty was a plump woman with dark brown almost black hair like mine, and her resemblance to my mother was uncanny. She was funny. She and my dad held hands the whole time and I’d caught her blush—a lot. It was good to see my dad happy. He gave me a gift card to Target, he was always so bad at buying me gifts. They barely noticed me leaving, still so wrapped up in each other.

  I got home and Breaker sat on the back porch with tons of citronella torches lit up around him. If you were going to sit outside in the Louisiana summer, the torches were a nice thought, but they really didn’t do shit. I walked outside to join him. I sat on his lap and while he squeezed me and greeted me with kisses to my neck, his eyes mirrored that of the old Breaker, the one I looked back at the day I interviewed here.

  “What’s wrong,” I asked.

  He schooled his face into a bogus joy, but I knew better.

  “I’m fine. How was dinner with your dad?” He changed the subject on purpose, changed it, but I didn’t forget.

  “It was great. Patty is great. She and my dad are all googly eyed like teenagers. It’s nice to see him happy. I thought I might be pissed at her or weirded out by them together but I wasn’t.”

  “I’m glad. I want you to have a great birthday.”

  “You know what would make my birthday perfect?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Waking up in the library.”

  He let out a long sigh and I knew something was going on.

  “Tell me what’s happening, Breaker. All this sighing, it’s killing me.”

  “I’m just tired. Why don’t you go get ready for bed and I’ll set us up for sleeping in the library. Ok?”

  I answered him, “Ok.” He’d just lied to me; I just knew it and the betrayal ignited a flame of resentment. I’d never once lied to him and I actually had something to lie about. Maybe he did too.

  I went to my bedroom and changed into a pair of pajama pants and a tank. I brushed my teeth and threw my hair up in a ponytail. I heard him bustling upstairs, bringing blankets and probably music to our little haven. He had everything done by the time I reached the library and stood at the window, looking out, the chagrin still on his face.

  “You should probably stop lying to me now so we can both get some sleep.”

  He didn’t budge and I could see how rigid his posture was. Something was definitely up. I walked up to him and attempted to soothe his stress. I snaked my arms around his torso and pressed myself against his back. Instantly, he breathed out a great sigh and it evolved his posture from stiff to ease.

  “Just tell me. Unless you don’t trust me.”

  “Most people just let me brood when I get this way. Why can’t you just let me be?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought I was more than most people—my mistake.”

  I started to walk away but he caught my arm. “Don’t . You are everything. You know that. I’m just not used to anyone sticking around to actually see if something is going on. They just usually assume that it’s some wild hair, attached to my sanity that either needs to be plucked or tamed. So they leave it to me, so they don’t get tangled in it.”

  “I’m already tangled in you Breaker. So, why don’t you lay down with me and spill your guts? I don’t charge as much as Dr. Mavis and I might kiss you. Wait, she doesn’t kiss you does she?” I laughed at the look on his face coupled with his visible shudder.

  “I won’t even justify that with an answer,” he said as he pulled me down with him onto the layers of blankets.

  We lay there for a few minutes before he began to speak. He lay on his back, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at the twinkly-less ceiling. He’d forgotten to turn them on.

  “It was a Saturday night. I’d been waiting for Holly to get home from shopping or whatever in the hell she’d been doing. We were supposed to go to see some local band at the Chimes. So around ten or so when she hadn’t come home and wasn’t answering her cell, I decided to go out by myself. I grabbed my keys and decided to head over to one of Memphis’ infamous parties. I hadn’t been to one in a while because Holly practically assaulted me every time I mentioned going.

  When I knocked on the door, Memphis answered, half sloshed, half lucid, which was nothing new. But when I tried to go in, he stopped me with his foot behind the door. The blood trickled from his face and he started frantically looking around. At this point, I didn’t know what the hell he was looking for. But then I,” he stopped to clear his throat and I adjusted my position, trying to subside the nausea. I’d wanted to know this story for so long, but now that he was telling me—I just wanted to un-know.

  “She was in the lap of some guy. I didn’t recognize him that minute, but days later, I pinpointed his face. He’d been in her “study group”. He’d come to pick her up several times and like an idiot, I’d trusted her, the thought hadn’t even entered my mind. I think I called out her name and said something. I don’t really remember what I said because by then the blackness had started to invade the corners of my visions. And then the guy started in on me, saying that she’d been paying his rent and buying him stuff with my money. And, of course, he’d been sleeping with her for who knows how long. I don’t even think it was her that gave me the panic attack or what she’d done. It was me. I’d just been so blind and stupid. And I kept thinking that my dad was gonna kill me for all the credit cards when he found out. And before I knew it, I was out cold and woke up in a hospital days later. And then that’s when the real fear broke me. I never wanted to be that vulnerable again. And the only way I could avoid it was to lock myself in here where no one could get to me.”

  He didn’t look at me after he finished. And I really, really hated Holly. People should realize that when you are dishonest and conniving, it doesn’t just affect them. They leave waves in their wake and sometimes it drowns others.

  “Do you still—love her? Miss her?”

  He rolled over and his nose touched the tip of mine. “I thought I did. Honestly, everytime she called she would ask me if I missed her, I told her I did. But it was like I missed having someone around, not her. I missed saying I had a girlfriend, but it didn’t really have to be her. I just missed her presence, anyone’s presence.”

  The chunks of my birthday dinner rose into my throat at his admission. I was right. I’d been right all along. He wasn’t looking for me, he was looking for anyone. He didn’t need me, he just needed someone. He didn’t love me, at this point he would love just about anyone.

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t end up getting Lucy, you’d make a weird couple.�
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  “Is that what you think? You think that any random person could’ve walked in here and made me feel the way you do? No one but you and your pigheaded fury could’ve pulled me from the darkness. Don’t ever underestimate yourself—you’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”

  I thought the chunks would make their way back down to my stomach but they stayed in place—because it was high time I made my own admissions.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  Breaker weaved an unruly strand of hair behind my ear, “You can tell me anything.”

  “Your mom pays me—a lot.” I twirled around the real point.

  “Good, you deserve it and she certainly has the money.”

  I scrunched up my face. He’d missed my point.

  “She pays me to clean. And in the beginning she said she’d pay me extra if I’d try to get you out of your—she called it phase.”

  He didn’t have the reaction I’d expected. I expected him to stomp from the room, throw things and never speak to me again. But it didn’t feel right to lie to him.

  “She paid extra to handle her nut job of a son, huh?” It was a question but he was on his back again, catechizing the air instead of me.

  His stance grew frigid again, “So you did your job well. You used your wiles to get me out of the house.”

  “I did—in the beginning. Then everything changed.”

  “Yeah, you realized what a sap I was and how easy it would be to fool me.”

  “Look at me.” He was acting like a child. “Look at me Breaker James.”

  He turned only his face towards me. “Put your pesky ego aside. Think about what has happened between us. Then let me know if you think I was just doing a job.”

  I got up and went back to my room. Who wants to be in a romantic little nook with someone they’re upset with? He had every right to be leery of me now, but I knew that it was so much more than a job. It stopped being a job when he told me he loved my voice.

  I climbed between my sheets, proud of myself for telling him the truth but disappointed in myself for not telling him the whole of it. He needed to know about my concern that he’d latched onto me. He needed to know that I didn’t really think he was getting well at all.

  I drifted to sleep sometime after midnight, not a good birthday after all.

  Breaker

  I had to break free from this pattern. I always trapped myself into these artificial tantrums as a reaction to everything. I wasn’t an idiot. I’d figured my mom had paid her to get under my skin. My mother thought she could pay anyone to do anything. So when she admitted it to me, which took guts, I should’ve told her I could care less. I should’ve told her it didn’t matter.

  Because it didn’t matter—I loved her for who she was even if I never left this house again.

  After hours of immature groveling I went down to her room. I hated to wake her but I didn’t want any more of her birthday to be stagnant with festering anger. She lay on her left side, facing the door, looking as angelic on the outside as she was on the inside. I knelt beside the bed and took in the sight of her.

  “Ash—Ash, baby wake up.”

  Her eyes opened immediately, like even in her dream state she’d been waiting for me.

  “Did you come to tell me what an ass you were?”

  She was trying to be funny but I just couldn’t laugh—she was so right.

  “Yes. I don’t care who or what money brought you here. I’m just thankful that you found your way into my life.”

  “Did you come to tell me that you acting like that cut you out of a hot, birthday make-out session and that makes you even more of an ass?”

  “Yes. And I need to make another confession.”

  She flopped onto her back and groaned, “Ok, but just one more. Three confessions per night is my quota.”

  “I’m afraid,” I whispered to her. She moved over on the bed giving me room to get in next to her. She was so strong and I felt like such a weakling around her all the time. One day I wanted to be her strength, I would be the hand reaching out to her through the waves.

  I got in next to her, “I’m afraid I’m—God, this is hard to admit.”

  Her hand glided down my jaw, “Tell me.”

  “I tried—I tried to go out the other day, just for a walk or something. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make it passed the damned threshold of the door.”

  Her face was pure disappointment and I knew mine mirrored it. And admitting it to her, I felt like a shadow of a man.

  “But you tried right? That has to count. I mean, you go out with me all the time.” Her voice faltered at the end of the sentence.

  “I did try. But I couldn’t go through with it.”

  She scooted closer to me and put one hand on my face while she buried her own in the hollow of my neck. “Can you just hold me and forget that there’s something we can’t do? I’d like to hang on to the notion that you can do anything—just for the night.”

  And there was nothing else I wanted than to buy into her beliefs. I wanted to lay there with her thinking that with her by my side I could conquer the world. But I couldn’t. But even more than that, I wanted to be able to conquer the world without her. Because one day, and I hated to even think about when that day would come, she would need me to be more than just a tagalong. In order to do that I had to start facing the cold, hard fact—I needed to do this by myself. Just the thought pulsing through my neurons made me hold her tighter in physical protest. I wasn’t ready to let her go—I just found her.

  “Just go to sleep birthday girl.” I spent the night taking all of her in. The way her body ebbed when she sighed in her sleep—the way she fit her left hind foot, where it met her leg, between the big toe and second toe of her other foot. She curled her fists into her body like she was shielding them from harm. She whimpered my name once and I came undone.

  After her birthday, I would have to make a decision.

  I got her new running shoes and had flowers and balloons delivered to the house on her birthday. I’d seen her raggedy running shoes and honestly worried for her safety in them. I made sure her birthday had as much joy as I could give her.

  We were tense now. We shuffled around each other awkwardly since the night we’d opened our chests and let our souls speak to one another in earnest.

  She’d spent a lot of time out of the house the past three weeks. I’d tried almost daily to make myself leave the house but it wasn’t happening. We pretended to be ok, but we were far from it. I knew she started school soon and I decided to see about spending some time with her before she went back to school. I tramped down the stairs and knocked on the door to her room, fully prepared to be happy, even if I had to straight up fake it. She opened her door and smiled faintly at me. Behind her, I could see her clothes folded up in piles on her bed. My first instinct thought she was doing laundry or cleaning out her dresser—and then I saw her suitcases.

  “Hey,” she bit her bottom lip, which she never did, and looked in the direction that my eyes were staring, “I was coming to talk to you tonight.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yeah, let’s go in the living room and talk.” I stared after her things so nearly organized on her bed for a few more seconds before following her down the hallway and into the living room.

  We sat on the couch, and I could feel the distance she sat from me in my bones.

  “I’m leaving, Breaker.”

  “Where are you going? I’ll go with you.” As soon as those two phrases escaped my mouth, I knew how foolish I sounded. She wasn’t going to Burger King—idiot.

  “I’ve gotten an apartment with Stephanie. I move in tomorrow. I didn’t tell you before because I knew you’d be able to talk me out of it—Lord knows I’ve changed my mind forty three times a day.”

  I was crushed, “Why—just tell me why.”

  “For us,” she said it so low that I barely heard her.

  “You might want to explain that.”

&nbs
p; She wrung her hands and picked the side of her thumb nail—more things she never did.

  “Because we’ve become too attached. I’m staying here all the time because I want to spend all this time with you. And you need me to leave.”

  She did not just pull that bullshit with me.

  “I need you to leave?”

  “Yeah, you do.” She’d straightened up and was now speaking in a tone that sounded practiced. “Because you’ve become too dependent on me. You can go places, but only with me. You can do anything you want, but only with me. You’re not better, Breaker, you’re just…”

  “Different,” I finished it for her. I knew it already and had planned and failed at making a way to recover with her still there but apparently that wasn’t in the cards. “Are you leaving me?”

  “No, God no. Ugh—I had such a great speech outlined so that I said everything in the right way and you understood. I conveyed all my points and still maintained the fact that I loved you. I’m so pissed.” She bounced closer to me on the couch and held my hands in hers, “I’m not leaving you, I’m just leaving this house so that you can have the space you need to heal—really heal for yourself. And I need you to know the reason. If you and I are gonna have a future together, and I want that more than anything—if we are, then you have to be well. You have to live, Breaker. This isn’t a life for either one of us.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me.”

  “All it would take would be one kiss from you and I’d forget the whole thing. It has to be done this way.”

  “When do you leave?” A small part of me still begged for time to change her mind.

  “First thing in the morning.” I expected the panic attack, welcomed it even. It would excuse me from feeling abandoned and betrayed. But the one time I wished it upon myself, it never came.

  I got up and started my déjà vuish trek up those wretched stairs. If I hated the house I lived in before, I despised it now.

  “Breaker!” She yelled at me.