by Unknown
Aiden and I sat on one of the benches near Brit and Chris, where we held hands and I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing in his clean scent through the odor of engine oil and jet fuel. Despite not being madly in love with him, he is still a comfort to me. I do love him; it’s hard not to in some way, shape, or form. He’s just a really good guy, funny, and can be so charming at times. I’m content with him, which is more than I could’ve thought possible after my experience with Jason.
So when it was time for Aiden to get into formation with his fellow airmen, it was with genuine, heartfelt sadness I gave him one last long kiss goodbye, hanging onto his hand for as long as I could before he let it go when he walked to the other side of the hangar. I watched with tears in my eyes as they played the national anthem, listening as their commanding officer gave a speech and led a prayer that they’d all come back safely.
I’ve missed him while he’s been gone. I even made a countdown on my blog for when he comes back, picking a roundabout date, since they can’t tell us for sure when they’ll be home. We email each other every day, and I talk to him on the phone about once every three or four days.
The three of us girls go out dancing at least once a week, and I take pictures of myself to send Aiden in my emails. At first, he loved the pictures, telling me how beautiful I look, but lately, he’s been…off, and the phone conversation I’m having with him right now just proves my uneasy feeling.
“We went to South Beach tonight,” I answer after he asks me what I’d been up to today.
“Again? Y’all go like every week,” he remarks, an annoyed tone to his voice. I’m not going to apologize for or stop hanging out with my friends. We all love dancing, and South Beach is the only place in town that plays decent music, so that’s where we regularly go.
“Yeah, that’s our place. We never get messed with while we’re there, and the bouncers know us now and always keep an eye out for us. You have nothing to worry about,” I reassure him, thinking his concern is for our safety.
“I got the email a couple hours ago, from when you were getting ready with Anni to go out. Is it really necessary for you to dress like that?” he asks testily.
I look down at my hiphugger jeans and my white crop top I’m still wearing, since he called right when I walked in my door after coming home from the club at one a.m. I’m dressed like every other girl who goes out dancing. Actually, I’m far more covered up than most of them. Some girls show up in low-cut dresses that barely cover their butt while they’re standing, so you can bet your sweet ass when they dance and bend over, they are showing all their goodies.
“I’m wearing jeans and a shirt, Aiden. I’m not out there flashing everyone my pussy in a miniskirt. And you’ve been out with us before. You know I spend most of the time sitting at a table drinking, and only get up to dance when my favorite songs come on. Shit, we don’t even get there ‘til nearly eleven, so we’re only there for a couple hours as it is,” I huff.
“Why do you have to wear makeup? Who are you trying to look good for?” he inquires, and that is the absolute last straw.
“Are you fucking kidding me? When have you ever seen me without makeup? I’m a girl! I’m twenty-one, and I care about the way I look. I’m not going to go out into public looking like shit. I dress up and put on makeup for myself, not for anyone else, because I like to feel good about myself. Where is all this shit coming from, Aiden? You’re pissing me the hell off with this insecurity bullshit. I have never done anything to deserve all this interrogation,” I practically yell, trying not to wake up my parents down the hall.
After a pause, he finally speaks up. “I’m sorry, baby. One of our guys just found out his wife cheated on him the week after we deployed. A fucking week. He was only gone seven days when she went out and found someone else to fuck. It’s just messing with my head.”
I know deployments can be hard for both the guy and his significant other back home. There are bad days, and there are good days, and I feel bad his friend got cheated on and put that little nugget in Aiden’s head, but that’s no excuse to freakin’ talk to me like that.
“I’m sorry for your friend, but you have nothing to worry about. If you think that’s something I’d do to you, then that’s really fucked up. I thought you knew me better than that. Why would you ask me to marry you if you thought I’d cheat on you the moment you left the country?” I snap.
“I know you wouldn’t. It’s just…I miss you, and being over here gets lonely, when all I want to do is be home with you, curled up and watching a movie or something. It’s only been a month, and I’m already going crazy without you. I’ve been on a ton of deployments, and I’ve never had anyone waiting on me back home before. It’s much…different. Way harder than I thought it was going to be,” he confesses.
Maybe it’s the drinking I did at the club, but his words don’t affect me the way he probably thought they would, and I reply, “Well snap the hell out of it. Think of how cool it’s going to be when you get back, when we get to go pick out an apartment that’s all our own. Just stay busy; that’s what I’m doing. I miss you too, but I’m trying to keep my mind off it.”
We talk for a little while longer, until he’s back to his normal upbeat self, and when we hang up, I barely have the energy to change into pajamas before I pass right out. It’s my normal nightly routine, the only way I’ve found not to lie awake thinking about dark brown eyes and perfect lips that never failed to make my heart race, something it hasn’t done in a really long time.
Kayla’s Chick Rant & Book Blog
December 12, 2005
What is it they say about boredom? An idle mind is the devil’s playground? Well, ain’t that the damn truth. And MySpace is the fucking merry-go-round. Why? Why did I get on the damn search feature? Why did I type in his name? I was just asking for trouble. What the hell is wrong with me?
I wasn’t expecting Jason’s name to come up. He doesn’t seem like the social media type. Of course, he did have the Plenty of Fish account, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’m sure lots of people use MySpace as a dating site; I mean, that’s how I found Carson before I met Aiden. I just use it to find old friends from high school nowadays.
He’s got a plain black background, but all his lettering is neon green, and he has “Aerials” by System of a Down as the song playing on his page. The profile picture he has chosen is of him sitting at his parents’ dining room table with some friends I don’t recognize, playing cards, with Ramen Noodles hanging out from between his lips. Even as stupidly silly as it is, I couldn’t help the tears that sprung to my eyes at seeing his face for the first time in seven months.
I clicked on the picture, bringing up his different albums. There were several of him with a white hardhat on his head, and there was heavy machinery in the background. There was one of him on the floor with a black cat, and he was smiling up at the camera. The smile made my heart hurt, and I forced myself to click out of the pictures before I came across something that might’ve killed me.
I went back to his main page and looked through his About Me.
Name: Jason Robichaux
Location: Houston, Texas
Star Sign: Aquarius
Birthday: January 25
Marital Status: Single
I stopped right there, though. That’s all I really wanted to know, if he had found someone else yet. Not even thinking about it, I clicked on the button to follow him.
I haven’t gotten a notification saying he added me yet, and I’m sitting here freaking the fuck out, thinking about what I’ve done.
That was such a dumb idea.
The next day, after obsessively checking my MySpace, and totally stalking Jason’s profile, I finally get the notification I’ve been waiting for. Jason added me to his friend list. And not too long after, I receive a private message from him.
From: Jason Robichaux
Wow, long time, no speak, stranger. How have you been? How is the married life? I see yo
ur husband…weird…is in the Chair Force and is deployed right now. You getting along okay? I’ve got a really good job for a company putting together windmills. They send me all over the place. It’s pretty cool, and I’m in charge of projects that cost millions of dollars. Can you believe someone put me in charge of that much money? Yeah, me neither.
Anyway, sorry about that phone call a few months ago. The next day, when I woke up with a hangover from hell and remembered what I’d done, I felt like a complete asshole. I haven’t called back, because your friend Anni is scary as fuck. That girl can make a man’s ballsac shrivel in fear.
Anyway, I hope to hear from you. I do miss you like crazy.
Jason
My heart pounds as I read and reread his words over and over. It’s like no time has passed. Unlike his last phone call, I’m not filled with anger or devastation. But it does bring back every feeling that’s lain dormant for the past few months. Him talking about my husband makes me cringe, making me feel…embarrassed almost. I sit back in my computer chair, wondering how to respond, and after a few minutes of mulling it over, I decide just to wing it.
From: Kayla Lanmon
Hey there!
Building windmills? How did you even come across a job doing something like that? And no, I can’t believe they let you play with millions of dollars. They better audit you to see how much of that goes toward Shiner and cigarettes. I bet that takes up quite a chunk.
The deployment is going good. I’m staying busy. I work at GNC, the nutrition place, and I’m living with my parents until he gets back. I hang out with Anni all the time, and I have lots of reading time, so it’s actually passed pretty quickly. Hard to believe he already gets back next month.
I miss you, too.
Kayla
I proofread my message to him before I send it, fixing a couple of typos I made in my haste to talk to Jason, and press the send button.
I feel a little guilty talking to him when I’m married to someone else, but when I think about it, I know lots of people who are friends with their exes. Maybe that’s what we could be. Yes, I would give anything to be with him, but I know he doesn’t want that, so I’ll be happy with him in my life in any way. He was my best friend in Texas before we started sleeping together. There’s no reason we can’t go back to the way things were. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself.
Sometimes I wish she was you. I guess we never really moved on.
Over the next two months, Jason and I message each other back and forth like a ritual. It feels like we’re the old Jason and Kayla, before the confession he made about liking me since the day he met me, when he told me he didn’t really like large women. I update him daily on what I’m up to, almost like he’s a diary who actually responds. He confides in me just the same. I haven’t told anyone about our correspondence. I can’t help feeling it’s a dirty little secret, but I always justify it to myself by saying in my head we’re just friends. It doesn’t matter the love I had for him has grown exponentially over our emails. It’s not like I’ve flown to Texas to fuck his brains out…even though I’ve fantasized about it nightly.
The usual face-splitting grin returns every time I see I have a message from him waiting in my inbox.
From: Jason Robichaux
December 28, 2005
I am so sick of the beer in Iowa. Wish you’d fly out here with a pack of Dos Equis to split with me. But don’t forget the lime and salt. You don’t like it plain.
Get this: I wanted to go out to a nice restaurant one night to break up the monotony of fast food and mom-and-pops places here in the boonies, and when I asked where I should go, the dude told me, “Oh! We have a really nice restaurant up the way there. But you gotta put on your Sunday best. You can’t miss it. It’s called Applebee’s.”
I don’t know what I laughed at more, his accent, or the fact he thought I needed to put on my Sunday best for a fucking Applebee’s.
Save me.
As the weeks pass on, writing each other every day, we get comfortable again, talking about anything and everything, even asking each other advice, me about Aiden, and him about random girls he decides to go out on dates with. It makes me vomity thinking about him with other girls, but I have no right to be jealous, when I’m in NC fucking married to another man.
From: Kayla Lanmon
January 16, 2006
Aiden comes home tomorrow. I’m excited to go apartment hunting! I’ve always wanted a place I could make my own, decorate it however I like. I’ve been collecting all sorts of stuff since he left, to have to put up on the walls and make our place pretty.
I wonder if it’s going to be awkward between us, after having not seen each other in four months. He’s still being weird. He’s been questioning every single thing on our bank account, from how much I spent at the club on drinks, to every single item I’ve bought at Wal-Mart or at the mall.
At first, I would go along with it, using it as conversation during our phone calls, telling him about the new outfit I found or the cute throw pillows I picked out for the new apartment. Conversations with someone in the desert get really boring after a while. I mean, they can’t really talk about what they are doing over there, and you’re just going on with your usual mundane daily life, so the call usually goes like this:
Him: Hey, what did you do today?
Me: The usual. What about you?
Him: Same ole, same ole. I miss you.
Me: Miss you too. Only insert number of days left until you get home.
Him: Yep, I’m excited.
Me: Me too.
cricket chirp, cricket chirp
But then it started getting really annoying when he’d want to know exactly what I bought at the grocery store, like he’s waiting for me to confess I bought extra-large condoms and an economy sized bottle of lube so I can go out a-cheatin’.
I thought I’d be smart and just cash my paychecks and use the money to go about my business, but he noticed I hadn’t deposited it right away. I told him I just hadn’t made it to the bank yet.
I don’t know. After the whole blow up over me wearing makeup, and now all this craziness over what I’m spending money on, I’m feeling like the walls are closing in on me. I don’t like being controlled…unless I’m naked. snort
Yeah, okay. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to Jason—or any friend in general—over marital things like bank accounts, but I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. I need some advice, and not the kind given by counselors on base, who would no doubt take the side of the person deployed. They’d give me psycho-babble about what they’re going through over there, when really, there’s no excuse for Aiden’s controlling behavior.
What had happened to the sweet man I married, who months before we got hitched had given me his debit card and told me to buy whatever? It’s not like I was out spending money irresponsibly. I’m a very frugal person. I always shop sales and use coupons, and I don’t buy extravagant things. And I’m buying things for us, for our apartment, to make it a home. The one thing I buy myself that I don’t feel is a necessity are my books, and those are actually pretty vital to my sanity. But even those I buy at Edward McKay’s, the used bookstore my mom and I have been going to since I was a little girl.
From: Jason Robichaux
February 6, 2006
Have you gotten all moved in yet? How’s all your frou-frou girl shit look? I know you were excited about decorating. Hope he’s chilled out now that he’s been home a couple weeks. Makes me a little crazy thinking you’re over there miserable. All I want is for you to be happy.
My friend Alissa and I are getting an apartment together. That’ll be weird. Not because she’s a girl or anything, because she’s like a sister, but because I’ll have my own place. I won’t be there very often. Maybe for about a week at a time once every couple months, since I work out of town all the time. It’s mostly because she needed a place to stay but couldn’t afford rent by herself, so I figured why not.
Can’
t wait to see some pics of your new digs. I’ll send you some of mine when I get moved in. I’m sure it won’t look as good as yours though.
I can’t help the bit of jealousy that fills me thinking about Jason living with another girl. He’s told me about Alissa, and I totally believe there is nothing between them, but still. I remember how hopeful I’d been that last time I saw him, driving down to Friendswood, believing he was going to ask me to stay in Houston past my semester of school. My mind had run rampant, imagining Jason and me moving in together.
After I get my kitchen and dining room all decorated, I snap a few pictures and send them to him. I’ve covered the walls in everything I could find that was Irish-themed, from four-leaf clover dangling lights that circle the small dining area off the kitchen, a metal wall sign that says Irish Pub, and I even found some neon beer signs. It may not be Irish, but I couldn’t help buying the glowing green Dos Equis sign I hung in one of the corners.
All of my kitchenware is green. It might be cheesy, nowhere near classy-looking, but we’re young and it’s fun. I have plenty of years ahead of me to turn into a Stepford wife with floral patterns and lace.
After seeing everything put together, Aiden loved all the stuff I’d bought. He apologized for being crazy while he was away, and chalked it up to missing me so much and wanting to be home. I told him I forgave him. But in my mind, I knew I’d never forget.
From: Kayla Lanmon
February 20, 2006
You’re going to think I’m such a nerd…or maybe you won’t. I remember you and Gavin talking about Day of Defeat all the time. I’m totally into a video game! Aiden got a PlayStation while he was in the desert. I think he said his dad sent it to him for his birthday in December in a care package. Anyway, I was getting really annoyed when all he’d want to do is come home from work and play it all night, so he went out and got this game we could both play. It’s called Champions of Norrath.