And here he was, drunk, fat, and toothless lying on my couch telling me how he was fucking over his company. And when he was mid-sentence, I blurted it out.
“When was the last time you talked to Taylor?”
He looked around. “Why? What? Why?”
“I’m curious. When?”
“It’s been a very long time. Why?”
“I’m curious. What about Emme?”
“Even longer.” He sat up and looked at me. “Why?” I knew it was a lie. Her picture was time stamped just days before.
“I’m curious.”
“You’re not going to start this again, are you?” Of course this was going to be my fault.
“Why can’t you just be honest for once?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” His patience was always short, but I didn’t know that for sure until this point in our relationship. He would say he was a very patient man, but he wasn’t. I saw it once when we were driving. Somebody cut him off. He reacted and threw his hands up. I could physically see the anger rise in him and when he saw me looking at him, he took a breath and said, “Well, there it is. That’s about how worked up you’ll ever see me.” He had to consciously bring himself down during that incident, and I imagine he had a lot of practice checking his anger over the years. Because even he knew that if it got out of control, he wasn’t sure what would happen. It was like the time we were driving to the concert. He was a tailgater and I made a joke about taking a flight back. A year later he brought that up to me and finally told me how angry that joke made him. A year. He had held onto that one comment for a year. And for a year, it boiled inside of him. It got at him. For a year. And for a year, he hid it. For a year, he was keeping mental notes of what it was that bothered him so much.
“Never mind.” I walked into the bedroom. He followed me. I turned and he stood close. He pointed his finger at me and poked at my chest. I swatted his hand away.
“You don’t get to accuse me of something and walk away.” He was so drunk, he swayed in place.
I calmly addressed him, which I think pissed him off more. “I didn’t accuse you of anything. I am not sure why you’re reacting like this.”
“Fuck this.” He walked to the dresser and picked up his keys. “I am not going to be made into the bad guy here.” He pulled on a pair of jeans and a hoodie. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” He put on a hat.
And all I could do was watch and I was so calm that it was almost frightening how much I didn’t care. Because for the first time, I had proof that it wasn’t me making all this up.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that when he took his Facebook down after I posted a picture of us and tagged him in it, that he did that because he was hiding us.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that he and his co-worker Amy were probably fucking in the storage room at lunch.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that Taylor was still in the picture and when he wanted to hire her again that it wasn’t just business.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that he had one foot out the door but was holding on because I was helping him with his bills and surgeries.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that he was using me.
It wasn’t me just “imagining” that he was devaluing me. Like the cycle said.
No, this time I had proof it was him and as he walked out the door, there was only one thing I could say to him as he crawled into the SUV I bought him.
“If you take that car, I will call you in as a DUI.”
I walked back inside as he walked away on foot through the neighborhood. No keys. No wallet. No tooth.
I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. I cried until I laughed and then I laughed until I cried.
And, in that moment, I could feel my soul writhing in pain. Twisting. Burning. But it wasn’t until I got up to go after him that I knew I had been fully possessed. Because what sane person goes to rescue the monster who was trying to kill her?
Me. The answer is me.
And I found him walking down the side of the road. Stumbling. I rolled down the window. “Get in. You can sleep it off and leave tomorrow.” It took him a minute to figure out who I was and when he did, he ran.
And I don’t mean like a jog.
I mean like a true “Forest Gump” run. Knees to the chest. His hoodie bouncing up and down being caught on the air. His mouth open to breathe, but his jaw clenched exposing a hole where his tooth should be.
Just running. Sprinting down the street.
I was so taken back by the sight that I didn’t know what to do.
So, I went home.
And eventually, so did he.
Magic
By the time he made it to the house the next morning (I think he slept in some bushes somewhere because he said something about waking up to a horse neighing over him), he took a shower and apologized for his reaction. I made up some bullshit story about how I had seen a picture over his shoulder when he had his phone open and he did his best to explain that one picture away, not knowing that I knew it wasn’t just the “one” picture. I told him it was unacceptable and I gave him until the end of the year to get it together or get out.
Please don’t ask me why. I don’t know how to explain this but I had this overwhelming urge to see if he would do it and get rid of all of them for me, because I asked him to. I wanted so badly to believe he loved me that I had to find out if he did. And now that I had access to everything, he couldn’t lie to “prove it.” I would know for sure.
He agreed and the love bomb came again. The next few months were back to being idyllic. There were no new pictures. No strange emails. His Facebook was back up. He let me tag him. It was like as instantaneously as he decided to do the right thing by me, he changed. And, in the process, he was loving me. Hard. He was extremely attentive. This time, he shared his location with me and he volunteered it. He wasn’t going to the bar after work. He was spending a lot of time at the grocery store, which was odd, but he was also cooking for me most nights. We even had a bet on some television shows so every night, we would talk and laugh about who was winning the bet about whatever reality show we were immersed in.
That Christmas, we decided to travel to Seattle to spend it with his new family. Me, him, and Olivia. I did all the shopping. For his mom, his sisters, brothers, and all his new nieces and nephews. All twelve of them. I wanted to make a good impression.
We arrived on Christmas Eve and ate early with his mom. It was sweet how she gushed over him, filling his plate high, and then him trying to eat more when she insisted on a second helping. We were tired and decided to make our way back to our hotel so that we could get some rest before the big day the next day. On the way there, he pulled over, pulled out his map, and told us there was something he wanted to show us. It was getting dark and snowy, but we were up for anything that night. He drove a couple of miles away, up and down a few streets until he came to the one.
“My parents brought me and my sister here every year.”
It was always strange to hear him say anything remotely loving about his adoptive mother, but I don’t think she was as awful as he claimed she was. When I first met him, he referred to her as his mother, but after he met his “real” mom, he then started calling her Momma Helen, almost stripping her of her exclusive title as his mother. But all of his childhood memories, like this one, involved her, not his bio mom who was likely celebrating Christmas with her own family just a few miles away while he was driving the streets of a Winter Wonderland looking at lights with the family who took him in. Just like on this night. Except this night, it was me and Olivia, another family who took him in, that he was with. We blared the Christmas music and drove slowly down the street, “oooohing” and “awwwwing”, until we came to the end, turned the corner, and came across a row of businesses in an old Victorian building. One lone light was on inside one of the stores and we got out to explore.