Dreams

He stared at the ground for almost fifteen minutes. His eyes were glazed over with tears he couldn’t bear to show. His heart was as heavy as a boulder, pounding with the force of a boxer smashing it with his fist. He could not even look up from the stained white carpet that his feet indented. He could barely utter the words that he had to say next. His mouth opened but the words could not pass the barrier of his mind. He just stood there wishing it was easier, waiting, hoping the longer he delayed the problem go away.

She knew something was wrong; she knew for a long time. She anticipated what would be coming. She knew what he had to say, but wished he would never be able to say it. For weeks, months even, she prayed it was her imagination. She justified every phone call, every time he did not look her in the eye when he came home late. She could not remember the last time he looked at her the way he used to, with the sincerity and the love that he had in the past, and told her she was everything he needed. She was sure she was ready for everything that was coming; but words began to spew without any control. Her words came spilling out of her mouth like the tears falling down her cheeks. She could not stop the words before they reached the air.

“Really, Really! NO! I do not deserve this. I deserve more than this you son a bitch! Two days; you wait two days before my wedding to do this! You wait until now, after everything I have gone through! I will not let you ruin my day, the day that was supposed to be ours… the freaking happiest day of our life! I will not let you make a fool out of me!”

She was angry at him but she did not blame him. At first the blame all fell on her. She knew something was coming but she did not want to admit it. She had a feeling when he asked her to marry him in August that he was doing it because it was expected, not because he sincerely wanted to get married. Maybe that is why she wanted to get married in December, not because it was winter or the joy of Christmas time, but so he could not back out.

The words started pouring out like the tears in his eyes, he could not hold back any longer. His words exploded into the air but his eyes still did not leave the safety of the dirty, white carpet.

“Please, it’s not you, I love you. I always have, I have for twelve years, I have ever since our parents introduced us in middle school.  I always will. Every time you laugh, every time you smile, it brightens my day, but the truth is I am not in love with you, I am not dying to get married tomorrow, and when I look at you I do not feel the same way as I did years ago. It is nothing compared to the way I feel when I look at him. There are so many uncertainties; there shouldn’t be. Maybe we need to try new things, maybe I need to try this, him. Maybe we need to see. If I get married tomorrow it would be ruining both our lives.”

“Look at me, look at my face you coward!” She was upset, angry. The anger towards herself turned to fire towards him. “How dare you imply this is for both of us, to save both of us. How dare you claim that by telling me you are not in love with me, you are in love with another man, you are helping both of us. I know what I want, I want to get married tomorrow, I want you by my side. I said yes, I committed to this relationship, you committed to this relationship! You are throwing me away like a smelly old sock that got a little too dirty. Do whatever the hell you want, but do not dare say that this is for us; this is for you, to make you feel better. This is to make you ‘happy’. There is nothing in this situation that is helping me. You may want to try new things, but I am fine the way I am, where we are. You had months to say something, you did not have to pledge to marry me, you did that out of your own free will and you are going to be the one that is sorry!”

His head slowly rose, fighting against the pain and the sadness that held it down. He looked straight into her eyes for the first time in months. He leaned forward and took her soft, moisturized hand and held it in between his, softly, carefully. He could not say anything, all he could do was stare into her tear filled eyes and painfully watch the innocence and the joy she had an hour ago slowly disappear like a shadow in the dark.

As their hands gently fused together, she thought about everything. The past 12 years, their life together, their friendship, their love. She thought about it all. The only thing in those 12 years that she always thought made since was she loved him and he loved her. Through all the crappy days and the fights that caused one of them to sleep on the couch, she always loved him. Even now, she could not hate him. She could barely stand to look at him, knowing he would soon be walking out of her life, but she could not hate him. She was angry, aggravated, and ready to punch him so hard he would forget what day it was, but she still loved him. He was her best friend; he was the one that made since. He was always the one that stood behind her and caught her when she fell. He was the only one that sat there when her eyes were all puffy and she was drowning in a sea of tissues after her father passed away. He was it.

For him too, she was always the one that made since. They did everything together. His father always expected him to marry a beautiful women, have kids settle down; marry her. Living alone, especially with another man, was out of the question. He wanted to please his father and his whole family. So why not marry his best friend, why not love his best friend? Ever since middle school his father told him, “she’s a nice girl, she’s what you want. She would be a good catch son. You should marry her some day, you would do well. You would be a lucky man.” His father would never accept anything else.

He spent his whole life doing what he wanted, except when it came to getting married. He never really wanted to get married, he thought kids would be nice but his whole life was not based around that. He never cared about pleasing his parents because in most cases they would always come back to him. But marriage was always the one thing that there was not option of blowing off or changing. He could not do it, he wanted to, he wanted to please his parents, he wanted to please her. He loved her, and he cared a great deal about her. It killed him to break her heart, but he just could not do it.

“There should not be a question, there should not be doubt. We should not do what makes since. It is what we have always done. It is all we know. But I cannot anymore. I look at him, and the world around me gets blurry, my knees get weak, all I want is for him to warp his perfectly chiseled arms around me. I am ready to do what does not make since.”

“You will lose everything. You will lose me; you will lose your family. Is he really worth it? Am I not? Do not do this just to change your life up. If your life is too boring go climb a tree, go sky diving, go base jumping for god sakes. If you leave and it is not what you expect or you change your mind, I will not be here to let you break my heat again.”

He looked at her one more time and softly laid his lips on her check and took a leap of faith. He walked out the door, leaving a blank check with his signature and a note.

“I wish it wasn’t this way, but I cannot lie to you or myself any longer. Not for my parents, not even to keep your heart from breaking, which is one of the most terrible things I have ever done. This check is for you, for the wedding, for everything you may need. I know you are hurt, and left without a best friend, but maybe it is for the best. It has been twelve years. You have been tied down to me and your families’ expectations. Runaway, climb Mount Everest, go skydiving, fall in love again, harder that you did with me.”

The note was covered with dry tears and the heart of a man she knew lover her but could not stay. She understood, but she could not forget, she could not stop feeling worthless. She could not let it go. Every day that passed, every minute that dragged by, she sat in her three bedroom house, made for a growing family, staring at the unopened wedding gifts and the surprise she would never get a chance to give him. She stared at the stick sitting in front of her that she had wrapped for him as his wedding gift, the stick that would start their perfect family.

 Maybe this was what he meant, do something different with her life. She was going to start a family, the adventure she always wanted. Maybe she did not need a man. It was not the way she expected, but nothing had been as expected lately.

For the first time in days she saw a future for herself again, for her baby, one that she did not expect or plan for but a future.

She painted one of the empty rooms in her large colonial cottage, bright orange for the baby she knew was going to be a girl. She just had an instinct and maybe it was too early to be getting ready but she could not wait. Once again she was getting ready for the happiest day of her life.

For weeks she spent hours every day putting together a cradle, a crib, even a baby changing station. She picked out a wall paper trim that was filled with teddy bears and clowns funny red noses. It was an enormous amount of work that always made her overly tired. Her hands got callused and cut, but to her it was all worth it.

Three and a half months she had been carrying, until one day, she stood balancing on the ladder in the almost finished room and felt a wed stream of what seemed to be a thick red paint dripping down to the bottom of her pants. But it was not paint.

The tears once again overwhelmed her and the anger she had could not be controlled. She tore the wall paper trim down off the walls, leaving a sticky white residue on the orange walls. She heaved a large hammer through the wall, making an extremely loud boom and plaster flew everywhere, raining down on the tarp covered room. She collapsed; she could not move.

For hours she sat in the dirty, now ruined, wrecked bedroom. She rocked side to die with tears dripping off her checked onto paint ridden jeans, painted her face bright red.

She was left, once again by the only thing she cared about, the only thing she thought she could call hers. She was left, along, staring at her past dreams that would not, that did not, come true.