Bulletproof (13 page)

the satisfaction of a win

please know i care about you

but I’m so lost on what you mean

i could never turn my back on you

i just need to be alone to dream

so while I’m out there facing the world

i want you to do the same

find out who you really are

so we don’t have to play this game

find yourself and i’ll find me

even if it takes forever

because two lost hearts

will never make it together

and after we have lived life

as two separate souls

after we’re determined as individuals

and conquered our separate goals

then maybe, just maybe

our paths will again cross

i hope that if they never do

you’ll be thankful for this loss

because my wish for us is to better apart

and even if it takes us years

even if we never join again

we will both be somewhere better than here

CHAPTER 18:

FOOL ME TWICE

There are a lot of different ways to be unhappy in a relationship, and it’s not always abject misery. Kyle and I had been living in the house for about four months when it became clear that we were slowly, peacefully sliding downhill. I’d been through the decline of a relationship before, but this was a completely different scenario. And while I wasn’t a completely different person, I was definitely getting older and strong enough not to ignore the writing on the wall. It wasn’t that we were arguing or unhappy with each other all the time. Not at all. It was just that there were issues between us that kept the relationship from being everything that a healthy relationship needs to be.

At that point, Bentley was getting older and I was getting older, too. I didn’t want to waste time again trying to build or rescue a family situation when all the signs were hinting that it could be a doomed cause. It came to the stage where I knew I had to open my eyes, assess the situation, and figure out what I could do to improve it. But the choices weren’t easy to dissect into pros and cons. We weren’t happy, but we were content. I was unsatisfied, and I was pretty sure he was, too, but it would have been easy, technically, to stay in that relationship forever. Since he hated conflict so much, we wouldn’t be arguing or fighting like Ryan and I had. But it could easily turn into a life where I gave up on trying to address problems or express my concerns, because I’d learned he would just shut down. Did I want to spend the rest of my life like that, swallowing any friction or negative feelings between us because I’d learned he refused to deal with them? I definitely did not.

But there was a lot of good going on, too, and a lot of history between us. The waters were calm, and besides, I believed that he wanted to stay together, whether he was feeling the same dissatisfaction I felt or not. It didn’t matter that he was still terrified of marriage. A lot of men are like that: Commitment-phobic while still terrified of being alone. I thought he saw the writing on the wall as clearly as I did, but he wasn’t going anywhere, and he didn’t expect me to, either.

It didn’t end the way I expected.

One night I came home very late after a trip from a speaking engagement somewhere. When I got home, Kyle and Bentley were asleep, and I got on my computer to check my email and things. Kyle’s Facebook was on the screen. I have never, ever in my life been the type of person to go through someone’s phone or stalk their social media accounts. In my mind, if you have to do something like that, then why even be with that person? But when I looked at the screen, the pop-up chat windows were right there on the screen. Kyle had been talking to a girl he’d been with before he and I were together. And the talk was not appropriate. At all.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought. “This is a joke.” But the words felt flat in my head. I wasn’t even sure if I was shocked, or mad, or upset. I literally just closed the computer, and I knew I was going to be gone.

Instead of making a fuss or giving him the chance to talk me out of it, I just took Bentley and went to my parents’ house. When he woke up, we’d gone. I spent that night looking up houses for rent. It was surprisingly unemotional. It sucked, but I didn’t cry and I wasn’t mad. It just seemed like a sign. I thought, “This is what you needed. Go ahead and leave.”

This was the crazy thing: Kyle never said a word about it. Not about the girl. Not about me leaving. I don’t know what he thought. Maybe he realized what I’d seen, somehow, or maybe he thought I’d seen even more than I did. Maybe he got on Facebook and figured out his chats had been seen. Maybe the girl saw his account online when I turned it on, and asked him about it, and he pieced it together. Or maybe he’d just already prepared himself for the possibility of me finding out what he was up to. But when I went back to the house and I was getting some of my stuff, he didn’t even ask me what I was doing. He just stayed in the bedroom, hanging out. We didn’t say a word to each other until I went to the door right before I left.

“Just so you know,” I said, “me and Bentley are moving out. I’ll get the rest of my stuff out as soon as I can.”

Kyle said, “Okay.”

That was it.

That was not a normal way to break up under any circumstances, but especially not ours. After all the time we’d known each other, it was completely bizarre for the relationship to end in one matter-of-fact sentence and an “Okay.” If I had needed proof that our communication problems were serious, there it was. Kyle obviously didn’t want the confrontation, and I didn’t see any point to it. I’d had enough. I was finally over it. I was tired of being unsatisfied. I had wanted to be with him, even wanted to marry him. But I knew when to recognize that things weren’t going to change. The longer we stayed together, the further away we got from each other. My ambivalence was part of my own problem. Who knows how long I would have stayed if he hadn’t messed up and given me a solid reason to leave?

My parents were shocked by the breakup. Almost everyone was. One day everything was normal, and a few days later I was all different. After a couple of overnights at my parents’ house, I called my mom and said, “Just FYI, Bentley and I have moved out. This is how it’s gonna be.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She didn’t know where to start. But at that point I’d already made so many moves that there was nothing anybody could say or do to try to change my mind. They were confused, but they accepted it and moved on.

Then, some people were less surprised than others. Once again, when the relationship was over, I started to hear all those things I didn’t need to hear. That girl wasn’t the only one he’d been talking to. But it was fine. I was done. It was over. And I knew that was for the best.

I had no idea how long I would have tolerated that miserable contentment if he hadn’t given me an excuse to leave. All I was looking for was a reason to go. For all our issues, it just hadn’t felt bad enough to take that step. I needed a legitimate, clearcut reason to back up my gut feeling, and thankfully I got it. If I hadn’t seen that Facebook chat, God only knows how long we would have lasted before something came up.

Those kinds of relationships are everywhere, and most of the time, I think people stay in them. I could understand why. I think it comes from being afraid that if you leave, you’ll be thinking, “Was it really bad enough to leave? What if it actually doesn’t get better than that? What if? Why did I do that?” It’s hard enough even when you do have a reason, but at least a reason helps to anchor your decision. Without it, you just have to make a leap of faith in your own judgment, and that can be an extremely difficult thing to do.

But the more comfortable you are in your independence, the easier it is. That was exactly the reason why I’d worked so hard to reclaim my strength and my confidence in being alone. I wasn’t afraid to be single. I wasn’t afraid of losing Kyle if the evidence showed that was the right thing to happen. Ultimately, I could have thanked him for making it easier. His complete non-reaction to me was a big help. I didn’t expect crying and begging, but I thought, “He’s not even going to try to talk to me, or even attempt to figure out what’s going on?” That made it clear that if he ever did give a worthwhile damn about us, he wasn’t going to show it. So that was that.

Anyway, I always hated living in that house. I was glad to get out, even though I was pissed off by the mess it became when we broke up. Since he was older and had more credit, it was bought in his name, but I paid for it and invested a lot of money in fixing it up. For a year or two after he moved back to Nashville, he still owned the house but rented it out. That was the last thing I heard.

Marriage is definitely good for some things, like making financial decisions and buying property together. I lived and learned that lesson the hard way.

***

My next move was moving into a big rental house with four bedrooms and had a couple of girlfriends move in. It was laid out in a way that was perfect for sharing, almost like living in a cozier indoor version of a little apartment building, except the neighbors were people I knew and liked. Bentley and I had two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor, and the girls were paying me rent. It was a good foundation for a fresh start.

I was so ready to be by myself. I wanted to keep working on figuring out what I wanted to do. School was in full swing and a career would be next, and in the meantime, I wasn’t interested in being someone’s girlfriend again. I was just trying to focus on Bentley and myself. And since he was going over to Ryan’s parents’ house every other weekend, I finally found myself with a little space to have fun as an actual grown-up, going out and doing my thing without having to worry about a partner. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of what direction my life was going in, exactly, but it was kind of nice to be able to figure things out as I went.

And then, of course, there was Ryan.

Ryan was pretty excited when he heard Kyle and I broke up. Not because he was jealous and wanted to be with me, but because he and Kyle never liked each other. It was a “good riddance” for him, despite the fact that he was never around me often enough to have a real reason to dislike anybody I was with. But he had his own relationship issues going on. At that time he was dating a girl who was not at all comfortable with my existence. Ryan and I communicated at an absolute bare minimum, and only ever about Bentley. But she wasn’t about that at all. If I could manage to get him to pick up the phone when I called about something, she’d wind up mad at him and then he would act like it was my fault.

The thing about having a kid with someone as a teen is that your relationship with that person becomes a permanent part of your life whether you like it or not. Even if you were in a situation where you never saw him again, the connection of sharing a child carves him into your brain for good. Ryan and I would always have something to do with each other’s lives whether we wanted it that way or not. That didn’t stop him from putting as much distance between us as possible. It didn’t matter that the only time I ever reached out to him was when I was asking him to pick Bentley up from somewhere or spend some time with him. It didn’t matter what Bentley needed or how important it was. I could never count on him to answer the phone or return a text, much less show up. A lot of the time, the only communication Ryan and I had was on camera. There were long periods of time when if we hadn’t been filming a show together, he would never have spoken to me at all.

That would have been okay with me, if not for the fact that he wasn’t always present for Bentley, either. Even though Bentley went to Ryan’s house on the weekends, it was always clear that he was really going to visit Ryan’s parents, Jen and Larry. Because if being a dad was anything less than a hundred percent fun, easy and convenient, Ryan didn’t seem interested. The only time he seemed to wake up and take an interest in parenting was when he felt like he had nothing better to do. As soon as something more fun came along, or something that seemed like less work, Ryan took it as an excuse not to show up.

It was inexplicable. Bentley was growing up to be such a cool kid. He was doing great in pre-school. All his teachers loved him. His personality was taking shape, and he was a lot of fun. He even got into baseball, which was a blast. Little League baseball for kids who are five and six years old is really just for parents’ entertainment. It was so funny to watch the early games where the kids were just running around like little goofballs instead of playing by the rules. One kid would hit the ball and instead of running for first base, he’d chase after the ball he’d just hit instead. Or it would land in the outfield near two kids who were too busy building castles in the dirt to notice. It was hilarious.

When Bentley got a little older and started wanting to learn the game for real, that was even more fun. We spent all day one spring out in the yard practicing. He went on to make the all-star team and play all summer long. It was cool to watch him get the hang of it, and since I’d been so into softball, I was especially excited when he got obsessed with baseball.

Things really were turning out okay. Being a teen mom hadn’t ruined my life. I’d managed to get through the worst of it and grow up. Now I wasn’t a teen mom at all. I was just a mom. I was older and wiser, and I’d grown confident in my role. I’d settled in, and I was happy being Bentley’s mom. But there was a blank space in the picture that I just couldn’t ignore.

Why couldn’t Ryan see what he was missing?

CHAPTER 19:

REPLAY

replaying years in mind

knowing what went wrong

remembering that night

aware we weren’t that strong

letting myself go

allowing ownership to you

forgiving struggles created

still something i’d never undo