THIS Is Me... (24 page)

  Exhaling and leaning against the door, I suddenly believe every single thing I just said to him.  When I was speaking, I pulled that speech right out of my ass but now I know it's actually true. 
  I want Mack and Kayla to be good, and I have Z's baby to care for.  And I need to get stronger
on my own
to be able to do that.  This is the absolute best thing I can do for me and for them under the circumstances, and I'm going to do it.
  When I call Kayla, she cuts me off immediately and begs me to hear her out.  When I agree and remain silent, she begins...
  “Picture this: you love a guy who has a best
female
friend who is beautiful, and sweet, and pregnant and heartbroken and lost, and so sad as she goes through a very tough time in her life she breaks the hearts of everyone she meets.  The guy you love picks up and moves to be near her and takes care of her constantly.  You, the girlfriend never see him but he
always
sees her.  You are the outsider and she is his main focus day and night.  Though you love each other and the best friends SWEAR it’s platonic between them, you know the beautiful, sweet, sad woman who he adores tried to kiss him passionately once. And though he told you about it, and explained the rather tragic circumstances that prompted it- at the end of the day you are with the man you love
sometimes
but HE is with the girl he loves and adores each and every single day.”

  Oh shit.
  “Now imagine that scenario with Z and some beautiful, sweet,
pregnant,
heart-broken, best friend who he loves and adores, admittedly.  A woman he leaves you for to move away to be with her,
platonically
of course, and tell me you don't absolutely freak the fuck out and become this jealous, neurotic psycho where he and the woman are concerned?”
  Yikes.  Now I've got it and I totally get it.  In the silence that follows Kayla's sad little confession I can think of nothing to say.  Eventually, through the heavy silence I hear her exhale her upset.
  “But it isn't like that.  Ever,” I plead.  “I swear when I say I love Mack and when he says he loves me it IS a totally innocent relationship based on affection and mutual caring, but that's it.”
  “I know... But I still get jealous.  I'm a woman, I can't help it.”
  “I would never do anything with Mack, and I would NEVER hurt you like that.”
  “I know, but-”
  “The kiss was just a desperate, random, strange, spontaneous ooops on my part.  It wasn't even about kissing Mack, Kayla.  In my warped mind, I wanted to kiss Mack to make me not ugly anymore.”
  “Suzanne-”
  “Listen to me, Kayla.  It could've been anyone in that intense moment.  I just needed to not be ugly, and I thought if someone kissed me back then I wasn't so ugly.  And believe me there was NO kiss-back.  None!  Mack became so freakishly still that I kind of woke up to what I had done, and I apologized immediately.  The end.  I swear.  I was just so stunned at my ugliness, I didn't know what to do, so I panicked,” I cry softly.
  “You are NOT ugly.  And I get it now.  I'm sorry for being such an insecure Psycho.  And I'm not mad, and I'll forget about it starting now.”
  “Promise?”
  “Yes.  But if you ever kiss MY Mack again, I'll knock you on your ass, Suzanne.  Pregnant or not.”
  “I wouldn't dare and I wouldn't ever, I swear.  It was a strange little fluky moment of fear and desperation on my part.”
  “Okay, I understand totally.  I've done desperate before with a guy.”
  “Really?”
  “Of course.  Um, do you still want to live with Mack?  It's okay if you do, I'm fine with it now.”
  “No.  I don't want to for me, but I don't want to for you and Mack either.  I'll be okay.  I just need you and I to be okay.”
  “We are.  I promise.”
  “Thank you Kayla for understanding, and for always being there for me.  I love you so much.”
  “I love you too.  Now go
platonically
kiss my Mack for me, and tell him I'll call him later to apologize for
my
version of crazy,” she says with her best smile-voice.
  “Okay...” I grin as she hangs up.
 
  Thirty-five minutes later, after that rather dramatic phone call with New York Kayla, I'm still stunned as I join Mack in the living room. 
  “We're okay now.  And Kayla wants me to kiss you for her, and tell you she'll call you later.”
  “I'm very sorry you had to deal with-”
  “I'm not.  I'm glad she told me her feelings.  Honestly, I would have freaked out if I was her too.  I just didn't think about anyone else and I didn't realize how she would feel, but now I get it.”
  “What do you want to do now?”  Mack still seems tense.
  “Eat a huge breakfast.  You in?” I smirk.
  “Absolutely,” he grins.
   Thank god Kayla can be a loser, too.  Her insecurity truly shocked me until she laid it out for me in terms of me and Z.  I
really
understand now and I totally get it.
  She's even more amazing than I ever believed possible, because if it was me in her shoes with Z and some other female 'best friend' laid out in front of me the way she just described the situation, I would've lost my mind... Again.

                            CHAPTER 28

JULY 22

  After loading the washing machine of my apartment sized washer/dryer combo, I'm done.  Sitting with my decaf, reading a magazine, there's nothing left to do. 
  When you live alone, your place stays the same unless you change it.  There is nothing to tidy if you keep everything the same.  And there is nothing to fix up when everything is in its place.  Cleaning and laundry are all I have to do each and every day, and obviously I don't do laundry every day.  Nope.  Laundry for one woman who rarely leaves her apartment is one load max, once a week.
  So I'm done for another week, and I'm bored to tears.  Mack isn't coming over today, which is fine!  I'm absolutely fine with that.  Mack isn't here and I have TV and magazines to keep me company.  Oh, and my kindle.  Thank god.
  Some days the loneliness I feel is beyond overwhelming.  It's a loneliness that is nearly debilitating.  It's a soulless walk through my apartment alone trying to function, trying to just breathe, when all I want to do is to give into the loneliness while letting it consume me whole.
  This is an agony itself.
  But I was always alone, I remember that.  My childhood was spent alone with my parents, and my youth was spend alone with my peers.  My teen years were spent alone with my horrible secrets, and my marriage was spent alone with Marcus right beside me.  I was always alone in my little world of pain.  Alone is really all I've ever known, except within this past year. 

  Meeting and loving these few people of mine has saved me from the abyss.  They are my lifeline from the depths of depression that would have killed me by now.  They are my tether to this world, keeping me here, keeping me trying to live through the loneliness.
  And I love them.  Mack and Kayla,
other
Kayla and Z.  I love them with every breath I take.  I think of these four people and I realize they are all I have in this world.  With these four in my life, the monsters are no longer waiting to strike, and my previous abusive nightmares are trying to stay in the past.
  My four people have kept me alive.  They are there for me.  They are there to love me. 
  Mack is my constant.  Still.  I don't think Mack is even capable of leaving me now, or of loving me less.  Mack is my forever friend, and I trust that.  I
believe
he is my forever friend. 
  His dedication alone shows me the depth of his love for me and the depth and intensity of our friendship.  He will not leave me- I know that without a doubt.  I know I have found the one real person in this world who was made to help me.  He was made to love me regardless of me being who I turned out to be.  Mack is the one person in this world whom I never, ever fear.  He loves me as his best friend and he has proven his love time and time again, whether I deserve his love or not.
  And then there's New York Kayla.  My Kayla Rinaldi.  She is my reason to get up every morning.  Kayla can beat the hell out of me with just words when I need an ass-kicking.  She can call me on my shit, and she can soothe me when I'm
losing
my shit.  Kayla has managed to put herself firmly into my heart in a way I previously could have only dreamed of.  She has been the greatest strength in all my struggle; strength I could have only prayed for.  She knows when to shake me and she knows when to hold me.  She is the greatest friend I could have ever begged and prayed for.  Kayla makes up for every friend I didn't have throughout my thirty years before her.
  Other Kayla is still here to love me, too.  She's just not
as
here as she was before, and I'm going to be okay with that one day.  I'm going to except the relationship we have as friends now.  I'm going to remember fondly the relationship we had, and I'm going to embrace this new, less intense friendship we have now, because really, that's all I can do. 
  I know if I asked her for anything or if I asked her to help me, she would in a heartbeat.  I know she’s still a champion for me.  I know she's here- she's just not quite the same as she was.  But that's okay.  I'm going to be grateful for the friendship she does give me.  She will always be my Chicago Kayla Lefferts.
  And finally... there's Z.  God, I miss him so much my heart aches constantly. 
  Everything I do, every person I see, every single thing I feel is about Z.  He is
always
with me.  Everywhere I go and everything I do is shared with him in my heart.  My thoughts remain constantly on and about him.  Z makes me, and sadly he breaks me.  I miss him so much, I find myself gasping for air just to make it through my lonely days without him in my life.
  I wish so many things for us, but I can't have any of them.  Z is not in my life directly but I still feel him all day, every day.  I feel him in each and everything I do.  He is everything to me and it breaks my heart that I can’t be with him, but I'm okay with this absence of him.  I have to be.
  This life between us is just too much to live with.  The decisions made and this life lived is too great to overcome.  Z and I cannot live this life with each other because the obstacles are too great to climb together.  There is too much darkness and lost promise between us to ever live a life together.

  I finally realize that and I'm okay now.  I think I'm truly okay with the darkness.  I've accepted it.  I've lived a life so dark before him, that I don't know how to live in light
with
him.  And though I wish I could, I know I can't live without the darkness.  The light and the love between Z and I would eventually blind me and make me weak, and weakness is not part of me loving Z.
  So I'll take the darkness and the strength.  I'm most comfortable here anyway.  I may not be happy and I may be so sad that I ache with gasping breaths of loneliness, but I'll take the strength and comfort I have in my darkness over the potential pain and endless heartbreak of a love tried and failed.  This loneliness may be suffocating but at least it's familiar.  This suffocating loneliness is all I've ever known, and it's all I'll ever know. 
  This is my fate, and I'm okay now.  I've accepted it.  The choices made have brought me to this darkness, and I'm going to love this life as best I can with my only strength being my love of these four people- people who have changed my life and brought me some closure to my past.
  I may have little more than an empty cold apartment with an endless stretch of loneliness ahead of me, but at least it's mine.  This is the life I have created.  This is my life now, and I'm going to live it as best as I can. 

  Through the darkness, I'm going to give my four people the most love I have, be it from close or from far.  My love is theirs for the taking, and I offer it back freely to the four people who have helped and loved me through the nightmare that was my life before them.
  I'm okay with the dark loneliness now, because I still have the love of my four people surrounding me in my darkness.

CHAPTER 29

AUGUST 3

  So I've learned one very important, life-changing reality the last 2 months I’ve been awake- Pregnancy is hard.  It's so weird when I see other women behaving like this is the best time of their lives. They're so happy, people say they ’glow’.  Well, I'm not glowing and I'm definitely NOT happy.  This sucks.
  I would love to be all beautiful and wonderful and loving this, but I'm not.  I don't feel beautiful and this is NOT wonderful.  I absolutely hate this, I truly do.
  Never-mind the obvious; I'm getting huge.  But there's so much else going on.  Things ache.  Body parts I didn't know existed hurt.  I'm hungry but I don't want to eat.  I'm tired but I can't sleep.  And
I'm
having a good pregnancy, I'm told.  I honestly can't imagine what this would possibly be like if I was having a ‘bad’ pregnancy.
  I wonder sometimes if I would feel so crappy all the time if I actually wanted this pregnancy.  Huh.  Maybe if I was happy that I was pregnant I wouldn't notice all these crappy side effects.  It's good that I don't ever discuss this pregnancy with anyone, otherwise I might come off sounding whiny or annoying.  As it is, people know how heartless I am about this, but I can't help it.  I don't want this.  Still.
  Honestly, I still feel nothing, but I've tried.  I've touched my stomach and I've spoken to it.  I've felt it move and I saw a picture of it once for a split second accidentally, but I still feel nothing.  And that lack of feeling probably scares me more than just the thought of this whole thing. 

  I mean really… how can I feel nothing about a child growing inside me? 
Z's
child, no less.  But there it is.  My horrific reality.  I'm bad, and this time it’s undeniable.  I really am a bad person because I don’t feel anything for this child inside me.
  God, I need a distraction.  I need to do something to stop all this thinking.  I don't want to call Mack or Kayla, because I'm sure they're quite busy with each other, and I really have no one else
to
call.