Unstuck (46 page)

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lucinda. What is it that you want?” he finally raised his voice. I was shocked “Do you want to keep on living like this?” he was running his hands through his head and looking at everything but at me. When he finally looked at me I could see the desperation on his eyes “we are in a relationship where we have all the feelings we should be feeling but we are not talking about it,” he finally said still raising his voice “we are feeling everything Lucinda. I can see it in your eyes; I can see it in everything we do. I can feel it in the way you kiss me. We are feeling everything but you are just too scared to admit anything,” he came closer once again and I kept on stepping back until my back bumped against the wall.

“I love you, Lucinda.”

“No,” I screamed and put my hand on his mouth to stop him from saying anything else. To stop him from saying those 3 words that would ruin everything. Those 3 words that would do things to my soul that wouldn’t be able to be undone. “No, Patrick, please,” I cried. I cried tears of joy or tears of sadness. I had no idea.

“I love you, Lucinda,” he repeated and I couldn’t help it anymore, I had listened to them and I knew that we were over. I was so scared of those 3 words. I wanted to grab them and throw them away. They made us vulnerable and that only meant that we were exposed to damages and ups and downs that we might never ever be able to overcome because we were vulnerable.

“I know you love me too, Lucinda,” he said wrapping his arms around me while I cried.

“I can’t Patrick,” I said and as I soon as I said so Patrick took a step back.

“This is what I can give, Lucinda! I had been patient I can’t keep on waiting for you to realize that we are perfect together, for you to want to start to live our life together with your eyes wide open,” he was screaming by this point “I can’t give you anything else but this,”

“I need a break,” I said sliding against the wall to the floor and putting my hands in my face while I cried like a baby.

“Yeah, me too,” he said grabbing his jacket from the bed and walked out of the room.

I cried for a long time. I have no idea how long it was but once I was done I began packing my suitcase with whatever fit in it. I had no idea what I was going to do but I knew I needed to be on my own to think whatever it was what Patrick had said. I was checking the tiny inside bags of my suitcase when I found the other white envelope Patrick had given me. The vacations he had given me on my birthday; I had put the envelope on my suitcase for when I wanted to use it. I immediately began crying as I hugged the envelope. Damn Patrick had to go and ruin everything by making a love declaration! I hated him (no, I didn’t. I could almost hear him say it).

I knew I should’ve said something. I knew it but I was so scared, so hurt, so desperate that I just grabbed my shit and ran out of Patrick’s apartment and now I was in a plane to the other side of the pond all by myself and I couldn’t let anyone know what I was doing! Maybe it was better that way. Maybe I could use the time to think. I wasn’t that irresponsible, though. I left a letter for Patrick saying I was leaving for a few days but not saying where and I had sent a long e-mail to Harriet letting her know that she had to take over the assistant activities for a while writing down every single thing that she needed to know.

I drank like three glasses of champagne before finally semi-relaxing on my seat. Once the alcohol kicked in I cried. I was scared, scared of whatever Patrick was feeling, scared of whatever I was feeling and scared of having potentially ruined all that we had or NOT had. Eventually I fell asleep and I was woken up by the stewardess when we had reached our destination. I knew I looked like crap but I didn’t care anymore. There I was wearing my cocktail dress and wandering through the airport in Rome looking for a damn cab that would take me to the hotel that I had booked while sited in an airport bench. The moment I got to the hotel, which was expensive as fucking hell, I got in bed and fell asleep again. I didn’t want the world to know a thing about me and I didn’t want to know a thing about the world.

It wasn’t until the next day when I was having some kind of coffee in some kind of coffee shop somewhere in Rome that I looked at my phone. I had so many lost calls. I had 15 missed calls from Nick, 19 from Stacy, 10 from Brian, a couple from Regina, 20 (20!!!) from Patrick and one from my mom. Out of all of them the one that I decided to return was the one from my mother.

“Lucy,” I heard my mother’s voice filled with worry “Where are you?” she asked as soon as she picked up.

“Italy,” I said wiping a tear or two.

“Lucy, everyone is looking for you,” she said a bit calmed.

“I know, mom,” I cried harder.

“What happened?” she asked and there was something in her voice that made me want to let her know everything.

“He loves me, mom,” I said and she didn’t say anything back “he loves me and I am scared,” “I know you are, Lucy and it’s all our fault,” I was shocked to hear that from her.

“No, mom, it’s my fault,” I said wiping my nose.

“No, Lucy, we never let you know that we love you. You are scared of knowing that you can be loved. You have no idea what to do with that,” It was like she had opened a faucet because the tears wouldn’t stop coming out.

“What should I do?” I said in between hiccups.

“You follow whatever you are feeling,” she said.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Lucy, baby, If whatever Patrick said to me back when we met him is true, and I have a strong feeling that it’s, I’m sure that won’t happen,” I didn’t want to ask her what was that he said to her because I didn’t want to feel any more than I was already feeling.

“I need time to think, mom,” I said.

“Take the time that you need to think but, Lucy, take the time to feel. That’s where your answer is,” she said and I nodded being unable to answer.

“Go, baby, think and then go back to him,” she said and I cried harder, again “ok, mom,” I said and then I hung up.

What the fuck was I going to do with all this new feelings I was having? Fuck you, Patrick. Fuck you for giving everything and not teaching me how to handle it all.

I made sure to let Stacy know I was fine and asked her to tell everyone that. I spent the next two days walking around Rome doing nothing but cry and ignoring the constant phone calls from Patrick. Every time his name popped up on the screen my heart flipped three times and settled for more ache. I wanted to scream in the middle of whatever piazza I was at. I wanted to scream and let all the pain I was feeling out of my system. Whenever I wasn’t walking around and crying, I was at some coffee shop crying or in my room crying. The people at the hotel restaurant and at the coffee shops already knew me. They knew the crying girl that didn’t understand Italian and said yes to every suggestion they made.

It was on the third day that after ignoring a phone call from Patrick I saw that there was a voice mail from him. My hands were shaking because I knew that listening to it was the only way of hearing his voice without having to talk to him. I wanted to hear him talk because I missed him but I was scared of whatever he wanted to say to me. What if he wanted to tell me that I was fired and that he never wanted me to come back? What if he was asking me to go back to him? I decided that I was missing him too much so I played the voice mail embracing myself for whatever I was about to listen.

“Lucinda,” I took in a deep breath when I listened to his voice “I know you are all right and in need of some time to think. That’s ok. I get it but… baby,” he was hurting “I need you here, with me. I can’t breathe. My chest feels empty without you here. I have no idea what to say but that I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone. You are the only person in this lifetime that can bring peace to me. When you came into my life you saved me from a lifetime of misery. I had no idea that I was that miserable until you,” I heard him sigh “I tried to fight it, baby, believe me I did but every time I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t falling in love with you, you came and did something unbelievable, you came and gave me hope for a future, a bright future at that. And then… then you go ahead and leave me,” I heard a small bitter sweet laugh coming from him “you forgot that I can’t live without you, that you are all I need to feel alive,” a pause “I know you are hurting and I want to be there to tell you that hurt is a feeling too that you need to feel it until it’s wasted, until it’s no more. I want to be there to hold you and let you know that we are going to be ok. I love you, Lucinda and I need to you to hurry up to feel everything and come back because I am going insane in here without you. Please, baby, my Pepper, my everything, have faith in us, in what we can be. Have faith in yourself, in your heart. Please, please, please come back to me. I love you so much.” the voice mail ended and I wanted to scream again. I was screaming on the inside. Just then the stupid waiter came with whatever I had agreed on having before I listened to the voice mail and when I looked at what he had brought I broke down crying. It was a fucking sorbet. A fucking red sorbet!  I replayed the voice mail twice before letting myself feel the hurt of not having him with me.

“What the fuck, Lucy?” I said out loud when I realized that we both were hurting because of the same thing. We couldn’t live without the other. I laughed after that. Everyone around me was ready to bring the straightjackets out. But really, it was all really funny and stupid and irrational. I laughed and cried when it hit me that I had done exactly what Patrick had told me the day he gave me the vacations as a gift 
you could always wait until you can’t be near me anymore and run away to Europe to remind yourself that you can’t live without me either.

I’d run away to Europe only to realize that I couldn’t live without him.

“You can do this, Lucy,” I said to myself as I walked under the rain “You can do it,” I repeated as a mantra. I hugged my jacket closer but I didn’t matter because I was completely soaked. I took all the courage that I had inside and knock on the door twice and the door opened.

“Lucinda,” I heard his voice before I saw Patrick.

“I’m stuck, Patrick,” I said. He looked confused.

“Get inside,” he said opening the door wider and I stepped inside “Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he said as he ran up to his room and came down with some sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “Let’s go to the library,” I nodded.

“Tea,” he said once I got out of the bathroom changed into his clothes and drying my hair with a towel. I nodded and realized that he had the tea prepared.

“You prepared it?”I had tears in my eyes. He had moved on. He just nodded. I didn’t care if he had moved on. I needed to let him know that I was feeling, everything, all the feelings.

“I’m stuck,” I said looking at him directly in the eye.

“You said so,” he said with no expression on his face which was unusual for him.

“When you are not with me… I’m stuck,” I thought I heard him sigh “everything is on hold because apparently I can’t live my life without you anymore,” I shook my head and looked down. “I... was scared,” I said.

“You don’t need to explain anything,” he said holding my hand but I looked up at him and shook my head again.

“Oh but I do, Patrick. I need to, for you and for me,” he nodded. “I wasn’t planning to fall in love, Patrick. It just kind of happened. I never in a thousand years did I imagined that along with a new job I was getting a boyfriend, friends and a family. It was too much and I was scared of losing you all. Especially you because, Patrick, you opened up my eyes to a whole world that I had denied myself. A world where feelings are good,” I let out a tiny laugh “With you I learned about anger, frustration, so much frustration, happiness, confusion, excitement but above all I learned to love,” He smiled but let me continue “When I heard your voice mail I realized that I didn’t need to be scared of losing everything because you are everything I need. You are what is missing in my life when I am alone, you are what makes me complete, you are what takes my breath away and I realized that it was ok,” I said repeating the words that he had said once when I asked him what if felt to be in love. I shook my head again.

“When did you realize that you love me?” I asked and he looked confused but answered anyway.

“Somewhere between midnight munchies and your birthday,” he said with a smile on his face and I nodded.

“I just wanted to know. It doesn’t matter,” I said looking down. “What did you say to my mother back in the golf club?”

“That you were never going back to be Miss Stuart because soon you would be Ms. Maynard,” I felt my heart race. I loved this man and it was so unfair not to let him know that.

“I love you, Patrick,” he finally couldn’t hold on anymore and kissed me. We kissed and for the first time I let every single feeling pour out of me and into that kiss. We kissed and then for the first time I let him love me. I was in heaven because I was feeling, feeling what he was trying to tell me in between kisses. I let him love me in the library’s floor and I let myself love him.

“I’m so happy that you came back to me,” he said as we laid down on the library’s floor holding each other. We hadn’t said much to each other. There was no need for that.

“I couldn’t stay away from you any longer,” I kissed him.

“When I’m not with you I feel like there’s no point on anything I do,” he said looking down at me.