This is really a follow-up to yesterday’s post “The gauntlet has been thrown,” so if you haven’t read it, you may want to do so first to get the gist of this situation.

I could hardly work on Tuesday. I was completely brain-dead from an overly-emotional night capped off with a mere four hours of sleep. And it wasn’t that I was just tired… I was SAD. The rage had tapered off and all I wanted to do was cry through my three-hour morning meeting. I was sad for myself and my own hurt, disappointed in my actions and my willingness to trust again so quickly, and, like a sap, sad for him and whatever was inside him that was making him do this. It was tearing my guts out to think of him so locked up inside himself because deep down, for all my angry words and screaming and stomping, I knew where he was. I’d done it. I’d shut out the world and the people I loved and hidden in my bed, curled into a ball and unable to deal with the simplest things from a fear I couldn’t name. And I thought about me, about who I was at that point in my life and the way everything and everyone seemed to be putting such immense pressure on me when all anyone wanted was for me to be better.

I’d done it too. And I survived it because people yelled at me and made me get out of bed and LIVE when I was afraid of the mysterious whatever.

“Just… life,” he says at his apartment later, after my completely unproductive work day. “I’m scared of everything, of so many things I want to change and so many things I feel like I can’t change.”

“Why are you afraid of me?” I ask quietly. He doesn’t say anything, but flops backward onto his bed. “You told me over and over that you wanted to be more open with me and more able to share those things with me so I could be there for you. But you’ve got to tell me, E. You’ve got to let me in.”

“I was scared because the other night you said you love me.”

“You’ve been going on and on about how you’ve never stopped loving me,” I remind him. “You got this big stupid grin on your face when I said it. So when I told you I’ll give you the chance you asked for, what scares you about that?”

“Because now it’s real.”

I lay back on the bed with him and we stare at the ceiling. “I know you’re scared of a lot of things,” I say. “So am I.”

“What are you scared of?” he asks.

“My job, I hate my job and I’m scared to even look for another one. I’m scared of being stuck here. I want to move, I want an adventure and I’m afraid to even try. And I’m scared of you hurting me again. I’m fucking terrified.”

“Oh.”

I roll over and look at him. “I thought we were supposed to help each other, E. Not shut one another out. You feel so alone and scared and you say you need me, but you have to let me in. And you have to take care of me too. I have things I need from you and you have to give those to me just like I want to for you. There’s no other way to do this.”

He turns and faces me, puts a hand in my hair and brushes it out of my face. “I do need you. I wasn’t lying when I said that. You’re the only person who makes me believe I can make my life better – I feel inside like I can do more with myself and one of the reasons I love you is because you push me to do that.”

“You need me to scream at you and tell you to grow balls?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to have to be a bitch to get you to treat me right,” I say firmly. “I will not do that. I don’t deserve that. You have to step up, because I’m not going to hurt myself just to wake your dumb ass up. I may have gone a little crazy, but I’m not replaying last night.”

“I deserved that.” He looks miserable.

“It’s not that complicated,” I continue. “You – WE don’t have to make this so complicated. Just do one thing at a time. Job later. Apartment later. This is today. You love me?”

“Yes.”

“You want us to build a relationship together?”

“Yes.”

“You understand that I’m not proposing to you or anything?”

“Yes, but if we head that way–“

“You said you wanted that. Do you?”

“Yes. But it scares me.”

“God, E, it scares me too! But quit worrying about that now! We’re NOT THERE. We’re not on a stupid timeline. I wouldn’t marry you now if you asked me. If we can just get on the right track and do this together, THAT is what I want. I need you to give things to me too. I need you to call me back. I need you to keep promises. I need to feel like I am a priority in your life and I need you to consider my feelings when you make decisions. That’s it. That’s all I need from you right now. Can you just focus on that?”

“Baby, I love you. I don’t ever want to hurt you, but it’s hard for me to open up because then you… you see my weaknesses. And I never wanted to show you that.”

“Answer me. Can you give me those things I told you I need? Because if you can’t promise me that, I am walking, no matter how much you need me. You can’t tell me you’re scared to just be respectful and caring to your girlfriend. Make me little promises. Promise you’ll call and then do it – just simple things so you can help me trust you again. Can you do that?”

He closes his eyes and pulls me across the bed to hold me close. “Yes,” he says.

I push him back a bit and look him in the eye. “Say it again and look at me. Promise me you’ll just do those damn simple things and I will be there for what you need, for your weaknesses, for whatever it is.”

“I promise.” I want so desperately to believe him.

——————————-

And so we tried to recapture what we had before that was simple and good. Again. We go to the grocery store and pick up a chicken, some veggies and biscuits and a bottle of wine. We cook together in my little kitchen and give little kisses across the counter like we always used to. I set up the trays in the living room so we can watch the baseball game, and he brings out the plates. He really can be very sweet sometimes, asking me if I want more of this or that, telling me the potatoes I cooked are good even when they sucked (there’s a reason only one of us is a chef) and saying “thank you, baby” when I bring him another drink.

“I just want to watch a movie and curl up with you tonight,” he says tiredly, pulling my feet into his lap and rubbing them as I push the trays out of the way.

“Mmmm, that sounds nice.” I close my eyes. “Let’s pick something out.”

——————————-

Why does it seem that we are always so good together when we’re in my house? Why do we hold each other close there, make promises and make dinner and make love there, and then walk outside into fear?

I’m still scared of so many things but I don’t always want to curl up in my bed and hide anymore. I want to face things, and I’ll come right out and admit that I want to face them with someone by my side because I need help sometimes too. Maybe that’s why I wanted to give him that chance, why I’m already putting up with what hurt me before, why I’m screaming at him to be a man – because when I was in that blocked-off state of mind, someone pushed me and I finally got up. What he does hurts me because I care about him, not just about myself. And maybe that’s why I’m still such a fool for him, because I recognize the pain in him that was in me, the fear that I thought I could hide from everyone, and because I love him I can’t let that go.

——————————-

I pull his feet up into my lap and we do mutual footrubs for a minute. Then my phone rings and the tone of the night completely changes.

I felt like I was underwater, pushing my arms and legs forward with concerted effort, unable to hear the traffic on the nearby highway. Everything around me blurred. Bending over, I nearly lost my balance as I reached for it. It was unmistakably his. And he had unmistakably lied.

——————————————

Sunday night E and I went out for Mexican food and had a lovely dinner, followed by a lovely evening at my house. We cuddled, did mushy kissing things, and engaged in pillow talk not unlike our previous conversations that week.

“You’re absolutely sure?” I asked him once more.

“Yes.”

“You’ve got it in you to do this right this time? For us to be together as a team?”

“Yes,” he said, looking right at me. “But I need you. I’m scared of a lot of things, and I love you, and I know it’s going to be hard but I need you to help me with that.”

“I’m scared too, babe. And I need you to help me with those things. I need you to reassure me a lot because I’m going to need it. I promise you, I will be downright neurotic about the way you treat me, especially after last time when you just stopped returning calls for three days, like Tim did. And I need you to not be like that anymore. I need you to make me, make US a priority.”

He nodded. “I understand.” He looked away for a minute, then turned back to me. “We’re going to do this,” he said firmly.

“We’re going to do it right,” I rejoined.

Monday morning I dropped him off at his house on my way to work. He was cuddly and affectionate all night, pulled me away from the alarm clock and blew raspberries in my tummy to wake me up in the morning. “I’ll call you when I get off work,” I said. “You’re off tonight, right?”

“Yep. When will you be done?”

“Four, four-thirtyish.”

“Okay, call me, we’ll see what’s going on. Have a good day at work, babe.”

———————————————

4:30 pm: I call. No answer, leave voicemail.

6:30 pm: I text. “Where you at, goof?”

8:30 pm: I call. No answer, leave voicemail. “Hope everything is okay, call me when you get this, I need to talk to you.” (His mom had been pretty sick so I was hoping there hadn’t been an emergency.)

10:15 pm: I call. No answer, leave voicemail. “I’m going to bed, babe. Don’t know why you haven’t called me when you wanted me to call you in the first place, but whatever.”

10:16 pm: He calls.

“Hello.” My voice is flat, emotionless.

“Hi honey,” he says nonchalantly. “How are you?”

“Where have you been?”

“Well, I’m walking home from Jean’s house, and I was hanging out with James and Duke for awhile earlier. How’s your day been?”

Hanging out, he says. Just “hanging out.”

“Did you get my voicemails?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t call me back?”

“I’m calling you back now. What, what’s wrong baby?”

“I told you not to do this,” I say, my voice starting to waver. “You know what this does to me. You know I have the worst possible time trusting you right now and you know I can’t take when you do this.”

“Honey, calm down, it’s not a big deal. I was doing stuff.”

“And you couldn’t give me two minutes for a call or even a text to acknowledge me, say you’re busy and that you’ll call me later?”

“Baby, really, you’re being silly.”

“Do NOT start this again with me, E,” I fume. “This is what I asked you for and what you said you’d give me. You said you’d call and when you didn’t I was worried that something bad had happened to your mom, but here it’s just because you were too busy ‘hanging out’ to respond to me. That’s bullshit and you know it. You did this to me when we broke up before. You know Tim did this when he left me. You KNOW not to do this.”

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“This will not continue. This is an incredibly stupid way for you to treat someone you claim to love.”

“I do love you.”

“Then f*cking act like it.”

The conversation continued in this vein for another fifteen minutes, in which I calmed down a bit and asked him about his day and how his mom was, and we talked about work and so on. I was still angry, still hurt and frustrated, and it must have shown in my voice.

“You’re still upset, aren’t you?”

“A little,” I admit. “I hate feeling like I can’t trust you and already you’re making it worse.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“I’ll come pick you up.” I really did want to see him. We can never have a productive discussion on the phone.

“No, I’ll call a cab,” he said quickly. “You really want me to come?”

“Of course.”

Five minutes later, he calls me back. “Cab on its way?” I ask.

“No, I canceled it,” he mumbles. “I called and ordered one but then I called back and canceled it.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t really think you really wanted me to come over.” His voice is getting smaller, like he’s shrinking into himself. Something is going on.

I try to lighten the mood. “Well of course I want to see you, goof,” I say cheerily. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, forget the cab.”

“No, I’ll call them again. And I’ll call you right back.”

“Sounds good.”

——————————————–

8 phone calls, 3 voicemails, 5 text messages, and TWO HOURS later, I called the cab company he usually uses. They confirmed that they’d not had a call for a cab to his address.

At one o’clock in the morning, I get in the Jeep and drove over to his house. The door is unlocked as usual, and I quietly go upstairs to his room and find him fast asleep on his bed.

“What the F*CK are you doing?” I practically yell. He rubs his eyes blearily and looks at me, jaw dropped and confused. I lower my voice when remember that his soon-to-be-ex-roommate is there, but he’s probably stoned and counting cracks in the ceiling so it’s unlikely that he cares. “You said you were calling a cab and then calling me right back two hours ago!”

“I tried to call you back, I didn’t really feel like coming over after all so I thought maybe we could hang out tomorrow.”

“You did not call me back. And why did you suddenly not feel like coming over?”

“I just… your phone said it wasn’t receiving calls.”

“I called you EIGHT times.”

He points at the pile on his nightstand. “It didn’t ring, I don’t know why…”

“And you just suddenly didn’t want to come over. E, what the hell is going on with you?” He grabs my arm and tries to pull me down to lay on the bed next to him. I push him back and sit at the foot of the bed instead, and he stares at me blearily. “Speak,” I demand. “You had better explain this.”

For about twenty minutes, we go back and forth, him mumbling things along the lines of “I just got scared, I love you but I’m scared to do this” and me biting back with “You don’t hurt someone you love like this, and if you’re so scared you should never have asked to come back into my life,” and so on.

“I’m tired,” I say. “I have to get up in less than 5 hours and I’m going home. This is a completely pointless conversation, you’re half asleep and you just don’t get it.”

“Sleep here, stay with me.”

“I don’t want to stay with you. I cuddle with you when I feel close to you, and right now you’re on another f*cking planet. Call me when you feel like it.”

————————————–

Then on the porch. The drowning feeling. And I stomped right back upstairs.

————————————-

“I figured out why you didn’t answer your cell phone,” I said, shoving it in his face. “It was on your porch, sitting on the steps. Eight missed calls. Wonder who THAT was.”

He looks at it incredulously, and I grab his chin and pull his face toward me, “You didn’t call the cab, did you?” He shakes his head slowly. “You liar,” I say softly. “You are a goddamn liar.”

“Baby, wait.”

“What a stupid thing to lie about, E. I don’t care how scared you are, I don’t want to know what your problem is. Here’s mine. You are treating me like shit already. I did not put my heart back out there for you to do this after giving me ONE. GOOD. DAY. You don’t respect me and it hurts and you don’t even care!”

“I don’t want to hurt you – ”

“You KNEW this would hurt me and you did it anyway! You deliberately hurt me, AGAIN!”

“I wasn’t thinking – ”

“You’re never thinking about anyone but yourself! You’re all pretty words to get me back because it’s what you want, and then as soon as I say I’ll give it a chance, you have what you want and you don’t care about me anymore! What the HELL happened between this morning when we were fine and tonight when you’ve become an idiot again? Who got to you this time? James? Your dad?”

“It’s not anyone, it’s all me, I’m just so…”

“Scared, yes I know,” I say mockingly. I throw the phone on the table. “Two days into what you say you want so desperately and you have 99% killed this already, E. I have tried and tried to give you what you say you need, to be there for you when things get overwhelming, and when I ask you for honesty and respect, you can’t give me anything. So just call me when you feel you can talk about this like a man, and don’t you ever f*cking lie to me again.”

I stalk out, and as I head for the stairs I hear noise in his room as though he’s getting ready to come after me, but I don’t slow down. I get in the Jeep and drive for about five minutes when my phone rings. I think for a moment about giving him a taste of his own medicine and just letting it go, but for some reason, I don’t.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have let you leave.”

“You didn’t LET me. I left. And I told you not to call me till you can be a man and talk about this reasonably.”

“I can, I’m ready.”

“You’re still half-asleep and I doubt you’ve grown your balls back in five minutes.” God, I’m mean when I’m angry.

“Then please talk to me tomorrow. Call me after work, come over, we’ll go for a walk. I’ve been an idiot, I need to talk to you.”

“Are you going to pick up the phone?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll call you.”

——————————————

I’ll finish this story tomorrow. It’ll probably need a Part 2 and 3 to just get through those 24 hours.

I spoke with Ben on Tuesday night and he’s completely messed up; he can’t understand what happened and where it all went wrong. Of course, having spent a considerable amount of time listening to Mel that day, I knew exactly what was going on with her and why.

But of course I can’t tell him that. That’s her place to make him understand as best she can. The only reason I get it at all is because I’ve been in such a similar situation. I’ll have to tell that story another time. Of course I love Ben and want to give him all the support I can during a time like this – they are going to do a sort of trial separation – but I’m afraid to give him any remark or comfort resembling hope. It’s not that I don’t believe something could change in Mel’s heart, but I can’t offer hope of that and I know it’s what he wants to hear.

I can hardly even think of it without wondering, wondering, wondering. So I have to think about something else.

I mentioned briefly in my last post that I had started dating a guy from work a few weeks ago. I can’t name this one after his job like I do so many others, because “Talent Acquisition Specialist” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue (or the keyboard) nicely. So I’ll call him Kayak because he has one and I dig that. We have similar interests in outdoorsy things and taste in films. He lived in France for a year and will watch subtitled Audrey Tautou movies with me, and not just “Amelie.” He’s affectionate and will hold my hand while we walk to dinner and cuddle me when we watch movies. He’s cute and has admitted to having a crush on me for some time. It’s been about 2 ½ weeks now and Kayak and I have seen each other a lot – it’s been moving rather quickly, but it’s been nice. Captain, schmaptain.

And then E.

He texted me over the weekend, saying he really wants to talk to me, thinks of me all the time, and that at his Metro stop near my work he’s gotten off and looked for my car in the parking lot to leave me a note because he was too nervous to tell me what he had to say. He never did leave that note, and I texted back that if he wants to talk, he should call me. He did, and we talked for about 45 minutes on Saturday afternoon. It was the first time I’d heard his voice since the day I gave him all of his stuff back in early June. He apologized over and over for the way he’d treated me, and I have to confess that although I accepted his apologies, I did light into him about WHY what he did was wrong.

“You LIED when you said you didn’t love me?” I said incredulously. “You lied. About that.”

“Yes. I’m still in love with you, I never stopped.”

“Why, of all things, would you lie about loving me?” I practically yelled. “You ripped my heart out when you said that!”

“Look, I was scared, and it was the stupidest thing to be scared of and it was the stupidest thing to lie about and I’ve regretted it ever since. I acted for the dumbest reasons and felt pressure from other people–“

“Which is a FINE reason for making decisions about our relationship, really. I love when you use that as an excuse.”

“I’m so sorry, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. I know you don’t trust me, but I really am.”

“Well,” I said evenly, “for future reference, when you want to know what a girl wants from you and from your relationship, you should ask HER. No one else. And when you let other people’s pressure to get married or not get married or whatever make decisions for you, then you’re not a man about it.”

He was silent. I was seething. “Say something,” I demanded.

“I need to see you. I need to see you to talk about this.”

“We can do that,” I sighed.

“I’ll call you later this week when I get my work schedule,” he said quickly. “We’ll go get coffee, something. I promise I will call you.”

“Okay.”

Then came Monday night and everything with Mel and Ben, and I needed him more desperately than I ever had before. We’d had arguments before about how I felt he was dismissive sometimes when I was upset, but on Monday when I called him, he dropped everything and came over. Some of that is documented in my last post. Some of it is here.

When my tears for Mel and Ben were spent for the time being, the conversation turned back to our own breakup. “I’ve been seeing someone,” I said abruptly as we sat on the porch in silence.

“Really.”

“Just for a little while. It’s nothing serious.”

“Why isn’t he here with you tonight?”

“Because I needed you,” I said simply.

“It’s so weird that this all happened tonight of all nights,” he said.

“Why?”

“I talked to my dad today.” E’s dad has had two failed marriages and is a bitter, cynical old man. He warns his sons that women poke holes in condoms to get pregnant and demand shotgun weddings. He’s never minded me but I am a woman and therefore not to be trusted with his son.

“And?”

“He was glad about the changes I’m making in my life, of course.” E finally, FINALLY left The Restaurant and got another job. He’s still in the restaurant industry and working as a line cook and not as the big-cheese chef anymore, which of course is not ideal, but at least now he’s at the Four Seasons, making more money and not in that shitbox working for those idiot owners. E is also moving out of the apartment he’s shared with the stoner roommate and getting his own place. He is making positive changes, the kind he’d always talked about making and never did.

“I’m glad too,” I said. “You needed those things.”

“And so you know my dad, all business,” he said slowly. “He asked me if I had a five-year plan.” I raised my eyebrows at him. “And I do. I want it to be with you. I want you to give me another chance. I want to be with you and move our relationship forward, to build a life with you, to raise a family.” E got down on his knees in front of me and had both my hands in his and for a terrified nanosecond I thought he was going to propose or say something equally stupid. The words just spilled out of his mouth. “I know I’ve fucked up and I haven’t been a man. But I want to be. I’ve been trying, I’ve been making changes and I want to make more. And I need you, I want to do this with you.” He cupped my face in his hands and leaned his forehead against mine.

I closed my eyes.

“You told me the other day that if I want something from a woman I should ask her and no one else,” he continued. “And my dad thought I was an idiot until I looked him in the eye today and said ‘Dad, I love her.’ He shook his head at me and said I should do whatever I want if I’m that sure of myself. And I am. I don’t care if he still thinks I’m an idiot or if he approves and just isn’t telling me. I don’t care. So I’m asking you, only you, to give this another chance.”

“E… I don’t know… I can’t even think…”

“You don’t have to say anything now. I know this is an awful time to ask you to make a decision. But I had to tell you this and when you can make a decision, then make it.”

“Everything is falling apart.” I leaned back in my chair and looked in his eyes. “And now you want everything you said you didn’t want. Do you really mean all this?”

I dropped a tear and he brushed it off my cheek with his thumb. “I’m done lying,” he said.

“I can’t think.”

“Then don’t. Not just yet.”

He stayed with me all night. I lay awake in his arms and didn’t sleep. God, I’d missed those arms. I missed how the shape of his body fit the shape of mine when we lay in bed together. I missed his little beer belly because it made for such good hugs and snuggles and tickles. I missed the smell of him and the way he tangled his hands in my hair when he kissed me, and that he always knew exactly how to kiss me. I missed the way he rolled over in the middle of the night and grabbed me close, buried his head in my neck and made growly noises while he tickled my neck with his tongue. I missed his touch, his voice, his snores, the way he spreads out like a starfish on my bed and I have to shove him at least once a night. I missed playing with his hair in the morning and making the curls fluff out.

I’d missed him like crazy.

Everything he said to me that night was beautiful, and it’s hard for me to believe that he would say those things just because they’re what he thinks I want to hear. I say that because E has really never been that great at knowing what I wanted to hear. There were times I couldn’t shut him up spouting off his own opinions about a subject we’d beaten to a pulp, times when all I ever needed was for him to apologize for something and instead he’d get defensive. So when he said these things – I want to believe him. I want to trust him. But I don’t know how yet.

I don’t want to go back to E just to have affection and companionship again. I could have Kayak for that – things are going well and could be very promising. I could take that chance and not worry every day about being betrayed by E again. Kayak is an unknown. He could lie to me, hurt me or break my heart just as easily as E could. And chances are it would hurt a little less than the pain and indignity of being hurt by E a second time.

So I’m freaking terrified.

My bedroom is painted a medium-deep blue color, and has room-darkening fabric shades and navy curtains. It gets no sun until the late afternoon when the light hits the west window. On Tuesday morning, E and I lay there together, holding one another and sharing pillows and covers in what we always called our cocoon. Wrapped up with him in the isolated, darkened room, I felt a small peace. Outside the door there were choices and changes, inside the room I was protected by the arms of a man who loved me and wanted me to love him again. I don’t know if it was fear of the choices and changes outside or my love for that man inside that made me want to stay in there forever.

It’s 6 am and I’m in my study, tap-tapping away at my keyboard while E snores. I can’t sleep.

Twelve hours ago, I turned my phone on vibrate as I was getting ready to go to dinner with a cute coworker I have been sort of dating for the last two weeks. More on him some other time. On my way home, I discovered I’d missed a text from Mel, followed ten minutes later by a call from her husband.

“Call me asap,” she’d written. Mel does not overuse ASAP. I phoned her immediately – she said “I’ll call you right back” and disappeared. Something sounded wrong, very wrong. I waited ten minutes and called her husband instead.

“Ben?” There’s silence on the other end of the line but I know he’s picked up. “Ben, what is it, what’s going on?”

“Melissa’s out.”

“Out? Out how? What?”

“She’s leaving me. She told me she wants out and she doesn’t love me anymore.” His voice was tiny, I could hardly hear him, I must have misunderstood because that did not add up at all. I swerved into the parking lot of the nearest gas station.

“Say that again. Please tell me I heard you wrong.”

He says it again. “She says she’s been thinking about this for six months.”

“No no no, she can’t have been–” I choke on the words. “Ben, she never said, she couldn’t have–”

“She says she didn’t tell anyone.”

I pull back onto the road, forcing words out. “Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Where is she?”

“On her way to work.”

“Do you need me to come over?”

“Tim’s here. My brother is on his way.”

God, how I love the two of them, Ben and Melissa. They’re my family. Their families are my family, their parents and sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews. They live half a block away. They grill out every weekend during the summer. They have an 18-month old baby. They love each other, they have the marriage Tim and I always said we envied. They just had their five year anniversary. They’ve been together for ten years.

And she left him. I keep thinking I misunderstood.

By the time I got home, I was in hysterics. Mel hadn’t called back. I needed to talk to someone, and I don’t know how to explain it except to say that I needed to talk to someone who knows me and who knows my relationship with them. Tim, of course, was with Ben, but in all honesty the first person who sprang to mind was E.

E called me over the weekend, I hadn’t gotten around to posting that. We talked the other day for about forty-five minutes, a conversation full of apologies (his) and acceptances (mine). If we hadn’t had that conversation I don’t think I could have called him – I don’t think I would have called anybody. But I did call him, and he called a cab to come over.

While I was waiting for him, Mel called me back. We spoke for about twenty minutes and it began to sink in that she didn’t just storm out. They didn’t have a fight and a huff. I’d heard Ben right, she knew exactly what she was doing and it was real. Not “I’m thinking of leaving him” or “I don’t know how much more I can take,” it was simply “I’m done.”

“You’re really on your way to work like this?” I asked. She’s a cop. She can’t be even slightly off for a minute.

“Never let them see you sweat,” she said tiredly. “I have to.”

“I know. Call me at seven when your shift ends. I’ll take the day off, I’ll be with you, we’ll talk or listen or anything. Call me as soon as you’re off.”

She started to cry. “I will.”

“I love you, sweetie.”

“I love you too, B.”

I had almost regained my composure when E showed up. I hadn’t seen him for over three months and I just fell against his chest, sobbing when he walked through the door. He held me for a long time. We sat out on the back porch and talked for hours about Ben and Melissa, about other friends and our families and catching up, and about us. It was not an ideal night to have that conversation but it’s another one that just spilled out. Divorce is a topic that has always made him cynical – he’d always say things like how he doesn’t want to get married or have kids because everyone’s marriages fall apart, blah blah.

Tonight he threw cynicism to the wind and said he loves me, never stopped, lied because he was scared, and wants another chance. He said he’ll do anything for me to take him back, that he wants us together for real, to make it work, to raise a family – holy shit, did he say that? Ladies and gentlemen, he did. On the night when the relationship I thought was my aim in life is crumbling around the people I care about, E says the things I never thought I’d hear. I used to hold Ben and Mel up to him as an example of how people could get married and balance time together and time on their own, how they could have a baby and still have a sex life and a social life as a couple. I’d say look, just because you’ve got friends who’ve had screwed-up marriages doesn’t mean every marriage is like that – see, Ben and Melissa make their life together work, they do it right.

What the hell did I know, anyway? What did any of us know? They’re my best friends. I had no clue, Ben had no clue – and although I know it’s been on Melissa’s mind and heart for months now, I know it’s something she never expected either.

The marriage I wanted and never had is falling apart. And E wants to get back together and build toward that relationship he says he’s finally strong enough to have. He wants what he said he didn’t want. Melissa wants what she never thought she’d want. Ben wants what he can’t have.

My alarm just went off to wake me from the sleep I didn’t get to start the work day I won’t have. Am I even oriented enough to think about what I want right now?

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