A Love So Tragic (5 page)

I'd be lying if I said that didn't change me a little. Actually, it changed me a lot. It made me hard and angry, and it wasn't until Lindsey that I became a halfway decent guy in relationships again. I know I haven't let Peyton go. I mean, hell, I still have all the letters I wrote to her. Lindsey doesn't know about those, or else they’d have gone up in flames months ago. Bottom line is, I loved Peyton, and she fucking demolished me.

We will never be anything more than strangers who used to be in love with each other, and as tragic as that fucking is, it's life.

The night wears on, and the more I drink, the more annoyed I become that Peyton still makes me feel...something.

Lindsey texts me that she loves me. I text her back. And somewhere between the tequila shots and Fireballs, I decide that maybe I should just get married like everyone else. Make a commitment. Really move on. Have some kids. I mean, why the hell not?

An endless supply of diamond rings glint beneath the halogen lights.
Damn, why does it have to be so bright in here?
The display on the wall distracts me momentarily. It’s one of those Hallmark moments where a doting man in a prick sweater is spinning a petite, smiling woman around. I guess that ad is supposed to emphasize how perfect your life will be once you purchase one of their rings.  All I can do is roll my eyes.

“Is there one you'd like to see?” the woman behind the counter asks. I glance up from the case, greeted by her over-made face and fake perma-smile.

“Thanks,” I mumble, hoping she'll leave me to browse, but when I step to the left, so does she.

“If I may,” she says as she slides the glass open to reach inside. “This ring right here is one you can't go wrong with.” She pulls out a diamond solitaire—a huge solitaire—and drops it in my palm. I flip it over, holding it up to the light. “This ring says ‘I love you,’” she goes into her practiced sales pitch. “It’s one your future wife can be proud of, it's one—”

“Yeah, it's fine.” I nod, cutting her off. “I'll take that one.”

The woman smiles, but I can tell the indifference in my tone leaves her a little confused.

It's just a ring. The last time I bought an engagement ring...
the last time. Like asking someone to marry you is a fucking yearly vacation or something...
When I looked for Peyton’s ring, I went from store to store and never could find what I wanted. Everything I did for Peyton had to be perfect, so I had one made. I put thought into it, and that got me nowhere, so maybe if I just pick some mundane, typical bullshit ring, maybe then things will turn out better this go round.

The clerk rings me up, bags the ring, and I leave, wondering what the hell I'm doing. I think about it the entire way home, and the more I do, the more I feel like I'm doing the right thing.

You tell yourself something is right enough times, eventually you'll start to believe it.

The bright blue sky shines in through the window. It’s beautiful out and I hate it. It should be grey. It should be storming. I want the entire world to look the way I feel. Which is like shit.

“Are you sure you're okay if I leave?” Isaac asks, rubbing his hand over my side before kissing my cheek.

I can’t believe he is actually going to leave me, and maybe that’s selfish. I know he's got a contract and it’s the middle of baseball season, but shit. I bunch the covers in my fist.  I’ve barely managed to get myself out of the bed over the past few days, and he’s asking me to tell him I'll be okay left in this ridiculous house alone.

Closing my eyes, I lie to him. “Do whatever you need to, Isaac.” I just did that woman thing where my tone should tell him I want him to stay, but I don’t want to seem whiny and needy. I want him to
want
to stay…

“I love you,” he says before his weight leaves the mattress. I hear the closet door open, the suitcase drops to the floor, and he throws clothes into it.

Maybe it's insensitive of me to expect the entire world to stop just because my mother died. Just because my world has been demolished doesn't mean everyone else's has, but I expect more from someone who loves me.

I lie in the bed, listening to him hum as he packs his suitcase. The fact that he’s humming makes me want to yell at him, or cry, maybe punch him. It just makes me feel so insignificant, and I can’t explain it. The handle of his luggage snaps into place and the worn wheels roll across the floor, stopping beside the bed. 

“You sure? Thompson could pitch if you need me to stay.”

“Yeah. Sure, Isaac. It's fine.” I'm not going to argue with him because this is what he wants to do. If it weren't, he wouldn't even ask, he would have told his manager that he wasn't coming to the game. Thompson would already be pitching.

“I'll be back soon,” he says and kisses me again before heading toward the door. “Call me if you need me. I'm sure Jen will be over.” 

The door closes behind him and I focus on the window, watching the leaves rustle in the wind. I’ve lost my father, my mother, and my own husband is more concerned with his career than how broken I feel. I heard the manager when he told Isaac to take a few games off if he needed to, but Isaac's life is baseball. It always has been. Baseball is why Isaac and I broke up in high school, and how I ended up with Nicolas, and I used to love baseball for that very reason.

The longer I lie here, the more the sadness eats away at me. I dwell on the fact that Isaac and I got married because it was the right thing to do, not because we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other. I remember how terrible it was when I lost the baby—how months down the road I wanted out of the marriage and I almost left Isaac. I even emailed Nicolas and told him I was going to leave, and his response was:
Even if you left him, I wouldn’t take you back
. And, if I couldn’t be with Nicolas, what was the point in leaving? I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to be a failure. I wanted to
try
and love the man I had married. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be a good person, but still the thought of it all breaks my heart. And, just like always, when I get this sad the first instinct I have is to reach for the phone, and I do, but I soon realize that I can’t call
her
. It's strange how long it takes things like death to set in. I know she’s gone, my heart definitely feels it, but my mind doesn't want to believe it. I dial her cell phone anyway, waiting for the voice recording to cut on. As soon as I hear her voice, everything inside of me shakes. Guttural sobs wrack my body. Sometimes when you get so low, you just want to wallow in it. And that is exactly what I’m doing because I hang the phone up, immediately dialing her number again and again and again, attempting to burn the sound of her voice into my memory.

I’m in tears when the bedroom door opens. I look up and find Isaac at the foot of the bed, his luggage by the door.

“I’m not gonna leave you.”

His arms wrap around me and I crumble.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” he says. “It’ll be okay…”

It. Will. Be. Okay.

It’s been three months since she died. And all I've done over these past few months is contemplate everything wrong in my life. And at the very bottom of my self-evaluation—devaluation, whatever you wish to call it, I find Nic.

The way we ended, well, it wasn't on good terms. It was my fault. I own that. 

Some things make you lose yourself, and losing him did exactly that. It made me go crazy, it made me desperate. The thought of not having him caused me to make decisions I shouldn’t have made. Knee jerk reactions…

Yesterday, I finally broke down and went to a psychiatrist. I told that stranger about losing my parents and about Nicolas, and the more I talked, the more my life seemed like fiction. And not the “as good as fiction” type because those always have a happy ending. I'm not sure what kind of ending this has, or if it even has one.

I poured my bleeding-fucking-heart out to that doctor, and he told me my sudden preoccupation with Nic was because he reminded me of a good time in my life. He said Nic embodies the idea of my youth and the things I can’t get back, that it isn't Nic I miss, but all those other things. That doctor didn’t get it because this isn’t a sudden preoccupation.

When my therapy hour was up, he handed me a tissue and said in a monotone voice: Depression.

Really? No shit.
He promised me medication will help. Well, unless this medication can give my mother back to me along with a second chance, I can tell you right now, it’s not going to do a damn bit of good to help me.

I read over the blue slip of paper: Zoloft. I roll my eyes as I ball the prescription up and toss it into the fireplace.

It's three in the afternoon and I haven't bathed, I haven't brushed my hair or teeth, and I'm debating on opening a bottle of wine.

I walk into my kitchen and open the cooler, groaning as I stare in at the empty wine racks. The entire fridge rattles when I slam the door closed. I go back to the living room and plop down on the couch, staring at my laptop. When I was a teenager, I wrote. At one time I wanted to be an author, and that seems so foreign to me now. I still have the book of poems I wrote to Nic hidden in a box in the guest room closet. It seems like that was a completely different person, and I guess it was.

I’m a different person now.

I drag the computer into my lap, open a blank document, and stare at the screen. Words once gave me freedom, they once came easily, and now, I can’t even find the word to start with.

My fingers hover over the keys. I just want Nic out of my head. And as silly as it may sound, part of me feels if I write down all of the memories plaguing my mind, then throw the pages into the fireplace, watching as they burn to ash, maybe that will make him disappear from my thoughts.

My fingers tap over the keyboard:

The first day of my senior year. Old friends, same teachers, new locker. Gossip. Plans for the weekend already in the making, and I caught Isaac, my ex, eyeing me from the other end of the hall. Stupid baseball. I glare at him on my way into English class. Jen's already in a seat fidgeting with her skirt to show just enough leg. She grins and waves me over to the desk next to her.

“Only one class together? That's bullshit,” she says. “Oh, shit! I haven’t been able to tell you…” Her eyes go wide. “Sean and Heather broke up!”

“Good.”

“I still can't believe Isaac was cheating on you with Heather,” Jen says. “She's such a slut.”

“Well, he only fucked her because her dad is the coach for the Cardinals. Fucking baseball.” I shrug. “I guess it's better I go ahead and find out what kind of shithead he really is, though, huh?”

Jen nods, and then he walks in, the guy that’s my future and I have no idea. We both fall silent watching as he makes his way down the aisle. I study him, my gaze skimming over his dark, unruly hair. Taking in the details of his ripped jeans, his biceps so big the material of his V-neck looks like it's going to rip to pieces. My eyes drift down his legs and land on a pair of dirty boots, and for some reason, I find that sexy. The air around me turns clean and spicy when he walks past me. I suck that scent in without meaning to.