Broken Hearts Damaged Goods (11 page)

By

Jack Webber

O
ver the past week,
Liselle and I have been trying to prepare ourselves as we get ready to debut
our relationship to my family.  As we have started to develop our official
narrative, we have had to discuss the less than ideal way in which we came to
know each other.  As we have tried to write a socially acceptable story to tell
people, I have started to realize just how damaged we are.

How are we going to say
that we met?

You can lie and say
that after Brittany cheated on you that you turned to me for comfort.  Your
family doesn’t need to know that when we left the bar that night that we were
planning on having sex.

I will say that you
were the only person I could turn to with my sorrow.  As we continued to talk
and share our feelings about having been cheated on, we discovered that
something more was there.

When you came home with
me that night, were you planning on having sex with me?

I had thought about
it.  I wanted to do something to get back at Brittany.  I wanted something to
take the pain away.  I’m glad now that I decided not to go through with it.  I
would have hated using you that way.

Don’t worry about it. 
I’ve been used like that before, and I’ve used guys for that before.

Would you have really
slept with me that night?

Yeah.  That’s why I
invited you back to my place.

What did you think of
me that night?  Did you feel anything for me?

I felt sorry for you.

So it would have been a
pity fuck?

No.  You broke my heart
that night.  I saw a man that was experiencing a lot of the same things that I
had gone through before when some of my relationships had ended.  Since you had
always been nice to me, I thought I would see what I could do to help you.  I
figured that it would be better if I was the one that got used by you, instead
of somebody else.  At least I would understand where your heartache was coming
from.  And I wouldn’t judge you for not calling me the next day.

Why did you agree to
let me stay with you?

You were really sweet. 
And you broke my heart.  And you needed me.  Then when you suggested that we
use each other to get over the heartache, I thought of how nice that it would. 
It saved me from a random hookup with a guy that was just going to be using me.

So that was it?  There
wasn’t anything special about me?

No.  I mean, you were... 
When I told Megan that you were going to be staying with me, she said that I
made you sound like a puppy that I had found on the streets and was trying to
keep.

A puppy?

I know that it doesn’t
sound good, but... A lot of times when I have tried to use men, I have gotten
hurt even more.  They were just a man trying to fill the role of something that
I needed, but they never did.  And then, here you were, this cute, little,
heartbroken, puppy of a man that needed me.  And it felt good to be needed and
to have a man that was pretty drunk still have the wits about him to say no to
me when I offered to sleep with him.

A puppy, huh?

Yeah, but what
surprised me the most was the fact that you were potty trained.  Of all of the
drunk guys I’ve gone home with, you were the first one that didn’t piss on me
in the middle of the night.

Does that happen a lot?

You’d be surprised.  So
when I say that you were a cute, little puppy that needed me, I mean it as a
girl that has gone home with guys with the promise of food, shelter, and love. 
You were the male version of me.  I couldn’t leave something like that out on
the streets.

In many ways, it
bothers me to have her talk about the number of guys that she’s been with. 
It’s not the actual number, and I don’t care about the number, even if I do
eventually end up making love to her at some point in the future.  What bothers
me is that she can just so freely admit to having sex with guys that she didn’t
care about.

And with her
admissions comes a sorrow as if that was all that she deserved.  I would almost
say that she isn’t ashamed, but it’s not that.  She knows that she can’t change
the past.  She has no desire to.  She made her decisions, seems to know that
they were poor and things that she wouldn’t do now, but she talks about them
openly as if she is begging you to love her for who she really is.

She wants somebody to
love her.  Guys have made love to her, but they have never loved her.  And as I
think of Steve and what he used to tell me about her, I see that he missed so
much of who she is as an individual.

I like that she thought
of me as a puppy the night that Brittany left me.  I imagine that I did look
like something that you would see in those SPCA commercials where they show you
images of animals that have been mistreated as a sad song plays and a celebrity
asks you to help.

We’re both damaged
goods.  Animals that only wanted to be loved and cared for by the people we
tried to be devoted to.  In the end, we were mistreated and have been trying to
cope with the wrongs done to us as if it was something that we did.

If I were ever truly
honest with myself, I would admit that I love her.  I love how she makes me
feel, how she is totally honest with me, how she shows me all of her scars that
she has received over the years, and how she doesn’t judge me for my scars.

And I know that there
is a part of her that loves me and wants nothing more than to have me love her
in return.  This is what scares me.  I still have visions of my previous
master.  Those scars haven’t healed.

I know what it is like
to go unloved.  Since I cannot be sure of my own heart right now, I don’t want
to be another guy that ends up hurting her.  That would hurt me more than
anything else I have endured so far.

Oct. 11, 2010

The wedding was
amazing.  I decided to do my hair up, which took me about an hour with Megan’s
help.  She also helped me with the makeup.  Thankfully we had enough time to
get dressed and stuff before the wedding.  I wanted to look perfect and not
keep Jack waiting, especially since we made him get dressed two hours before we
had to leave just so I could use the bedroom and then reveal the dress right
before we left.

All of my efforts were
worth it.  I’ve never had a guy look at me the way that he did.  I felt like a
princess.  He walked slowly over to me and whispered in my ear, “In case I
forget to tell you tonight, you’re the most beautiful girl at the wedding.”

He then held his arm
out for me to take.  “Shall we?”

The wedding was about
20 miles outside of town, which gave us a little time to brief me again on
everybody that was going to be at the wedding.  He told me how to handle his
mom, dad, grandparents, brother, sister, aunts, and uncles.  We’ve been going
over all of this for the past week.  I just hoped that I wouldn’t embarrass him
too much in front of his family.

When we pulled into the
church’s parking lot, he got out, walked over to my side of the car, and opened
the door for me.  He then extended his hand for me to take and helped me get
out.  And he walked me to the front doors of the church with me clearly on his
arm.

As we got inside, he
started to slip his fingers in between mine.  I found out that the guy coming
over to us in a tux was his older brother, Max.

“What up, little bro? 
Mom was wondering who you were going to bring?”

With great civility,
Jack introduced me.  “Max, this is Liselle.  Liselle, this is my older
brother.”

Max then shook my hand
and told me how great it was to meet me before he tacked on a, “So are you and
my brother...?”

I deferred to Jack on
that one.  Thankfully, he didn’t waste any time to say, “We’re together.”

“Oh, Jack, man.  You're
going to have come up with something better than that.  Mom and Nana are going
to nail you on that.  You’ve only been broken up with Brittany for a month.”

I was happy for Jack to
say that we were together, but Max brought up a good point.  It had only been
about a month since the breakup with Brittany.  It would look bad for me if Jack
declared having strong feelings for me in that amount of time.  And I didn’t
want to be introduced to his mother as the girl that he has been spending his
nights with for the past month.  Mothers judge you on that sort of thing.

I think Max could see
me looking at Jack as he was waiting to come up with another term for us. 
“Dude, if you’re going to introduce her as your girlfriend, Mom will be all
over you two tonight.  She won’t stop until she finds out how you met and what
the first date was like.  And don’t forget that Mom loved Brittany.  She is
still wondering what happened between you two.”

And then I think Max
thought of how this might sound in front of me be he added, “Frankly, I think
you’re a definite upgrade from Brittany.  And in case he hasn’t told you yet,
he’s totally in to you.”

“Do you see what I mean
about my brother having no shame”, Jack said while blushing.

“I’m just trying to
help you out.  I can’t help it that you’re letting a beautiful girl like this
carry on with you without giving her the proper title for your feelings for
her.”

Jack became speechless
at this point.  Thankfully I remembered what he had told me about his brother,
so I said, “With what he’s giving me, I’m not too concerned about the proper
title.”

I then took Jack’s arm
and walked into the sanctuary to take a seat.  His brother just stared at us.

Jack thanked me for
that and then asked me not to do that kind of stuff in front of his mom,
grandma, or sister.

“You know, you’re going
to have to define what we are before I meet your mother.”

“I know”, was all he
said.

“And if your brother
can tell that you are totally in to me, the women in your family will be able
to tell.”

That’s when Jack just
looked at me.  “How do you want me to define us?”

I don’t know if it is
something in us as women or whether it’s something that we learn as we grow up,
but it always seem like a bad idea to let a guy know that you like him or to
tell him how you would like to define your relationship with him. 

Maybe it has something
to do with guys’ innate ability to just copy what you say.  If you say “I love
you”, the guy will just repeat it.  It’s not that this echo of your affection
isn’t sincere.  It’s just that you would like to hear it from him first.

“I want you to define
us by how you feel about me.”

I wouldn’t find out his
answer until later that night at dinner.  We were sitting with his mom, dad,
and sister.  Jack called it the great inquisition where we were bombarded with
questions about how we met, how long we have known each other, etc.

I didn’t come off very
good during this part, but Jack kept trying to make my answers sound better. 
But there was no way to explain the ring on my left ring finger, especially
when Jack’s mother said, “You know, I saw on
Dr. Phil
the other day
about how people that come out of relationships that have lasted a long time
start to sleep around to get a feeling of self-worth.  People do a lot of
stupid things when they are getting over a break up.”

“Mom, the ring on
Liselle’s finger is from me.  I bought it to give to Brittany when I was going
to propose to her.  But a funny thing happened when I got down on one knee. 
She told me that she had been sleeping with Steve.”

Jack was more than a
little defiant.  And as he continued, he took my hand.

“I can’t tell you what
is going on between me and Liselle.  It’s not because I’m ashamed of it.  I
just can’t define it.  I just know that when I am with her that I feel things
that I haven’t felt in a long time when I was with Brittany.

And that ring is a
promise to help to make me a better person.  Despite what you might think of a
person that you just met, Liselle is more worthy of that ring than Brittany
ever was.”

“I have no doubt that
you find a certain worthiness in her, considering that you have been sleeping
together ever since the breakup.”

There was a look on his
mother’s face that I have seen plenty of times on a mother’s face.  I guess,
fortunately enough for me, this time I was with Jack.

“I hate to tell you
this, Mom, but two people of the opposite sex can share a bed and not have
sex.  Just ask any married man.  Right, Dad?”

The entire table was
shocked and speechless.  Jack’s mom and sister were especially.  Jack’s dad was
just laughing.  He didn’t even stop when his wife hit him

Jack then turned to
me.  “Would you care to dance?”  And we exited the entire situation and danced.

I apologized for
causing him so many problems with his family.  He said that it wasn’t my fault
and that his mom and sister really liked Brittany and thought that she was the
one.

It felt good to be with
him.  I liked having his arms around me.  I’ve never had a guy stand up for me
before.  I’ve had plenty of mothers hate me without ever having gotten to know
me, so I was used to that.  I ended up telling Jack this as we were dancing.

We talked a lot as we
were dancing.  We talked about very private stuff.  And no matter how much we
shared, there was always more.  And we continued like this all night, even on
the car ride home and once we got to bed.

Bedtime was nice.  He
only wore a pair of boxers.  I started off wearing a tank top and a pair of
panties.  We just laid in bed, facing each other, with our arms around each
other, and looking into each other’s eyes as we continued to share the deepest
parts of ourselves that we haven’t shown to anybody in a very long time.

It’s not that we were
ashamed of our secrets.  It was everything that we wanted to get off of our
chests.  We just couldn’t find anybody that was worthy of keeping our secrets
without judging us.

I do love him.  I’m not
going to kid myself, even if I won’t tell him.  And the more that I am with
him, the more that I love him.

His mom did apologize
to me.  She said that she was glad that I was taking care of her boy during
this difficult time.  And his father cut in while I was dancing with Jack.  I
danced with his father as he apologized for Jack’s mom and asked that I didn’t
think poorly on his family.  I told him that I couldn’t.  I’ve thought better
of the world since I’ve gotten to know Jack.