The Purple Heart (14 page)

“
Holy hell, melodramatic
much? Christ, Sydney. I’m telling you, it’s all a misunderstanding.
He’s going to be waiting on your doorstep, flowers in tow,
admitting this was entirely his fault. I promise.”

“
You can’t promise. You
don’t know. You hate him, anyway. You want him to be
gone.”

“
I don’t even know him,
hun. That is and has always been my greatest concern. I told you
this was all happening way too fast. Neither of you knew anything
about each other. Here we are, not even a week later and he’s gone.
Was I wrong?”

“
I told you. I made him
leave. It’s all my fault. Aiden has been nothing but wonderful and
sincere and …”

“
And what? Mysterious? As
far as I know, he still hasn’t told you anything about himself,
right? You wouldn’t be panicking if he had. You have nothing on
him, no way to reach him whatsoever. How do you know all this
hasn’t been his plan from the get go? Maybe he isn’t who you think
he is.”

“
I never would have made
him leave if it weren’t for you, you know. You’ve been planting
things into my head about how he’s hiding something from me since
the first time I mentioned he moved in with me. You made me doubt
him, and now he’s gone.” I pointed my finger at her face and
squinted my eyes.

“
You aren’t seriously
blaming me for this, are you? ‘Cause I can tell you right now,
that’s not gonna fly with me. I have been by your side for how many
years now? I’ve held your hair while you puked. You stood by me
when I told my parents I was a lesbian and they accused you of
being my lover. You stood next to Gina and I as our maid of honor
the day we got married, when none of our family would stand by us.
You’ll be there the day we deliver our baby and through every day
after. We’ve never had a fight, not even a misunderstanding, until
this guy came into the picture. Now you’re turning on me because I
told you to look out for yourself and get to know him? Now he’s
gone and somehow it’s my fault? I haven’t even met him
yet.”

“
And I guess you never
will, since he’s gone forever.” I felt like the worst person in the
world. Now I had hurt her, too. I didn’t really blame her. I was
responsible for my own thoughts and actions.

I held my head in my hands and the
tears flowed freely. Hell, I was full-blown sobbing all over
Cheryl’s couch. She placed her arm around me and tried to comfort
me with words of encouragement about meeting someone else, or
things not being meant to be, or him coming back. I even think she
recited the poem about loving something and setting it
free.

“
I’m sorry, Cheryl. I
didn’t mean any of that. It’s not your fault. It’s
mine.”

“
Listen, babe, I know
you’re lashing out at me because you’re hurting, and badly. And I
forgive you for it. I remember doing the same thing to you at one
point in time. Remember that day my family turned their backs on
me? That’s why we’re friends. We have each other’s backs. We’re
each other’s sounding boards. So no, I won’t hold any of this
against you, but I might make you buy me lunch to make up for it. I
love you. You’re my best friend. You’re my sister.”

“
I love you, too.” I
proceeded to soak her pajamas with my misery.

After my tears had subsided to
sniffling and breath catching, Cheryl left to rifle through Gina’s
prescriptions to see if she could find me something to ease the
pain. She returned with a hot cup of chamomile tea and a sleeping
pill. Neither was going to stop the pain ripping through my heart
right now.

“
Take the pill and the tea.
You need some sleep. I’m telling you, tomorrow morning everything
will be back in perspective and you can reevaluate it all with a
fresh mind. Trust me.”

“
Trust me.
That’s
what Aiden asked me to do, and I didn’t.”

“
Sydney, don’t make me
practice my mom skills on you. They’re going to be mad skills and I
don’t think you want me to open them up on your ass right now. Take
the damn pill.”

She shoved her hand right in my face.
It cradled a small white oblong pill. If Aiden didn’t return to me,
I’d consider taking the whole damn bottle. I slowly reached for the
pill, hesitated, then realized I’d rather be sleeping than awake,
living the torture I was presently experiencing. She dropped the
pill into my hand and stood over me until she was sure I had taken
it.

“
Let me see under your
tongue. I can’t believe I have to do this. I’m going to get you a
blanket and pillow. Sorry, babe, the couch is all I can offer you
right now. We just don’t have the room for guests. We’re going to
have to convert the office into a nursery as it is. I don’t see us
swinging a house right now or anytime in the near future. This
whole pregnancy thing has cost us every bit of savings we had. I
guess having a baby is more important right now than retirement.
But isn’t that always the case? Why keep it? You can’t bring any of
it with you once you’re gone.”

“
I’m sorry. I’m ruining all
your good news today with my problems and making you think about
your problems.”

“
Oh honey, just you wait.
Payback is a real bitch. I’ll be on the phone with you at those
three o’clock in the morning feedings. Believe me, you’ll be
getting phone calls at all sorts of ungodly hours.”

As promised, Cheryl brought me a cozy
blanket and pillow. She fluffed the pillow for me, patted it to
suggest I place my head on it, and then tucked me in. She was going
to be one fantastic mom. Hell, they both were.

“
Okay, I’m going to head
back to bed. I’m worried about you. Are you going to be all
right?”

“
Can you just stay with me?
Until this stupid thing kicks in?”

“
Hell yes! Want me to hold
you?”

“
Yes, hold me
please.”

Cheryl sat down on the couch end, and I
rested my pillow and head in her lap. She stroked my hair until I
dozed off. I’m not sure when she left, but it was before the
nightmares started.

I must have been dreaming. It had to be
a dream because I couldn’t actually feel the pain I knew I should
be experiencing.

I opened my eyes. Everything was so
dark, and I was trying to adjust them so I could see. When my eyes
were finally able to focus, I realized I was in my own bed at home.
The sheets were soaked with sweat, and I was cold and
uncomfortable. I sat up and ran my hand through my hair.

I remembered he was no longer in the
room next to mine and began crying over his loss again. All of the
pain rushed through me at once. My heart felt like it immediately
stopped beating. It seemed each time I remembered he was gone; the
shock of it hit me as freshly as it had when he walked out the
door. I imagined it must be like that for a widow. Wake up from
dreaming of your love, only to be hit with the hard reality they
were gone and never coming back again. It must be torture. It was
for me.

I pulled myself out of bed, feeling the
uncontrollable urge to be in his room, as though it would let me
feel him with me somehow. I threw myself down on his bed and began
bawling. I tore at the sheets and wrapped them around me, so that I
could pretend they were his arms that were holding me.

Although I was completely bundled up, I
felt the temperature in the room plummet. I could see my breath as
I sighed, knowing that had I not turned my back on him, he would be
here with me now, keeping me warm and safe. Why was it so cold? I
realized it was because my pajamas were soaked.

As I got up to change into a pair of
sweats, I could feel someone was in his room with me, watching me.
All the air pushed out of my lungs. My breath became stuttered as
my heart stopped. I was frightened beyond belief. But my
apprehension was soon replaced by what felt like relief.

That’s when I began to feel like Aiden
was there with me. I scanned the room to search for him.

He was standing in the darkest corner,
only feet away from me. I could feel emotion pouring out of him and
over me, almost as though he was trying to lessen my pain. It
seemed to be working. His presence alone, knowing he was here with
me, was enough to start my heart beating again. He had returned.
After everything I had put him through, he came back to
me.

“
Aiden,” I called out. He
didn’t respond. “Aiden, talk to me. I need to hear your voice.
Please say something. Tell me you forgive me.”

Again, there was no verbal response. I
started to feel anger growing inside. More mind games? He just
stared at me with a blank face. This whole thing was starting to
verge on the edge of creepy.

“
Stop whatever it is you’re
doing. Just come over here, and hold me, love me. Please. I need
you.”

His eyes softened and he smiled warmly
at my plea, but made no move to come closer.

“
Aiden, why are you doing
this to me, to us?” I covered my face with my hands and cried. He
was here with me, yet he wasn’t. I wished he would stop messing
with my emotions. I just wanted to feel his arms around me. I
wanted to know he was real. I looked at him, but he was no longer
there, and all the pain of his being gone spread back over me
again.

I screamed for him. I couldn’t move and
wasn’t sure if any sound was actually coming out of my mouth. Hands
were on me and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“
Damn, you’re the only
person I know who can wake themselves out of a pill-induced
sleep.”

I groggily opened my eyes to find
Cheryl hovering above me with a worried expression on her face. I
was in her apartment, still on her couch. I must have been
dreaming. I’m not sure if I could consider that a nightmare or
not.

“
When I mentioned being up
at three-thirty in the morning, I was talking about the baby, not
you. Close your eyes and go back to sleep before you’re too awake.
Then it’ll be impossible to fall back to sleep unless I give you
another dose. And honestly, that idea scares the shit out of
me.”

She tucked me in once again, shut the
light off and left me alone. This would be my life now, alone
without Aiden. Sleeping on my friend’s couch. I knew I had done the
wrong thing. I just had no way to take it back.

The rest of my night was uneventful. I
believe I was able to sleep for a few hours with no nightmares.
Occasionally, throughout the night, I felt like Aiden was there
next to me, holding me. I would turn towards him, only to find he
wasn’t actually there, and the darkness would take hold of me
again. I woke up before the sun, so I decided to take my leave and
head home. I was dreading it, but I knew it was something I’d have
to face at some point or another. I thought it best to get it out
of the way now.

When I drove up the driveway, I had a
terrible foreboding feeling overwhelm me. I imagined again, this
must be how a new widow feels coming home for the first time to a
newly empty house. I’m not sure why I associated all of this with a
widow instead of simply a break-up. It was probably because Aiden
had been living with me. I knew I didn’t have to worry about his
things still being there. He’d taken what little he had with him.
There was nothing left to hold or touch. I didn’t even have any
pictures of us together to reminisce over.
How could I not even
have a picture of him?
We had spent an entire day at the
park and it never crossed my mind to take a picture?
Now I was
kicking myself in the ass because it was too late. There would be
no pictures of him or us together.

My house would simply be as it had been
only days before, as if Aiden had never existed. Even from outside,
my house looked empty. No, it looked more than just empty. It
looked abandoned. There was no life to it at all.

I sat in my car in the garage, not
wanting to move. I didn’t feel like being alone. At least in the
car, I could just rev it back up and leave with no effort. Once
inside, I was afraid of being trapped there, with no one to help me
or hear my cries. Silly really, to think I would feel that way
.
I could leave whenever I wanted, couldn’t I?

I couldn’t run away from being alone,
though. I had been alone before Aiden and it had never bothered me
like this. Even being at Cheryl’s made me feel out of place, like a
third wheel. It had never really occurred to me before, but with
the baby coming, things were already changing.

After I while, I convinced myself
everything would be fine.
How could one man in my life for only
a few days change how I had lived for the past seven years?
I
had been alone that entire time. I took my time gathering myself
together, took a deep breath and withdrew from my car.

When I entered the house, it was so
cold. The temperatures outside were quickly declining. Aiden had
said we were in for an ice storm later in the week. For some reason
that storm kept coming back into my mind. I would need to turn the
heat on and shut the outside water valves so they didn’t freeze.
Aiden could have done that for me. Funny, we were only just at the
park enjoying the warmth of the sun and each other and now
everything seemed frozen. How easily thoughts of him being a part
of my life had replaced my regular train of thought. The feeling
overtook me and my hand shot up to cover my mouth.
Oh my God,
Aiden was gone.