Part 17, the Emotions

 

"I wanted to surprise you!" Monica said with a voice breaking with tears as she started to cry.

 

She was talking to Chandler, who was just entering with the diary in his hands, in a very bad mood. Now he calmed down a bit upon hearing her desperate tone.

 

"All I wanted to do was surprise you…" Monica said again, having just woken up and remembering more than she did when she fell asleep. And the sudden realisation of what she’d remembered had made her start to cry when she spoke.

 

Chandler put the diary on the kitchen table and walked closer to the couch.

 

"What are you talking about?" he asked, more hostile than he’d intended it to sound.

 

"The pregnancy" Monica whispered.

 

"What?" Chandler said, not getting it really.

 

"When I first found out I was pregnant I didn’t know if it was for sure…" Monica explained through her tears. "I was actually taking an HIV test to make sure I hadn’t gotten it from George, and the doctor told me that I wasn’t carrying the virus, I was carrying a child. But I was only a few days along so it was very unsure." She made a pause and thought of how to continue. "I decided not to say anything until I knew for sure."

 

"And after nearly two months you didn’t know for sure?" Chandler bawled.

 

"Don’t be so angry!" Monica sobbed. "I can’t do this if you’re going to sound so mad!"

 

Chandler angrily sat down on the coffee table, facing her. He wasn’t going to let her tears affect her, although he knew they might.

 

"Well go ahead, just say whatever it is you’re gonna say" he said, hostile.

 

Monica sat quiet for a while, gathering strength. She wished she could stop crying, but it was impossible.

 

"Just give me a minute" she whispered. It was much harder facing Chandler than she’d thought it would be. And he was so mad at her, which didn’t help.

 

"This us useless" Chandler said after a few minutes, and rose. "If you’re not gonna talk, just weep, then I think I could waste my time on better things."

 

"Stop it!" Monica cried. "Stop acting like that! Do you think it makes it easier? For either one of us? Just because I’ve acted like a bitch for one year it doesn’t mean you have to start acting the same way!"

 

Chandler sat down again.

 

"Well then why don’t you just tell me what you’re out to tell me" he said, slightly calmer but still mad. "So that I can go do something else instead of just sitting here for minutes."

 

"When I found out for sure that I was having a baby it was the week after our two-year anniversary. And at first I wanted to go tell you as soon as possible, but…" she trailed off.

 

"But what?" Chandler asked. "You have no idea how mad I will be if you tell me that you didn’t do it because you thought I wouldn’t want to hear it."

 

"Of course I thought you wanted to hear it" Monica sobbed. "Give me a break Chandler, we discussed children around valentines day that year, and you said that you wouldn’t want to try for a baby yet but you would welcome it if I got pregnant."

 

"I knew you remembered everything…" Chandler muttered. "I knew you did. And I also knew you’d tell me everything. Didn’t I tell you that I knew that?"

 

Monica said nothing. She couldn’t really argue with that, because she couldn’t explain how she’d just remembered once she’d woken up. Chandler wouldn’t believe her.

 

"Oh for crying out loud Mon, get to the point!" Chandler said, impatient.

 

"Look, maybe we should do this some other time" Monica said. She was a mess at the moment, and she could use some time to think through exactly what she wanted to tell him. And Chandler could take some time to calm down.

 

"Oh no you don’t" Chandler said. "I want to know, and I want to know now. No more weaselling out of this. I want the truth!"

 

Monica came close to telling him to read the diary. Instead she continued to cry.

 

"Look, I just think that maybe I should calm down a little first" she sobbed, not looking into his eyes anymore.

 

"No, you started this conversation, you keep it going until I have found out exactly what your betrayal was all about."

 

"Chandler, please!" she cried. "I have changed, that much we know for sure, but you shouldn’t all of a sudden become Mr. Hyde!"

 

"This may be hard for you to comprehend," Chandler said with slight sarcasm, "but I too need to be angry! And god knows I have reason to be."

 

"If only you knew what I knew" Monica said.

 

"Well I never will, since you keep your mouth shut. You know, if you say A you say B, so spill it Mon! I am tired of your charades!"

 

"Why is it that you could put up with it while I couldn’t remember, when I was bitter and mean, but now that I’m sorry for what I’ve done and regretful you can’t put up with it at all?" Monica cried.

 

"Oh what do you know about weather or not I put up with it before?" Chandler cried back. "It’s not like you were the easiest person to talk to, I put up with it because I had to, there was no talking to you."

 

"Had to?" Monica said. "Don’t give me that, you could have come to me at any time and yelled at me. Only you didn’t, you’re doing all of your yelling now, when I want to make it all up to you!"

 

"You know what?" Chandler said in frustration, rising again. "This isn’t going anywhere. Not at all, we’re standing still at the same place, going through the same crap over and over."

 

There was a pause, neither of them could think of anything else to say. And both were wondering if this was the final end to their relationship.

 

"Chandler if I asked you something would you give me a truthful answer?" Monica asked. She continued before he could answer. "Would you have been better off, would your life have been better if I had died?"

 

Chandler was completely caught off guard with that question. He’d never even imagined that she would ask him something like that. He looked down at her, tears were falling down her face, her hair was a mess, she was looking away from him, gazing to her right. She looked desperate.

 

"What kind of a question is that?" he finally asked.

 

"Would you?" Monica insisted.

 

"Would I what?" Chandler asked. "Give you a truthful answer or be happier if you were dead?"

 

"Both" Monica whispered.

 

Chandler was debating with himself. He didn’t want to give her the edge now, he didn’t want to start talking about something like this. He wanted to continue fighting with her, not because he liked it so much but because he needed an answer and he needed it now.

 

"I need an answer too…" Monica whispered, as if reading his mind. She looked up at him and continued to whisper. "So that’s the deal, I guess… You answer my question and I’ll answer yours."

 

Chandler gave a short laugh.

 

"Nice try there, Mon…" he said. "You know, I owe you shit. I don’t owe you at all to answer your question, but you owe me to answer mine."

 

Monica looked away from him again. He was probably right but that didn’t mean that she didn’t need to get an answer to her question. She’d been running the question through her mind since she woke up from her nap, and the thought tormented her. Would he have been happier with her dead? Did he secretly wish to be able to go back in time and let her die? She didn’t think that sounded much like Chandler, but he was probably more miserable now than he would have been if she’d died.

 

‘I should have died’ she thought. ‘What good has come of me continuing to live?’

 

"Could you please just answer the question?" Chandler said, not wanting to get into any more subjects that had little to do with the original one. He lost his patience and got more rage and emphasis in his voice. "Mon, if you ever cared for me then now’s the time to show it! Don’t I mean anything at all to you? How can you put me on hold if you love me? You know I need to know the answer to my question, I have wondered for over a year!"

 

Monica said nothing.

 

"Answer me!" Chandler yelled.

 

"You haven’t exactly asked me anything" Monica pointed out, ceasing to sob.

 

"Excuse me?" Chandler bawled.

 

"You haven’t asked me anything today!" Monica repeated, raising her voice.

 

"You know what my question is!" Chandler replied.

 

"Yeah. I do!" Monica hissed back. "But you know what? I am sick of being treated like scum by you just because I remember now and you can take all your anger out on me!" She rose as well and looked him in the eyes, continuing to yell. "I can’t take being hated by you! Not being hated by you for keeping the pregnancy a secret, not for having amnesia, not for treating you bad and not for still not remembering everything! Chandler not even for you realizing that you don’t love me anymore, can I be hated." She softened her tone. "Deal with it on your own, okay? Don’t hate me for you not loving me anymore. That is all you. Don’t take it out on me!"

 

"Oh so now I don’t love you anymore?" Chandler asked, annoyed still.

 

"Do you?" Monica asked back, also annoyed.

 

"Well what do you think?"

 

"What I think? I think that the other night when we were in bed together you realized that you don’t love me anymore. And the realization hit you like a ton of bricks, you weren’t prepared for it. And you were so sure that you would love me always, that now when you realized your love had passed you started to hate me."

 

"Oh, and why would I hate you?" Chandler asked, angry with her for accusing him.

 

"I don’t know!" Monica said. "Or maybe I do. But you know far better than I do." She sighed and asked him carefully. "Would you have been happier if I’d died?"

 

"Even if you were right and I hate you now," Chandler hissed, "that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you when the accident occurred. I would have been inconsolable if you had died, because I--" He quieted, not knowing what he wanted to say, really.

 

"Because you didn’t know what a bitch I really am?" Monica asked. "A bitch is what you see me as now."

 

"Would you stop accusing me of shit like that?" Chandler shouted. "Listen to me, I know weather or not I love you, I know weather or not I hate you, and I know why I would have missed you so much I would have wanted to kill myself! You don’t! What do you even know about love? You’ve just thrown it all away, all the love that’s been given to you!"

 

Monica slapped him, furious with him.

 

"How dare you?" she yelled. "Why don’t you try not remembering someone that gives you the creeps for the way she or he looks at you? Why don’t you try loving someone that you can’t remember even the name of, that looks at you so lovingly that it scares you to death since you don’t know she or he? Why don’t you try living in a world you don’t know, surrounded by people you don’t know? Then you would see what it’s like! And to then have the one you love rub in your face that she or he thinks that it’s a pure waste loving you, that she or he thinks you aren’t capable of loving and that you’re just a dead monster inside that isn’t worth loving, you have no idea what it’s like!" Her voice nearly broke with anger as she yelled at him. "If anybody’s dead inside, you are! And I might be the one responsible, but if you can’t face that something beyond my control happened to me and that the affects also were beyond my control then you’re just as much to blame as I am! I thought I was blessed being loved by you, now I see that maybe being loved by you is the worst thing that has ever happened to me! I thought your love was strong and devoted, but the truth seems to be that it’s all bullshit and not worth a dime! Did you wait for me to remember just so you could take it all out on me, how much you hate me? Have you deep down inside hated me ever since I woke up? Has this all been a charade on your part, you telling yourself that the feelings you have for me are love, when they in reality are hate?"

 

Her voice finally broke and she sunk down on the couch, quietly crying, having so much more to say to him.

 

Chandler turned on the spot and fled into the guest room, slamming the door behind him. He pressed his back against the wall, hyperventilating and fearing that she was right. He felt almost as scared as he’d been the night of the accident, because her words had made him wonder if she was right. Maybe he’d started to hate her after the accident and just repressed it. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t given up on her, because he’d hated her but somehow mistaken the hatred for love, since he didn’t dare to admit to himself that he hated her. Or maybe he’d just realized the other night.

 

He sank to the floor, still hyperventilating and biting his left hand knuckles.

 

‘Please don’t let that be the truth!’ he thought. ‘I don’t want to find out that I’ve hated Monica all this time, but mistaken it for love. Am I dead inside? I must be… Is there any emotion in me at all, except for hatred? Or is she wrong, am I still in love with her and nothing else?’

 

He gasped a couple of times and closed his eyes hard in pain, leaning his head back.

 

‘I must hate her, that must be the truth…’ he thought. ‘Because if I didn’t I would know for sure. I wouldn’t have to think about it, I would just know that I could never hate her. And if I loved her I would know that instantly. All this time I thought I was the one who loved, but now maybe I’m the one who’s ruined Monica and I. Perhaps it was like she just said, I hated her after the accident and that’s what scared her away from me. I even wrote in her diary that I hated her, didn’t I? Oh Monica, Monica, please tell me it’s not the truth!’

 

He gasped again and opened his eyes. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, sitting just like he’d done the long night at the hospital.

 

Outside in the living room Monica forced herself to stop crying. She looked over at the kitchen table and noticed something she realized was the diary lying there, so she went over and picked it up. And she looked through the pages until she found the entry she was looking for.

 

"And I hate you for doing this to me, I hate you so much for putting me through this pain and fear, you’d better come back to me or I’ll hate you forever!"

 

‘Chandler was this just something you wrote, or is it really what you felt inside?’ she asked him in her thoughts. ‘I mean, was the secret message that you’d hate me if I died on you, or that you just hate me? If it’s the second alternative, was it a secret message so secret that you didn’t even know the real truth when you wrote it?’

 

She read through it again. And she realized that if he hated her then the motivation for why his feelings had changed was right in that message.

 

He hated her for all the pain she’d caused him. He’d loved and lost, his feelings had caused him intense pain instead of joy.

 

‘And I promised him when we were getting serious, that our love would be worth it.’ Monica thought. ‘That we would give each other happiness, that we were secure in our love. I knew when I said that, that one of the things that scared him about commitment is only getting misery for your love. And I promised him that I would never let him down, that he would never feel pain because he loved me. And then I go dying on him. Nearly. I make him experience the worst night he’s ever been through, pulling him between relief and despair, and then leaving him dangling off a cliff… He thought he had me back, and instead he had to wonder for almost two weeks weather or not I would survive. I could have died at any moment, and he knew it. And then I finally woke up, and he had to realize that I’d betrayed him. I let him down, I broke my promise. How could his love for me not cause him to feel pain, if he loved me as before but I didn’t remember him and therefore gave him no love in return?’ She closed the book.

 

"Oh my god he really does hate me… and two nights ago I opened his eyes to it. So now he hates me for that too." she whispered and put the book back on the table.

 

She then realized something else. Chandler hadn’t been fully betrayed until she’d woken up with her amnesia. If she had died, he would have been able to carry on believing that him loving her wouldn’t cause him pain as she’d promised it wouldn’t, because loving a ghost is not the same thing. But instead he’d been forced to see her changed, see her not remembering him. He’d been forced to see her let him down.

 

"Chandler would have been better off if I’d died…" she said to herself. "Oh dear god, what have I done?"

 

She sank down on a chair and shook her head in pain.

 

"What have I done, I shouldn’t have messed with fate, George even told me so that night, told me that I was meant to die, and that was probably because it would have been best for everybody! I’ve ruined Chandler’s soul, I don’t think he’s capable of loving anymore! Not if he hates me, because if he does then he’s burned out all other emotions except for hate."

 

‘But maybe he still loves me’ she thought. ‘Maybe we’re both wrong in thinking he might hate me. If he does think that he might hate me. Maybe he’s just really, really lost…’

 

But she didn’t give much credit to that idea. After all, if he loved her he would have at least tried to convince her that she was wrong in thinking that he hated her.

 

Chandler forced himself to calm down. He was struck by something that seemed like panic, and he couldn’t think straight. He needed to calm down and think it all through.

 

"Mon, how sure are you off this?" he mumbled as he rose to his feet and walked over to the bed that had been his since Monica’s return home four months earlier.

 

"How much do you know about things like this for sure, and how much were you just throwing at me because you were angry and hurt?" he mumbled, and looked out the window. He couldn’t bear looking at the door, since Monica was on the other side off it.

 

"This just isn’t worth it…" he sighed, falling back on the bed. He kept staring out the window. "Not worth it…" he repeated.

 

He really felt at that moment as if him and Monica should call it quits. They should forget about trying to save their relationship that had been dead for a while anyway, and instead try to save the little there was left of their friendship.

 

‘We just fight, and we hurt each other’ he thought. ‘A relationship shouldn’t be like that. Our relationship wasn’t like that. Monica and I, we were so…’

 

He leaned his bodyweight on his left hand, as he lifted himself up enough to look out the window. He thought for a second on how to continue that thought.

 

‘We were so harmonic’ he finally finished it. ‘We weren’t just boyfriend and girlfriend, we were like the best of friends. We knew each other well and we could solve most issues without getting into fights. And now all we do is yell at each other. And it’s not worth it. I love her, I think I do at least, but that doesn’t matter. If we cause each other this much pain then there’s just no point in trying to get it to work again. And besides, things are different now. Who’s to say we won’t just argue all the time if we continue to date? I don’t want to end up like that with Monica, I’d rather be just her friend than her boyfriend that she argues with constantly.’

 

Then he sighed and leaned back down, knowing he was telling himself lies.

 

"Who am I kidding…?" he mumbled.

 

He would not rather be her friend, he’d been her friend for a year now and he wanted her back. But the problem was that he wanted his old girlfriend back, he didn’t know if he wanted to go out with the person she was these days. He knew he loved the woman he’d lived with and shared everything with, nothing Monica said could make him think he might hate that woman. But he wasn’t sure if he hated the woman she was now. Was he simply hiding his hatred from himself behind the love he felt for another woman in another year?

 

‘Damn it Monica!’ he thought. ‘Why did you have to plant these doubts in my head, huh? Things were hard enough as they were! And for crying out loud, how am I supposed to realize what sort of feelings I really have for you and come to terms with them, if you won’t let me think? Too many accusations too fast, and the strange part is that you shouldn’t be the one coming with them. I should be coming with them to you.’

 

He rose from the bed and went over to the desk by the window. He’d used the guest room as an office once, and his desk was still there. He sat down by it and decided to try and sort out his feelings one by one.

 

‘The first thing I need to do,’ he thought, ‘is to clear out my emotions. I know for sure that I love Monica, or at least I did, but maybe I can hate her as well? And besides, the Monica I love is my Monica, not the Monica that’s here with me today. They’re not the same person. So do I hate this Monica that’s the only one I’ve got right now, do I love her, or do I even feel any sort of strong emotions for her? Maybe I just don’t care. Maybe she’s just another one of my female friends. I mean, I don’t feel anything strong for neither Rachel nor Phoebe, sure, they’re my close friends, but I don’t feel any strong emotion when I look at them.’

 

He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, just to keep his hand busy with something, and drew a short line symbolizing that he’d come to one conclusion this far.

 

‘Since I feel something so strong when I look at Mon,’ he concluded in his thoughts, ‘weather it’s love or hatred, I still know that I have some sort of strong feeling for her. So that’s one conclusion I’ve come to.’

 

The next hit him just seconds later.

 

‘How could I ever think that it wasn’t worth it? Man, I must hate her! Otherwise I would have felt immediately that anything is worth being with her. If anyone would have asked me about this last year before the accident, I would have answered that even if Mon and I fought on a daily basis it would still be so worth it, just getting to be with her. Now I hesitate. Why is that?’

 

He drew another line on his paper and continued to ponder.

 

‘She is right… Weather she knows it or not, she is so right… I probably do hate her, only I can’t admit it to myself because that would be a betrayal to all the love that’s been kept inside me only for her. But there’s also a chance that I love her just like before, and all of this hatred talk has simply messed up my head. I am so confused and lost now anyway, so it wouldn’t be hard to mess with my head right now. But she is still right, weather I love her or hate her, because I don’t love her as much anymore.’

 

He closed his eyes in pain, and automatically drew another line on his paper. The realisation was the first one that felt really real, and it made him realise that no matter what his feelings were for her now, something so important had gone lost. And he probably wouldn’t ever be able to replace it. He had betrayed himself, betrayed the Chandler who had watched over his girlfriend who was in a coma, betrayed the Chandler that without hesitation would have gone back through time to let Monica take the lead on that day, and follow after her and take the hit, the coma, the amnesia and everything that came with it.

 

‘Everyone’s let me down…’ he thought. ‘Even me myself. I let myself down just like Mon did… Who am I these days? Monica’s not the only one who’s different. I keep thinking of her as Monica now and Monica then. I’m so blind not seeing that there’s a Chandler now and a Chandler then as well. Truthfully, would I ever have gotten to this point if the accident hadn’t happened? Would I have been the same man? I would have been ten times happier and five times more blessed… But on the other hand I wouldn’t have been half this wise. I’d rather be happy than wise.’

 

He drew a fourth line on his paper, and with the next thought that instantly came over him he crossed the four lines over, marking five conclusions.

 

‘I know why I hate, or think I hate, Mon’ he realized. ‘Because she let me down. Damn it Monica, you said you would always be there! And you said your love would always be there for me when I needed it! You promised me I would never feel pain because I loved you, and you said that no matter what happened you would love me. You lied. When have you been there for me after the accident? Have you once tried to comfort me? Help me out? No. And your love hasn’t been there for me, it hasn’t even been! You haven’t loved me! Nothing has made me feel more pain than loving you, I nearly lost you in a horrible way and after sidestepping that I’ve lost you in an other way. And you have not loved me no matter what! You lied to me and that’s why I hate you so much!’

 

He recoiled as he noticed he’d automatically added a sixth line on his paper. So he did hate her.

 

Monica had opened her diary again and was now writing for herself, not for Chandler, and she didn’t really know who she was writing to. But she needed to easen the burden by talking about it, even if the person listening wasn’t a person, but a diary.

 

"George really made me think everything was going to work out okay. He spoke of heaven on earth, after all. He gave me the courage to come clean with Chandler, and I also think he’s the one who allowed me to remember the answer Chandler’s searching for. So I thought everything was going to be okay, at last. When he said that thing about heaven on earth I really thought he meant that I was meant to have it. Now I know otherwise. This is not heaven, this his hell, or something close to it. I don’t believe in what George has told me anymore. In fact, I don’t even believe that I’ve ever met George after his death. I believe that all of this nonsense about me talking to him in the OR room and now just earlier tonight is something created in my imagination. I think that maybe I’ve been so desperate for answers that my mind has created this whole thing with George talking to me and giving me answers. And I think the answers have all been created inside my head, that they’ve been the first thing my subconscious has come up with. After all, helping an old man out is not exactly the same thing as being the new messiah. Nobody gets a place in heaven, or the kingdom of heaven, or whatever it was, just for helping someone out. In that case nobody would ever end up elsewhere. Except for people like Hitler, Attila or Stalin… and according to what "George" has told me, no one goes to hell, you just spend another life on earth, then there would be no use for two heavens, would there?

 

Why does it seem as if the answers to all your question have to be religious? I mean, even death and misery is explained with religion. Tough things are tests from God, good things are rewards. Well why would God first reward someone as he supposedly rewarded me, and then put that person through a test like this? Makes no sense at all. I know now for sure that I don’t believe in God. In fact, I hate what I’ve found out about that power that’s said to be so wonderful Because if it’s real then it must be evil, for doing this to us. I can handle it being done to me, but not to Chandler. All of his emotions seem to have been destroyed, all that’s left in him is anger, bitterness and hurt. And I remember once when he was filled with love, joy and pleasure. What evil did he do to deserve all of this? The answer is nothing.

 

But as I said earlier, I do not believe in God, so there’s no point in hating him, her, it, whatever… I know that I’m to blame for this situation we’re in. No, I do not blame myself for being hit by the car. I should have looked both ways before I crossed the street, but I didn’t, and that was not something I did intentionally. I almost got killed, and life was so wonderful back then that I had no reason whatsoever to want to die. I had a wonderful job, a loving man by my side and his baby under my heart. It couldn’t get any better. My blame comes when I woke up. I let Chandler down in every way, everything I’d promised him and everything I’d taught him to believe about love was shattered. He found out the truth, and I had kept it from him earlier. I partly think that maybe that was the point of the accident, to teach me not to tell lies and to give him the real truth. But I didn’t think of it as lies when I said it.

 

 Nothing in my experience told me that one day, in just the time it takes to run out on a road, my love for him and my memory of us would be gone. But I did tell him lies, weather I realized it or not, and he learned the truth that July morning. So no wonder he hates me. He’s tried to reach out to me so many times, he hasn’t been willing to realize that I’d kept the truth from him and promised him things I couldn’t be sure I could keep. He tried over and over again to win my love back, to prove fate wrong, to somehow let faith conquer fate… And the one thing that constantly kept him from doing so was me. So no wonder he lost all of his faith, his visions and his love. I’ve destroyed the man I keep in my heart, that’s the truth, weather or not I’m brave enough to face it.

 

I do not believe in God. I do not believe in fate. The only thing I believe in right now is that you can’t change the past and not decide your future, but you can do your best to fight for what you want it to be. I feel like a traitor for not even believing in our love, Chandler’s and mine, but even the strongest love is fragile. Ours was so strong that we thought nothing could break it. A few nights ago I thought so once again, I thought our love was stronger than death. And maybe it is, maybe the love we have for each other, or the love we had, will always stay with us. Maybe the problem is within the people. Maybe it’s Chandler and I who aren’t strong enough. It’s so confusing to be tossed between different ideas you get in your head. One minute I feel like I know for sure that he hates me. And then the next, like now for example, there’s something telling me that we’ll always love each other, even if we hate each other. Does that make sense? I just think that as long as we remember how damned much we loved each other, excuse the French by the way, then we always will love each other. Just like a person never really dies as long as someone remembers him or her. How sad is it not that I actually wish that I could live like that? I wish I could live in their memories instead of in their world, because I would at least like myself as the person I’d be in their memories. And Chandler would have loved me with all his heart still, no matter what other women would cross his path during the years. He’d always have a special spot deep inside, reserved only for me. Does he still have that now? Or have my lies and deceptions made him give it up?"

 

She put her pencil down and closed the diary. The future was unclear to her, now more than ever. She knew that it was all in Chandler’s hands, the roles had been switched. She’d once held his destiny, now he held hers.

 

Monica feared he would let her down, as she’d let him down.