Chapter 31
She knew it had to be another one
because he was there, right beside her, holding her hand, careful a wave didn’t
sweep up and drag her away. She felt
small and vulnerable, the way she had felt ever since she had left him. It was a good idea at the time, she was able
to concentrate on her life, her school, the dreams stopped suddenly, there was
only a small ache in the back of her mind, constant and always reminding her
that she had pushed him away and given up.
But she didn’t know what else to do.
The space had given her perspective and she was sure that her decision
had been right, even a month later, she knew it was right. Even though she had cried and the dreams had
returned and the concentration started to slip from her, it was the right
decision. They wouldn’t have lasted
anyway. Even if the whole dream thing
wasn’t a factor, even if they were just two normal people. Eventually one of
them would have fucked up and it would have been over.
Nothing was ever perfect and she
knew that by heart now.
She had good memories and that was
enough.
Just enough.
She gripped his hand harder as the
cool ocean water ran up her ankles and splattered against her rolled up
jeans. She squealed a little and held
onto him, feeling his laughter deep within his chest. This was a good dream, and she was thankful
that it wasn’t one of the nightmares she had been having lately. He was there, every fucking night, waiting
for her to dream about him, watching her.
Normally they were horrible, making her wake up sweating and out of
breath. But occasionally one like this
would occur, perfect and serene—happy.
But waking up wouldn’t be much
better. It would be her reality check,
and she knew once she woke up from this dream she’d be depressed again, cold and
lonely in her apartment that seemed to be growing in size the longer they were
apart.
She felt like she was shrinking
into nothing, not just in her dreams, but when she was awake.
“I love you…” She heard and felt his hands in her hair that
was tangled by the breeze. Moments later
she was kissing him softly. It felt so
real. They soon broke apart and started
walking down the beach again, hand in hand, all alone, just them, water and
sand.
It was the simplicity she wanted
and craved and prayed for. It’s what she
thought she had with Justin, before everything got twisted. There was a doubt in her mind that maybe it
was all made up, maybe all the twists and turns the past few months were the
real dreams that had happened. She
wasn’t denying their existence, but she was unsure if these dreams were as
powerful as they both made them out to be.
So what if he had those dreams and fantasies about her, so what if they weren’t
really about her? Did it really matter
if he loved her and she loved him?
In fact the whole bull shit of her
thinking that he didn’t love her and was in love with a fantasy she couldn’t
compete with was an all out distraction and lie from what was really going
on. What had happened was that her
brother had given her an easy out, a scapegoat to latch onto and ride out of
town with. He instilled the invisible
amount of fear into her mind, the fear that hadn’t been there when they first
got together, the fear that had consumed her with every other relationship she
had had in her life. And that fear grew
and she became terrified of the future, terrified of how it was going to end.
Because she knew someday it would
have to end. And she never wanted to end
up like her parents, together but separate, married but somehow divorced in every
aspect of life. She couldn’t let that
happen to them. The dreams were an easy
excuse.
But once she tried to give it a go
with him and the dreams started influencing her, affecting her life and her nights,
she knew that she had allowed it to get power, allowed it to control her and
that there was no going back now. It was
like the dreams represented that fear her brother had put in her and they just
kept getting worse and worse until she couldn’t handle it anymore.
So why were they back now? Why after being apart from him for a month,
no calls, no nothing, only the random blurbs on the television, why now were
they starting back up, flaring back up, screaming at her that she was terrified
of eventually losing him.
He was already gone, lost long ago.
But right now she could feel his
hand in hers and sense him beside her.
And it was so real, all of it: the smell of the salt and fish in the
air, the damp sand sinking slightly with every push of her foot, the wind
drying her eyes and lightly whipping her face with her dark hair. Gulls and terns were yelling at one another,
cool sea foam was occasionally wiping her sandy toes clean.
It was all so god damn real. Yet, fake and unreachable.
But that was a lie and she knew
it. It had been like that at one point,
it had been that simple and that perfect.
And it was killing her to remember that.
“You shouldn’t be thinking things
like this when we get moments to be together.”
She blinked and her blurred vision
focused in on him, holding her tightly and staring directly at her with
piercing blue eyes. They hurt to look at
and she looked down at his neck instead. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just enjoy this.” He pulled her straight against him and rubbed
her back. She closed her eyes, savoring
the feel. “It’s all we get.”
“Right.” The longer he held her, the more she felt
like she might throw up. It wasn’t him,
but it was the knowledge that in moments he would be gone and she would be
holding onto her pillow and it wouldn’t be holding her back and she’d cry. And she was tired of crying. She thought the tears had been bad before
they broke up. She had been tired of them,
tired of crying. But breaking up with
him didn’t make them go away.
She was so tired of missing him.
“I think I made a mistake.”
He laughed at her and she pulled
back to focus on him. “You probably made
a lot of them.”
“Excuse me?” Her vision was blurring again, slowly focusing
in for moments and then becoming unfocused.
She felt like she was going blind and gripped his arms tight with her
hands, holding on in case she fell down.
She began to sense that the beach was becoming crowded. And she couldn’t see them, but knew that many
people, other couples, families, teenagers covered in bathing suits and suntan
lotion were swarming around, invading their moment. The cool ocean breeze switched quickly into a
sweltering heat making her clothes feel like they were covered in melted candy,
sticking to her skin.
“I mean, everyone does. It’s just part of living. You mess up and you try to fix things and try
to work through things with people the best you can. It’s not really the messing up or the
mistakes that matter, they’re inevitable.
It’s how you deal with them.”
She looked directly at him, forced
herself to focus only on him by putting her hands on either side of his head
and keeping him still. “Would you take me back?”
Her eyes blinked and her vision
was blurred. She could feel his hands on
her but only saw a faded outline of him in front of her. She hated this. “Why are we talking about this? We’re alone.”
“Yeah, really alone.” She whispered and breathed him in. She could smell him, that smell she was use
to of detergent and cologne that had faded with a days wear. His cotton t-shirt, with some random witty
saying on it was soft underneath her cheek, and in his arms she felt safe and
he felt so solid and so strong. She was
happy.
She felt like a fool and a
failure, and a complete idiot.
“I want you back.” She sighed against him and confessed to him
and to herself. “I want you, all the
crazy dreams and fantasies and weaknesses and everything. I want it.”
“I can’t give that to you.” Immediately it felt like he was slipping from
her. His arms loosened, she tried to
hold on and her hands felt like they were greased with slick black oil. “I made
the decision when I met you, to stay and fight for you, not run away terrified
and screaming. You have to do the same
if you want me. It’s up to you.”
“Please…” she begged. Oil or grease, whatever it was was everywhere,
all over her clothes, all over his. It
was like it was spewing from her palms.
“Remember Darcy, this isn’t about
me. You said that yourself.” He seemed to be distant now, his voice
echoing. She couldn’t see him, could see
nothing but black, but she could feel him.
Her hands were on his shoulders, she could feel that.
“I just, I couldn’t handle it
anymore. I had to. You understand that
right? I was driving myself literally
insane. I couldn’t put up with it
anymore. I felt like I was going to
explode.”
“And how do you feel now?”
“Justin…” She started to
panic. He was gone. She couldn’t feel him anymore. “Justin,
where are you going?”
“I’m not coming back. I’m not ever coming back and you know
that. This is it for me.”
“Wait, come back. I’m not through.” She cried and ran straight ahead, not knowing
where she was going, trying to catch up with him. She had to get him back. She couldn’t let him just disappear because
she couldn’t see.
She ran and ran and suddenly her
vision was back. The blackness was gone
and a brick wall was right in front of her, surging like lightening towards
her.
She gasped and woke up, breathing
deep and letting it out. She heard a
meow at the foot of the bed and soft paws started to walk up towards the
pillows. She heard purring and turned
her head to the side to see her plump tabby cat with squinted eyes beside her
on the pillow. She sighed, realizing
that she was back home, tangled in a bed and room that looked too perfect to be
hers. She rolled onto her side, staring
at her cat and petting his neck gently, happy that her hands were clean and
there weren’t dark oil spots forming on her cat.
“Shit…”
Jangles yawned in response.
She didn’t know what time it was,
remembered that she went to bed at nine because she had nothing else to do in
her house and part of her was kind of hoping for the dream that she ended up
having. Of course she wished it hadn’t
ended. She wished she could still touch
him, she wished that when she woke up he was there, flipped on his stomach,
arms clutching the pillow under him, face relaxed and breathing hard against
the pillow, his bare back half covered with a sheet, one leg sticking out from
the covers. But unless he had
miraculously reincarnated into her cat, he wasn’t there. She had no idea of where he was and for some
reason, she started to crave that knowledge.
She wanted to know what he was
doing. She knew that his album was to be
released this week or the next and knew that would bring him closer to
her. But she couldn’t do it. She had given up and there was no going back
from that now.
Her arm slung over her eyes and
she breathed out deeply. She didn’t want
to cry about this anymore. It was too
exhausting no matter how much it mattered.
She decided that lying in bed wasn’t going to do a damn thing for her
and quickly got up, pulled on the sweat pants she had been lounging in earlier
that night and moved to leave her room.
Jangles followed her, racing her out into the hallway through the
slither of the door she left open. He
disappeared shortly after she entered the hallway. Her feet shuffled her through her house and
she wandered, lost as the house was quiet and dead and dimly lit. No one was awake and it was lonely.
She was lonely.
She wiped violently at the tears
on her face and began to turn back to her room, knowing whatever she was doing
now was a lost cause. The grandfather
clock in the hallway struck
As she passed the closed door of
her mother’s bedroom she heard the faint sounds of the TV. Normally she’d roll her eyes and keep walking,
knowing her mother was in there passed out with an open bottle of wine on the
nightstand, but for some reason she decided to shuffle over to the door, knock
quietly and crack the door open.
It was an odd sight, seeing her
mother with her hair pinned back from her face and off her neck in a sloppy
fashion. She was propped up on some
pillows and watching an episode of “I Love Lucy”. Sure enough a bottle of wine was opened with
an empty glass on the nightstand. The
covers seemed to pin her mother down and she started to feel a little sorry for
the woman she so often ridiculed and despised.
“Mom…”
Her mother pushed herself up with
a bit of shock in her voice, “Baby, what are you doing up?”
She looked at the floor. This was a bad idea. “Can’t sleep.”
“Come here…”
She sighed and stepped further
into the room, letting the door close behind her. It had been a long, long time since she had
gone to her mother for comfort. In fact
at the time she didn’t even realize that was what she was doing. She felt awkward and nervous and wasn’t sure
why. Pelted by memories she pushed
herself up on the tall bed and eased on top of the covers, separating herself
and her mom by a good two feet.
She laid there silently, like a
corpse with her hands folded nicely over her stomach. She looked around the room. It was smaller than she remembered it, and
much sadder, more like a hotel room than her mother’s.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve
been on this bed.”
She glanced at her mother, who had
a distant smile on her face, but she didn’t know if that was just because she
was watching Lucy. “You use to always
sleep in between me and your father when you were real little.”
“Yeah…” Darcy rolled her eyes and
sighed. “Until dad stopped sleeping
here.”
It was quiet and she watched some
more of the episode with her mother, but her mind was elsewhere. Every time her mother laughed she started to
hurt and every time Ricky and Lucy interacted on the screen, whether fighting
or being sweet or silly, she looked away.
It was too hard.
She tried to cover up the fact
that she was really starting to cry by yawning and attempting to get
comfortable, but used those moments to blot her eyes with her thumb.
Her mother reached over to the
nightstand and pulled the remote into her lap, not muting the TV but turning
the volume down considerably. She
sighed, but kept her eyes on the screen.
“I’ve never seen you this upset about a boy.”
“What?” Darcy stared at her mother.
“You’ve had a lot of break ups
Darcy, and usually you just bounce back from them. I’m worried about you.” Her mother finally turned and looked at her
and Darcy couldn’t handle it. It was
like looking into a mirror of the future and it made her uneasy.
She sniffed and crossed her arms
over her stomach. “I’ll be fine, mom.”
“Are you sure? Justin wasn’t like those guys you usually
date, darling. He was special.”
It pissed her off and she got
defensive and didn’t want to be talking about this with her. She knew it had been a mistake to even
mention the break up to her mother. She
had two weeks ago when her mother and her had lunch in
And it was too late, Darcy
thought, even if she did want her mother’s advice, which she didn’t. What the hell would a fifty something woman
with a failed marriage be able to help her with? This was ridiculous and she was ready to get
up and go back to her own room, her own apartment and leave this fucking
place. “Well ya know mom, most of the
guys I’ve ever dated you threw on me, so don’t get all parental now.”
It was very still and quiet in the
room. And then her mother laughed and
said, “You really don’t like me, do you?”
“What?”
“I’m not stupid Darcy and I’m not
blind.” Darcy looked at her mother but
looked away quickly, not able to hold that intense stare she was giving
her. “You think I’m a joke, don’t you?”
“I never said that.”
The TV was clicked off, the remote
landed loudly on the nightstand and her mother poured herself another glass of
red wine with shaking hands. “You don’t
have to. You think because I live alone
in a huge house and maintain this family and our image that I’m just a
joke. You see me as a drunk rich snob
with horrible friends and a worthless marriage.”
Darcy sighed, not liking how her
mother was turning this into a pity party about herself. “Your friends aren’t horrible, mom.”
“No they aren’t, but you see them
that way.”
She rubbed her face. She needed to get out of here. “I don’t really want to fight right now.”
“Why won’t you tell me what
happened with him?” Her mother’s tiny
fist hit the part of the mattress that was separating them. “Ya know, I try to be interested in your life
Darcy, but you’re still stuck in this high school mode of hating your parents
and not wanting to tell them anything and thinking they don’t understand you.”
“Well, you don’t mom.”
“Why do you assume that I don’t care
about you?” Once again Darcy looked
away. She was starting to feel a little
ashamed and she wasn’t quite sure why. “God Darcy, I’m your mother.”
She watched her mother take a big
gulp from her glass and lick her lips afterward, holding the glass close to her
chest in almost a protective manner.
After several quiet minutes
Darcy’s eyes met her mothers and she nodded to the glass. “You got any left?”
Her mother said firmly, “This is
my habit, not yours.” Then took another
long sip.
The silence surged back in and she
started to really feel sorry for her mother and sorry for herself and angry
with her mother and angry at herself. It
all seemed so childish and ridiculous now.
She couldn’t even really remember why she was here and why she was
without him.
Then it hit her like someone
smacking her head with a baseball bat, so hard that it came out of her mouth, “I
got scared.”
“What?”
She chewed on her lip and stared
at her feet near the end of the bed. Suddenly
she was cold and wished she was five years old again, snuggled underneath the
covers in between her parents, completely loved, completely safe. “I got scared and I gave up on him. Nothing’s that good mom, nothing.”
Her mother smiled, but it was sad
and suddenly her mother who was flawless and beautiful and a perfectly aged
high society woman, looked old and frail.
“That’s what I use to say to your father, that nothing was that good.”
“So I guess…” Darcy paused and let
out a breath. It hurt to know that, but
if it meant that her and Justin would never be like her parents, then maybe
that wasn’t a bad thing. “I was right to
leave him, ya know….” She trailed off,
not able to say it in front of her mother.
But she didn’t have to, and her
mother finished her sentence for her. “Before
you ended up like me?”
She could see her mother getting
upset. And she couldn’t deal with her
mother’s tears in that moment. “Mom…”
“I ended up like this because I
gave up on him Darcy.” Her mother sat up
and quickly brushed under her eyes. And
that was it. No more tears came from her
mother that night and Darcy started to realize that she had gotten her mother
all wrong. She was frail and old, but
strong and determined, and more fucked up than Darcy ever imagined before. She always assumed her mother was a shell of
a person, who’s insides had been sucked out by snooty friends and upscale
parties. But what had really happened
was that her mother was a shell of a person, who’s insides had withered away
because of what happened with her husband.
Darcy had always assumed that her
parents’ together-but-not-together marriage was most harmful on her and her
brother and that it was their fault both of them found it hard to place
themselves inside the upper class Height society. She assumed that she was the most affected,
the one who’s relationships and self-image had suffered because of her fear of
ending up like her mother.
But she never realized, never even
thought that maybe, just maybe it was even worse for her parents. She realized
then that she was still young and still able to change her mistakes and work
out her life. Her mom didn’t have that chance
any more.
“It was hard. Marriage and love looks so easy on the
outside, and sometimes it is, especially in the beginning. But a few years after we had you, I just, I
started to feel old and worthless, like all I did was take up space, and your
father was always so busy with his work and barely ever home. It was easier to give up, less painful in the
moment.” She turned and Darcy cowered
into the mattress, scared at what she was seeing in her mother now, scared that
for so many years she had got it all wrong.
“But it’s more painful in the long run.
Do you think I like this? Being
by myself in this huge house all the time.
And now that you are off at school and your brother won’t ever speak to
me and Lizzy is getting married and moving to
“Mom….” She couldn’t take it any more. She couldn’t hear anymore.
But it was worthless and her
mother sat up, moved in the bed for the first time that night. The glass was put on the table and her mother
grabbed both of Darcy’s wrists, shaking them as she talked. “I don’t have a very happy life Darcy and I
don’t want you to be me in thirty years.
That’s why I pushed you to date.
I wanted you to figure out what you liked and what you wanted so that
when it came along, you’d know it and fight for it. I thought that that was Justin. As soon as I met him Darcy I knew right
then. He was different and that fit you
because you’ve always been different from everyone else that we know. You’ve always been your own person, and you
made that decision yourself to go for it with him. You’re the most genuine person I know and it’s
what I admire about you the most.”
Darcy broke away from her mother’s
hands and covered her face, saying roughly, “Just shut up.” She didn’t want to cry anymore and her mother
was just making it worse, making her realize the fool she had been about
everything, about him, about her mom, about herself.
She felt like her entire life had
been fucked up because she couldn’t see what was really going on, because she
didn’t care enough to ask, because she was too selfish and in her own world to
realize that everything was messed up but that it wasn’t as bad as she thought and
that people really did care about her.
Especially her mom.
“Baby…”
She fell against her mother and
sobbed. She felt like a child, like she
was six years old again and her sister had cut her hair lopsided on purpose
because Darcy had lost her favorite Barbie.
At that time, Darcy had cried to her mother and held onto her and her
mother had called to have a stylist come to the house and make her hair
beautiful.
She felt pathetic then and
pathetic now.
But she didn’t feel pathetic for
having her mom hug her. She felt
pathetic because of the choices she had made that were selfish and detrimental. “I want him back so bad, momma.”
She felt her mom’s hand against
her head and even though she felt pathetic and stupid, she began to feel calmer. “Then go get him.”
“I can’t. It’s complicated and he’s probably moved on
and is way too busy…”
“It’s not complicated Darcy. And it’s not hard. You just have to do it.”
She sniffed and pulled back a
little bit. “I gave up on him, why would
he even want me back?”
“He wants you back.” Her mother was smiling, like she knew a
secret that Darcy didn’t know.
She wiped at her face, “You don’t
know that.”
“Yes I do. I was there Darcy and I didn’t take the
chance even though I knew that I had one. I was too scared to try. Your father and I are fine now. We don’t fight like we use to, but every time
I see him my heart breaks and I wish I hadn’t made the mistakes I did and I
wish I had the courage to try it again.”
She stared at her mother for a
long, long time, then sunk back against the pillows and bit her nails for a
second. With a deep breath, and without
moving her stare from her hands she said, “Will-will you hand me the phone…”
The cordless phone was placed on
her stomach and she heard her mother say, “You want me to leave you alone?”
She picked up the phone, pressed
“talk” and curled up, her back to her mother.
But she said, “Stay.”
It took her a while to figure out
which numbers to press. She had the
numbers memorized. She had wanted to
call it many, many times over the past month, but was too scared and would
always pick the phone up, dial every number but the last and then turn the
phone off.
But this time her finger pressed
down on the last button, and before she had a chance to back out a gravelly,
southern voice came over the line that immediately put her at ease, “-ello?”
She couldn’t find her voice and
couldn’t find the words to say. Moments
later, he was annoyed and spoke with a frustrated tone, “uh, hello? Who is this?”
She sniffed and said in a small
voice. “Trace….”
The other end was silent. And finally, she got the courage and spoke into
the phone, “It’s Darcy.”