Commitment Collection 2- Ignition; Turbo Charged; Pole Position, page 9
part #4 of Commitment Series
I want to tell myself that I’m angry, but even in this state, I know I’m covering my hurt with hot air. My insides curdle, and I wonder for the first time whether this is it for us.
I re-watch the footage, hunting through every minute detail, for what? The chance that I’ll notice something I’ve already missed? Some sliver of hope that my worst fears have not been realized and that I’ve understood all of this wrong? But the film speaks for itself.
You were there, Kyle, damn you. With Florian. And for the second time, you didn’t tell me you were with him. And these are the instances that I know about. How many others are there?
The phone rings again, and again I see Kyle’s face plastered against mine in happier times.
Damn him. “Hello,” I snap.
“Are you drunk?”
“No, are you?”
“Huh? A bit maybe, why?”
“Because you’ve been in a bar, that’s why.” My words bite at him, hoping to cause him as much pain as he’s causing me.
“So, am I not allowed to go out to the pub now?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ignore his question.
“Because I haven’t spoken to you. What’s wrong, El? You called earlier, and you were lovely. Now you are pissed despite what you say and you’re being outright nasty.”
“I am not drunk, but so what if I am?”
He sighs and even that pisses me off. What right does he have to be exasperated with me?
“Elliott did something happen?” He’s softened his tone and is talking deliberately slowly.
“You tell me.” There, take that.
“Look, I’m hanging up. We can speak again in the morning. I don’t understand what is happening here. We’re seesawing around, and it’s no good. You being drunk isn’t helping you make the slightest bit of sense and if we’re not careful this will escalate into a row that we just do not need right now.”
And that’s it. He disconnects the line. And I’m left holding a dead phone to my ear.
Kyle
So that sobered me up. And fast.
Elliott is right. I have had a bit to drink, and the stress of the past few weeks, combined with one too many drinks this afternoon, means that by the time I arrive back home I’m ready for bed.
I dump my keys on the side table in the hall and their jangle reminds me of the key ring. I head back, pick up the bunch again and study the message Elliott had inscribed.
‘I’ll see you soon.’ I stroke it with the pad of my thumb, turn the plaque over and without noticing what I’m doing, I fill the gap between Elliott and me with my finger. I’m tired and I mount the steps to bed, taking the key fob with me. I want it close to me. I want him close to me. I press the message to my lips and whisper, “I’ll see you soon, too, darling. We’ll work this out.”
As I enter our bedroom, all the memories it holds come crashing in around my ears. I remember the first time we came into this room as a couple, and the way it used to look before Elliott made space for me in his life. Images of the floor caving in replay in my memory, and now, I stand and admire how we’ve created a home that suits us both.
Instead of climbing into bed, I take a seat in my most treasured gift from Elliott — my dad’s chair that he had recovered for me.
The guy I’m seeing at the moment isn’t my Elliott. Something is wrong, and he’s not speaking up. Whatever it is, it’s destroying him, and us.
I take up what has become my go-to stance with my head in my hands. What is going on? I’ve lost my best friend and lover in one unseen move, a sleight of hand that has changed everything I believed to be true and solid.
I wake at 4am with a crick in my neck and a dry mouth. Before I’ve even opened my eyes, I’m grabbing at my phone to check whether Elliott has left a message.
I scrape the sleep out of my eyes and rub them with a fist, just in case I’m not focusing correctly. But no, there’s nothing. My screen is blank.
‘Hmm’ I think as I crawl into bed, groaning as the mattress straightens out my crooked spine. Shifting my weight onto one side, as though to wrap my arms around my man, I curl up my knees. I’ve never felt more alone. I want nothing more in this moment than to do that, to take him in my arms. I want to tell him that we can fix whatever the hell is wrong with him, with us. That we will be OK because we love each other.
But he’s not here.
“Fuck it.”
I jump out of bed with a new purpose and stalk over to my closet, dressing in warm clothing as fast as I can. My heart races, my pulse pounds, and my headache, well, that needs an aspirin before I leave.
Elliott
“What the?” I’ve fallen asleep on the sofa. The half-empty bottle of whiskey is in my lap, and my bitter mouth tastes like acid. My head spins as I try to refocus. I’m still dreaming.
Kyle is standing over me, hands on hips asking me “What the fuck is going on?”
Except it’s not a dream. He is here. Kyle is actually standing over me asking what the fuck is going on.
I try to speak, but my voice catches in my throat, and I cough. “I could ask you the same thing.” It was meant to sound indignant, but even in my half-asleep state I can tell I didn’t quite pull it off.
“Is this what’s been going on?” He turns, and points at the TV, which is still paused on an atmospheric close up of him and his new pal.
“Like I say, you’re the one to fill me in on the gossip.”
“There is no gossip, you imbecile.”
“So, why didn’t you tell me, then?”
“You’re never around and when you are we’re rushing to speak, or our conversation is so stilted because we’ve lost that spark. It doesn’t mean I’m out shagging my fucking personal trainer.”
“Well, that’s how it looks to me.”
“Oh, that is ringing out loud and clear. I can’t believe you don’t trust me. After everything we’ve been through, you think that as soon as you’re away, that I’ll...” He drifts off.
He’s not screaming at me. No, he’s angrier than that. He’s whispering, hissing his aggression through gritted teeth in the dead of night.
And in the silence those harsh words resonate.
But, he’s not done yet. He starts again as he paces around the small living room. “I’ve stood at your side through everything we have been through. And you notice I say, ‘that we’ have been through because for me there was never a you and me after we hooked up. It was always us.” He breathes fast, then seals his lips in a slim line and bends over where I’m still seated on the couch.
“I have never wanted to be anywhere else except by your side. You decided this. You decided we would take time apart because you put business ahead of our relationship. It’s not like we need the money. Hell, we have less now than we would have had if you’d not been hell-fucking-bent on this new venture. But no, you wanted to prove yourself and I understand that. And I stood by you, Elliott. I made myself miserable so you had another shot at being truly happy. And now this?” He swipes his arm around the room and back toward the TV as he stares at me with bug eyes.
It’s my turn to speak. He’s waiting, his chest expanding and deflating with uncharacteristic speed. But I have nothing to say. I just woke up, for goodness’ sake, and I have a stinking hangover from that atrocious whiskey. My brain won’t work. I can barely string a sentence together.
What is clear even to me though is that I’ve messed up.
Big time.
Never in my life have I seen such cold fury from Kyle. I’ve pushed him to his limit. This is uncharted territory from which I’m not sure how to pull back.
Elliott
“You know what, Kyle? If you’re going to be like that, then just forget this whole thing. Just because we’re married, doesn’t mean we have to stay that way. Divorce is common nowadays. Go off and make yourself happy.” My head is throbbing, and my heart is too. I’m out of control. This situation is out of control. My concern about whether Kyle is into something with Florian is now a secondary concern to how we will both escape this plight with our hearts and minds intact.
We spend a long second eyeing each other, understanding the significance of the juncture where we find ourselves. In that one second, I see hurt flash through his eyes. I recognize the disappointment that we have broken down and then all of that is replaced with acceptance.
Fuck.
He rattles his head, no longer glaring at me, his eyes now concentrated on the ground, and he walks away from me. There’s shuffling by the front door as he collects his helmet and shrugs on his leather jacket. And then the door opens. And closes.
In that moment when Kyle leaves me, I have never felt more powerless and alone. I want to fly to the hallway and scream at him not to abandon me, to come home and let us make us OK again, like we used to be. But, it’s gone too far, and I stay fixed to that spot on that rented sofa.
I listen, straining my ears for the sound of his engine starting up, expecting it to vibrate against the windows the way the sexual tension used to do between the two of us.
When it doesn’t happen, I dare to hope. My emotions soar from the cage where I’ve locked them and catch in my throat as I sit a little taller, tuning in with even more clarity to the sounds outside. It would be easy to run to the window. He’s still there. I could knock on the glass, gesture for him to come back inside, to come back to me. But that would only prolong the inevitable. If he doesn’t want me, then who am I to try to force him?
But then the window frame rattles and my heart explodes, piercing the expanding bubble that has contained my tears. The noise of Kyle’s engine doesn’t disappear into the distance straight away; instead, it reverberates through the room for longer than it should. I still have time to dash to the door and call him back. I implore myself, but I’m rooted to the spot, too fragile to risk further shattering my heart.
It’s only when the roar of the engine begins to fade that I crumple in a ball. I draw my knees up to my chin, struggling to dull the searing agony in my chest as the unhappiness, which has been building over the last few months, finally spills free. I give way as the barriers I protected myself with before Kyle and I met won’t rebuild fast enough. My flimsy protection comes crashing down, and I howl in a voice that is not mine because he took me at my word and left when all I wanted was for him to tell me I was wrong and hold me.
Kyle
The twister of emotions that has been threatening to spiral for the past few weeks finally hits. My life right now is like a horror movie with a black and white hurricane wiping out everything in its path, and I can’t find anything to grasp to stop me tumbling away with it. Elliott was always my security, and without him I’m left whirling around in the storm with no direction.
I hover outside, unsure of my next move. My brain can’t process what just happened; the shock has numbed my soul. I guess I’ll get on my bike and ride back home again as Elliott instructed.
I’m so flat. I should have some kind of emotion here, but I can’t feel. I’ve sealed my feelings in a box, and instinctively I know to leave them there, bolted away in that safe place. Instead of rummaging around and hunting them down, I should just function on automatic pilot.
So, I kick my leg over the saddle of the low rider Elliott bought me for our first date, and I ride it and myself away from him and the life I believed was ours forever.
It’s only when I’m halfway home, and my thoughts have had the chance to settle in the calm of an open road at daybreak, that my feelings make themselves known.
And their resurgence is overwhelming. Out of nowhere my chest caves in, pushing a hollow wail out into the breaking dawn. Frustration bursts free in that scream, and my helplessness at the prospect of losing my marvelous husband is crushing.
My head swims and I pull the bike over at the side of the highway as I take a minute to accept what is developing. Elliott said he didn’t want us anymore. How did we get to this? What could have happened that is so bad that we can’t come back?
He is my soulmate, and the thought of us leading our lives apart fills the cavern of my heart with so much loss that I’m sure it will burst. The muscle expands to cope with such an onslaught of emotions welling up inside and then when it can take no more, I slump over, using the handlebars as support, and I cry. My head pulses, forcing more tears than my eyes have time to produce down my cheeks until in the end, I’m sobbing with dry eyes, seeking to appease the anguish in my breast.
Why does he think we’re not worth the effort anymore? The question rushes around my body on a loop until I feel the hurt in my fingers, until my toes curl inside my boots trying to stem the shock. My core, my heaving chest and my heart, collapse under the weight of the crippling loss.
I don’t understand what I have done, and what I could have done differently to stop us from reaching this point. Was this always meant to be the outcome of our path together? Was it just the idealistic stupidity of human nature that assumed we would always be a pairing? Perhaps we were always intended to travel only a short section of our lives conjoined in every way?
I have no answers, and this confusion gives me nothing to hold on to. And I can’t bear that grief with my best friend, because he is the cause of my suffocating misery.
Elliott
The next day is hell. There’s no two ways around it. My character is broken, and I don’t know how we landed here. I really want to call him, to sit down and speak to Kyle and explain rationally what has gone on in my head. But, I saw the look in his eyes. I understood his anger and then his hurt, and then I saw how he took my words and considered them, finally deciding I wasn’t worth the fight.
He’s had enough, and I pushed him too far. And now I’m alone.
With no one else to blame except myself, I don’t call him and instead moan about the scorching pain that radiates down to my core. He’s not mine to moan at anymore. I’ve set him free from that responsibility.
But, I do text him and make sure he arrived back home OK.
“Yes thanks” is the response.
No kiss. No hearts and flowers. No let’s talk. Nothing. Just a polite answer.
He hasn’t even left me an opening to start up some kind of communication with him again. He’s not included a question, so I have no reason to reply to his text without appearing entirely desperate.
And so, I sit. And I drink some more whiskey as though that will heal what is broken. I know in the back of my mind that it won’t, but who am I to argue with its lure. Who do I have to be sensible for now, anyway?
Two hours later, I handle my phone and press dial.
Thank goodness that Kyle has the sense not to answer. “Hi, you reached Kyle, leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
“Kyle, call me. We need to talk.” There that’s it. Done.
Fuck, bile rises to the back of my throat. I should have said that I wasn’t calling to organize selling the house. He probably thinks I’m after discussing splitting up our possessions. I needed to tell him I want to fix this.
I dial again. “We need to talk about us.” I’m about to hang up, when it clicks that I’m still not making myself clear. “About us and whether this is right for us.” There. That should do it. Now he knows that I’m sorry and that I want him back. Now he knows that I didn’t mean what I said last night, that words just flowed free from my mouth of their own accord and with no connection to my brain. That for whatever reason I made a mistake and if I could snatch those words back, then I would do so in a heartbeat.
My brain switches into gear, confusing the matters of my heart, which I just got straightened out. What if I said those things because alcohol made me speak the truth?
No, of course not. My soul wouldn’t be shattered into a million pieces now if that’s how I really felt. No, I want Kyle to call me back so that I can put this right.
But, when he doesn’t, I don’t understand why.
Kyle
So, we’re at the drunken message stage now. After all, he’s done, now he’s the one calling me begging for forgiveness. I’m dealing with my own crisis right now. I can’t be here to pick up the pieces for him, and quite frankly, listening to him whining on when he caused all of this suffering is just about more than I can take.
I turn off my phone.
He went off and decided to start a new life while leaving me behind in our old one. What did he think would transpire? That our two lives, past and present, would be able to continue running along concurrently without any kind of hiccups?
Jerk.
I don’t realize it yet, but I’m also mad with myself. I let this happen. I allowed Elliott to make choices, which if I admit it, I knew were wrong. But rather than dealing with the misgivings I felt, I pushed them aside in favor of carrying on the fantasy that we can do anything we want in life without even a hint of a repercussion.
But, like I say, I don’t accept this yet. My anger is directed toward Elliott. He must endure the brunt of my hurt and frustration, because he, after all, is the closest one to me.
I leave my phone switched off all day.
A sick part of me wants to keep turning the power back on so I can listen to Elliott’s messages. Some piece of me deep inside is comforted by hearing the bleeding behind his slurred words, by knowing that he is in pain too, and that I’m less alone. And I want him to really understand that the decision he made in haste was wrong and make him pay for it.
But, then, I’m not sure if us splitting up was actually such a huge error. As I stand back, more detached from our relationship, I begin to wonder. If Elliott could stomp on the heart that I have given him with such ease, is he the person that I want to trust with it again?
And that’s the point. Elliott was the one to voice the words that it’s time to call us a day, and now he’s said them and they’re out there, I’m not sure how wrong they are. By giving them space, we’ve given them airtime. I’ve been able to consider the implications of a life without him, and while it’s not one I choose, it’s a decision that is based on our past life.
