Once

It always gets worse before it gets better.

I still have dreams about your sister’s birthday.  I remember her face when she slipped the dangling chain from its box, the way her eyes shimmered as she wrapped her newly nine-year-old arms around my slender waist.  She giggled when her thin fingers tangled with my long blonde hair.  She was so small, so innocent.  So perfect.  Why did that have to change?  Why was she the child ripped from her family, taken from the brother who loved her more than anyone?  Why was she the carefree little girl who looked both ways before crossing the street, only to be hit anyway?

I don’t know.  I don’t know why a lot of things happen. 

I once thought that I could get away with living in my own little world of perfection, hiding from all the bad things and people trying to hurt us.  I thought I could succeed by living my life in solitude.  My theory�"my existence�"shattered that day.  I was never the same.  And it pains me just to think of what you must have felt, what you still feel.  I’ll never get that image out of my mind; every inconsolable image of loss morphed into a deep swirling abyss�"empty and broken.  The pain that trickled so harshly across your face, your eyes revealing the forlorn soul inside, torn and shattered.  My best friend, the only one who I could trust to never leave, was slumped in the corner with blank, hopeless eyes.   

You changed.  We both changed.  Life changed. 

I was at a loss; there was nothing left I could do but quietly slip away.  I tried to help, but I couldn’t even help myself.  Those awful bleak months crept into desolate years, and slowly, we grew apart.  A once inseparable friendship now lost to the wind, drifting away like a heartbroken soul.  I guess it was, in a way; everything had ended so abruptly.  No explanation, no logical conclusion. 

My days looked to hollow silences, finding comfort in sitting alone at the coffee shop.  For hours I would slip into my mind, lost in thought with my gaze focused far beyond the glass windows, further, even, than the once dazzling snow that swathed the distant hills.  I no longer cared much about the people and things around me.  I never even noticed the detestable little bell dinging above the opening door. 

Until that day, the day that brought me back to life.  My eyes flicked towards the tiny metallic sound to glimpse a masculine frame and a flash of ruffled dark hair slip through the crowded room.  My breath caught in my throat. 

Why?  I asked myself, but the question only created more clouds in my mind.  I had seen you around, this was nothing new, there was no wonder involved.  As if the sun had suddenly found strength, the heaviness was lifted from my foggy thoughts.  I realized that for the first time in years, you looked happy.  The bright light had flitted back into your eyes, and this made me happy.  I don’t know why, it shouldn’t have.  It’s not like you were my long-lost soul-mate or anything. 

We started talking again, the pieces rushing back together and our revitalized friendship knotting the frayed, torn fragments back into a whole.  We were still young; we had time, and we knew it.  We let ourselves fall back towards what we had once had, despite the mistakes made in the process.  It didn’t matter then.  Nothing mattered.

All I cared about was that you seemed alive again, and you were smiling.  You had found a way to excel, to fill the gap left behind.  I was proud of you.  You had worked your way through the pain; put it behind you so life could return.  Everything you changed was reviving me, and I began to grasp that it was time for me to follow suit. 

I guess I didn’t quite succeed.  You searched for something, I searched for someone.  When I met him, I thought he was perfect, everything I’d always dreamed of.  I fell for his blonde hair and bright blue eyes, his good looks and charming smile.  Naivety is a cruel thing.  He was nice to me, and I failed to look deeper. 

I knew you didn’t like him.  For months I wondered why.  I was young and oblivious to his arrogance, to his high nose, to his rude habit of putting others below himself.  I always saw the smirks he threw at you, but I felt too weak around him to talk against him.  I knew I should have, but only after a little grin passed across my lips when you told him off. 

It made me feel awful inside, the day I had plans with you.  I remember the timid waves on the lake, and the warm sand beneath my feet.  The sun glanced off his skin when he stood with just his toes in the water, smiling back at me.  He was upset when I left, and so was I�"angry with myself for letting it slip my mind.  It was June 5^th, she would have been sixteen.  I didn’t even call you.  I just went home and sat by the fire, thinking about everything I had already lost. 

That’s when I realized that I couldn’t have both; I couldn’t have both my boyfriend and my best guy friend, so I sat on the bed and cried.  I was letting you go, just as you had of your sister.  I thought sacrifice was a good thing, something good for something better.  But then you put even more effort towards being my best friend.  I realized that sometimes giving something up just brings more pain. 

Even more so when I started to think I may have made the wrong choice.  He was a good man, but sometimes, when he got angry, the pain in my face would overpower my love for him.  I remember the light in your window that first night.  I remember thinking I shouldn’t have been there�"that I was no longer welcome in your home, in your life.  But you drew me in before you even saw the blood dripping from my nose, and when you did, the concern in your eyes and in your voice almost brought tears to my eyes.  You have always been the best person I’ve known.  So kind, so real.  So forgiving. 

I expected sympathy when I told you what happened.  Surprise came as the next feeling pulsing through my quivering body.  Your words became protective, and I felt my personal relationship being invaded, taken over and influenced from the outside.  It was almost overbearing, the confusion.  I only remember a few words.  They were laced with harsh poison when you said them: “If he’s capable of doing it once, he’s capable of doing it again.”  I can’t even say how many times I’ve counted those words.  Thirteen, fifteen if you count the contractions twice. 

We tried to forget those words.  I didn’t want to evoke the ominous fire darting through your eyes, and you didn’t want to drive my precious soul away.  You strived to slip back into normality, while I only wished to forget the promise I had made to myself thinking it was time to move on.  I was thankful to have even a sliver of my friend back the way I wanted him.

The next time it happened I was too ashamed to tell you.  I stayed at home, soundlessly waiting for the bruises to fade from my arms, for the skin along my jaw to weave itself back together.  Each bleak day I thought about how you were right from the beginning, that he would do it again. 

You never found out. 

I counted those malicious words over and over, anxious to make sense of it all.  Why had he done it?  Would he do it again?  Would the time shorten in between�"once a month, once a week, even once a day?  I became enveloped by this silent panic, perpetually waiting for him to lash out. 

But he never did.  Over a year passed and he never hurt me again. 

I remember the day he slipped that silky ring around my finger, the third day of December.  It was cold outside, even snowing a little, and I had tucked myself under piles of fluffy blankets by the fire, my hair flying with static from the bunched tan fleece.  The house was warm and cozy, and I had drifted into a passive stupor, lids drooping over my eyes.  I heard the subtle click of the door and his light footsteps on the plush carpet.  His fingers gently fondled my hand, softly nudging me from my dreams.  The fire shimmered in his glowing eyes, the flames reflecting in the passionate globes, and he pulled the little white box from his snowy jacket pocket.  At that moment, everything seemed immaculate. 

It was.  Those first weeks fluttered by in never-ending smiles.  There were sweet laughs over the phone when I heard the giddy squeals of my old girlfriends; I had only kept in touch with a few.  My mother’s gasp as I described the glittery ring and the husky voice of my father in the background as he asked what was so special as to evoke that kind of reaction. 

I only saw you one upsetting time.  We met at the coffee shop, and I found you sitting by the window, in the same chair I had all those years ago.  I was blissful when I walked in, but left more muddled than I had ever felt.  I thought you would be happy for me, but you started talking like you had the first night he hit me, your voice stiff.  I felt let down, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything different. 

I left before we even finished the conversation.  You were done talking; regressed deep into your own dismayed thoughts.  I stumbled out the door and started crying.  I couldn’t get your somber expression from my mind.  Your eyes had lapsed back into those dull empty orbs, just as they had the first weeks after your little sister died. 

And then I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  Again and again I gave her that necklace, the one with the silver crescent moon and the little blue stone, the one she was buried with.  I watched her dainty eyes light up, so bright and eager, full of life. 

She didn’t know it was the last present she would ever open.  She didn’t know that was the last time she would watch the sun go down, tossing orange across the sky.

I thought this was a sign, that I needed to pay more attention to my own life, or maybe I needed to put more time towards those around me, that I had forgotten how to care.  As I let my breath drift away in a sigh, I stood up and flicked the tears from my face.  No.  Not everything was my fault.  I don’t have to change.  I don’t have to live differently just to please everyone else.  I didn’t need to pay more attention to others; I needed to pay more attention to myself.

Then I went home to him.  I knew that whatever I had done, it was the right thing.  My mind flicked to the night I sat alone on my bed, weighing what I had with you.  Not all bonds last forever, maybe you and I were one of those slowly dying relationships, incessantly fading into nothing. 

I didn’t talk to you again.  A few months passed and I only caught fleeting glimpses of you around town, the only validation that you still lived here. 

And then the flashing lights.  The horrifying reality.  The call from the hospital.  The words, “I’m sorry, Ms. Jayne”.  No.  This could not be happening.

Shocked.  Lost.  Alone, so very alone.  That swirl of ragged confusion governed my life those next nights.  It was all I was capable of feeling.  The wild tears.  The emptiness.  The fear.  Who’s next?  I felt undeserving and selfish that I hoped it wouldn’t be you.  That I still needed you�"that I still thought of you as mine.  I felt like I was using you, draining you for my own atrocious desires.  Even before my life was ripped to shreds.  Before my fiancé was obliterated the same way as your baby sister. 

Those first hours were the worst.  I remember everything �" the way the clock ticked monotonously through the house, the unpleasant brightness of the snow as it flickered in the sun outside, the unforgiving tears skidding endlessly down my frantic, restless face. 

One thing looms heavier than the rest: I remember holding my breath.  I didn’t dare to breathe.  I didn’t feel.  I couldn’t think.  I barely even heard the phone ring.  My hands shook when I tried to pick it up.  I couldn’t.  It rang again, and again, and again �" such a bleak, wearisome sound.

The thought of sympathy hurled me over the edge.  I didn’t want help; I couldn’t stand the echoing questions.  How do you feel?  What will you do?  Or worse, I’m so sorry for your loss.  I didn’t care.  I didn’t want perpetual reminders that what I had was gone forever. 

I let myself go.  I plunged into my own sorrow, desperately clutching piles of blankets and vacantly staring out into the snow for hours on end.  I didn’t let myself think.  I didn’t even let myself see.  I refused to believe.

Until that night.  The phone sang drearily through the rooms, but this time I craved to pick it up.  I had the urge to cling to any life still hanging clumsily within my feeble reach.  I blinked, slow, as I realized I had to walk down the hall to get to it.  It was the first time I had really seen anything in days. 

It hurt. 

The pictures were just where we had put them, only weeks before.  I couldn’t control it.  My eyes didn’t even well up before they overflowed, they just started to pour.  I still don’t know if the abysmal throbbing was real, or if it was just the pain of vivid, raw heartbreak.  I only know I can never bear to feel the same agony and consternation even once more.

I stumbled around in my made-up darkness, unaware I had made it to the phone.  Everything stilled when I heard your calm voice.  You hadn’t expected me to be this way, my choppy breaths so similar to your own feelings all those years ago.  I stopped.  It all stopped�"the frigid tears, my desperate gasps, maybe even time.  The quiet air was suspended around me.  Your level voice healed me, just that quick moment to give me a shimmering flash of hope before it was fractured again. 

The line went blank.

I sunk to the floor, the phone still clutched in my shaky hand. 

That was how you found me, weak and broken and lying on the ground like a dying fawn.  You lifted me up in your strong, shielding arms and carried me back down the hall, setting me gently into the depths of my covers.   

I saw something in your eyes that day that I’d seen only once before.  I couldn’t place it, but I knew that your words were sincere. 

“Jessyka.”  You paused, the letters slipping gracefully from your lips.  “Jess, listen to me.”  It wasn’t a command; it wasn’t harsh like I was afraid it would always be.   Shh.  I struggled to calm my mind, easing my heart to slow and my breathing to relax. 

“I don’t care what happens.  I don’t care what has already happened.”  I blinked my mind clear of its jumble, focusing on your careful words.  “You need to hear it from me.  I will never let go.  I will never leave you alone in this.  For whatever reasons, I will always be here when you need me.”

When you left, I remembered.  I remembered when I had seen that elusive feeling in your eyes.  It was concern.  It was worry.  For me. 

Something changed with that revelation, a flutter of my heart and a slip in my consciousness.  I realized that you had always been there for me.  The trust between us had been and will be enough to keep us together without a single faltering step. 

And that’s when I fell for you, with your dark hair and keen hazel eyes, your charming looks and sly smile.  You were everything I’d ever dreamed of.  I was empty, and yet more whole than I had ever felt. 

I could cry no more tears.  I had lost so much.  I had been through unfathomable pain and felt the emptiness of a vanished soul.  But now, I felt whole again.  It truly is remarkable how just one person can create a new existence from within, can comfort even the roughest of pains in an instant. 

I found myself smiling at my own obliviousness towards you.  How had I missed this?  This wonderful person who had been there all along, patiently waiting for me, even though that day may never have come?  Sacrifice is a funny thing, but sometimes those few years can mark the threshold of a lifetime.

My torn existence threaded back together, and all the while you guided the vital needle.  You walked me through the park, swiftly plucking the fallen autumn leaves from the grass, gripping them between your fingers before blowing them away.  I always loved the way you were able to make me smile, if even in the simplest ways.  You even brought my lips to a curve out at the lake, your own smile glistening in the morning sun. 

Last night you had an elusive look on your face, like you were seeing beyond the material world, into something inordinate and ethereal.  Then you turned your celestial eyes to mine and whispered soft, just like the wind through bare winter trees.  “I’ve loved you all along.”

In that moment I watched my life flash through my mind.  Even though I don’t believe everything happens for a reason, I can at least say that some things do.  And now I know.  I know that even through everything that’s happened, and everything that may still come, I have always loved you, too.

 

Reviews

[aj Foxley]

I want to give her a hug.

I care about your characters, and I don't even like stories like this!

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

what a wonderful story that I as a widow could definitely relate to. I know about stumbling around in my own made-up darkness. So glad she had her friend who had always been there to pick her back up. loved this.

[Coyote Poetry]

The story was very good. You led the reader through a life with many hard decisions and situations. I like many places you took me in the story. I like the characters and the storyline. A very good ending to the story. Thank you for sharing the excellent story.
Coyote