I have no idea why listening to break up songs helped, but there was some psychological truth to it. In a strange way, feeling more miserable was almost necessary to the healing process. I think it's akin to how sometimes bones need to be broken completely to heal correctly.
Dillon announced that my break up song was Somebody to Love by Queen, but I preferred Somebody to Shove by Soul Asylum. Both songs were amazing, but I couldn't handle Freddie Mercury right then. Soul Asylum became my new favourite band and I listened to that song on constant repeat, thinking that my pain would decrease relationally to the amount of times I heard those lyrics. I listened to it so much that Billie threatened to delete it from my iPod.
The weeks wore on and I was in a complete slump, but I tried to hide it. I was very good at hiding things from people. My family knew how much I was hurting and they tried to help me, but I quickly changed the subject. I cried myself to sleep every night. I cried for myself, but also for Rick, because he didn't have a family like mine. I hoped he had people that wanted to help him heal too. Not any woman, of course, but other males that would tell him I was a bitch and he deserved better. Of course, knowing Rick, he would punch someone for talking about me like that.
Dillon assisted me in organising my room. He brought over all kinds of crazy gifts for me like drawer organisers, velvet hangers and perfumed sachets. I replaced my hot pink bed sheets and curtains for darker colours. It made things easier, since I saw Rick everywhere I looked. As manly as Rick was, he looked damn hot under my pink bed sheets.
I cooked vegan meals with my mom. She suggested we make German Chocolate cake, but I vehemently refused. We stuck to savoury items only-I no longer desired sweets.
At work, they moved me to accounting as Rick suggested. I packed up my desk and walked into what had been Rick's office one last time. I looked around and remembered all the secret and special moments we'd shared. Kathy interrupted me and asked why I was staring at the wall. Instead of answering her, I informed Kathy I was taking the ugly brass, planter home. I wanted to replant something in it and make it new again.
Stevie and Adam moved into their new house. We had a painting party and managed to put a brilliant colour on every wall of their bungalow. I was happy for the distraction, but when Stevie showed me the room they wanted to use as the nursery, the fake smile I wore hurt my face.
Adam took me aside to talk to me. "Marley, Rick's been texting me and asking me how you are. I'm not sure what to say. He's my friend, but you're my family. What do you want me to tell him?"
I swallowed. "Tell him, I'm coping … that's the C-word I am now."
Adam regarded me curiously, but nodded.
"Adam, do you know how he is?" I asked, tentatively.
"Yeah, he said he's … conflicted." Conflicted? What the hell did that mean? At least my word spoke of the devastation and need for healing. His word just confused me. It was ambiguous and vague.
My mother and I visited Columbia with Billie. My mother had a friend in New York who was a nurse and we stayed with her. I knew I'd had a pretty awful terror the next day because even my mother's friend, who I'd only met once, felt the need to hug me.
I considered visiting Rick. I knew his address and I longed to see him. In the end, I decided to refrain from making a crazy ex-girlfriend appearance by standing at his front door. It would serve no purpose, except making me miserable. Rick was probably dating again and I imagined running into him and some girl when I was walking around Central Park. I imagined her to be a perfect, dark haired hussy that looked good in running shorts whose lipstick always matched her nail polish. I had no idea why I imagined that or why my thoughts were so bitter, but they were. He was preparing for London anyway. He'd be leaving in a week for that assignment. I was sure every girl in that city would throw herself at him … it was a den of gorgeous, glamorous women. He might as well have been visiting Babylon.
Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all was talking out of their ass. I had never experienced such pain and misery. I saw his face in every missed caress, every empty space and every lonely cry.
Chapter Eighteen
I went to my father's grave. I had never been there. I hadn't even gone to his funeral. I cried silently, letting the cold wind blow around me as I stared at his headstone. I would have looked like a grief-stricken mourner to any passers-by, but I wasn't. The source of my tears was from no other emotion than white-hot anger.
I silently said all those things I'd never had the courage to all those weekends so long ago. I thought of spitting on his grave, but my moral compass wouldn't let me. Instead, the words rang in my head that I wanted to say to him in person. I hoped wherever he was, deep in the ground beneath me, he could hear me.
I hate you. You took everything from me. You took my innocence and my good dreams. Now, I only have bad ones. You not only fucked up my life, but you screwed up my whole family. They all feel guilty because of what happened to me. Because of what you did to me. You even took my memories, the ones I wanted to keep. The craziest thing is that you stole my catharsis. I never got to stand up to you and to see you pay for what you did. Even though you're dead, you're still taking from me. You're still taking all my chances at happiness and I will always hate you for that. I will always be the girl who never catches the bouquet because of you.
I felt better after that. I didn't realise it, but just purging myself of the words, even though he couldn't hear them, provided some relief. The resentment had been building up for a long time, like a poison to my system, and I felt a release, if not a complete catharsis.
The memories started coming than and I didn't like that, but maybe it was better that way. They were fleeting dreams with fuzzy edges that came to me at night. They weren't night terrors because I could remember them. I woke up shaking and cold, but never alone. My mom was always there to soothe me. I wished she wasn't.
* * * *
I'm eight years old and my daddy says he's going to take me to the circus. My mom thinks circuses are wrong because of how they treat animals, but my daddy says that's bull. I'm excited. He'd bought me a pink dress and he'd combed my hair. I love my daddy.
"Pumpkin," he says, gathering my hair in two ponytails-he always liked two ponies. "I have to talk to you and I really need you to be a big girl and understand what I'm saying."
"Okay, Daddy," I say, looking at him in the mirror. He's tall and he always smiles at me now. Not like before when Linda was here. He loves me now.
"What happened last night was me showing you how much I love you. That you're my only girl. It's a special thing that only daddies who really love their daughters do. I don't want you to ever tell."
"Why?"
"Because I don't think your sisters' daddies love them as much as I love you. It would make them sad to know they don't have what we have. You don't want to make them sad, do you? You don't want to make your mom sad that I love you more than she does. It has to be a secret or they'll get mad at you because daddy loves you so much. They'll get mad at me too and then Daddy will have to stop taking you out on dates. I have so many places I want to take you, but I won't be able to if you tell."
"I won't tell, Daddy. I can keep a secret."
"I know, pumpkin. That's why you're my number one girl and my weekend girlfriend. You'll always be that, no matter what."
* * * *
Fuck, I was still that. He'd kept me silent with my love for my sisters and family and I'd believed him completely. I'd wanted to make him happy. He used guilt to make me comply and that was the strongest feeling in the world to a little girl because it was the most tangible.
I started seeing a therapist. It helped to talk about the things I'd never wanted to talk about with my mom or sisters. I knew that the descriptions would mortify them and they'd never recover. They felt guilty enough.
Although I was sad, I could feel the mending of my heart, as if someone was literally sewing it with needle and thread. The days went on and I moved through them. It hurt, but my smiles weren't always artificial. I could eat dessert again and laugh at a joke.
I loved my new job in accounting too. I was in a cubicle and not closed off to my co-workers. We joked around sometimes. Eric Wells asked me out. Eric was tall with shaggy brown hair and hazel eyes. He was very cute and sweet. I declined, but I told him to wait another two months and ask again if he wanted. It had been three months since Rick had left. Another two wouldn't be enough to heal, but the thought of a date might be a possibility. Does love die out, like the light in a dead star? I didn't think so. At least my life was returning to some semblance of normal, even if it was a new normal.
That's the thing about an emergency-you never know when it's going to happen.
I got the call at work. A car had struck my mother in the parking lot. Dillon drove me to the hospital. The hospital waiting room had all the cast of characters that usually sat in our living room. No one joked or laughed tonight, though. Stevie, Billie, Dillon, Adam, Adam's mother Kate and I all sat around sombre and silent. Billie had had to fly in from New York and Adam had picked her up from the airport. We waited while my mom had some massive brain surgery. She'd sustained a major head injury from the impact.