beautifully broken:if i break 3(22)
“I—I don’t know.” I chuckle and begin to laugh as tears start to fall from my eyes.
*
He doesn’t remember anything.
Nothing important at least.
The last thing he remembers is being at the hotel room back in Detroit and talking to me through the bathroom door. He doesn’t remember us making love or telling me that he loves me, which makes this entire situation that much more complicated. He’s trying to comfort me but he’s shaken himself and he should be. He’s lost and sullen, just like I am that I have to explain to him what happened. I don’t even know now if it was even him that said those things or whether it was Cal all along. That thought alone makes my blood boil. If it was Cal then that means that moment between Chris and me hadn’t actually been a moment between Chris and me after all and it was nothing more than a trick, a test, a sick, twisted game…
“I’m so tired of this!” he says grimly. Frustration is radiating from him. I want to comfort him, to tell him everything is going to be okay, but I don’t know if anything is okay. Cal was just here last night in this house and now Chris stands before me with not a clue about what’s happened. I don’t know what to think or how I should feel. I’m at a loss. I feel more lost than before I knew about Cal’s…or Chris’s condition.
“Going back and forth. Why does he do this? Why am I doing this?” he says, his voice rising slightly in panic. “How do we do this if he can come and go whenever he feels like it?”
“I—I thought that this would be okay. That everything would be fine, Chris, but I can’t even tell you how I feel right now. I don’t know how to feel. This is so…” My voice breaks. I stand up and try to make my way to the bathroom when Chris stops me, gently touching both my shoulders. My eyes meet his warm, greenish-grey ones and it makes me feel sick that the man looking at me doesn’t remember what he said to me, how he touched me.
“Lauren, what’s wrong? I know I missed something. Tell me what,” he asks looking me in the eyes.
“It’s not important,” I say, trying to plaster the fake smile I’d perfected in the weeks prior but am having a hard time even mustering right now.
“No, it has to be.”
I shake my head, denying it. “You should probably call your mom,” I say, quickly trying to hold my emotions together as best I can before they pour out of me. Crying in the bathroom has become such a pathetic routine but routines are comforting and safe.
Once I reach my safe haven I try to catch the breath that keeps trying to escape me. I’m shaking. I have to make myself calm down. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s just split my world in two, that’s all. I have to get it together.
I can’t be weak. I don’t even have the luxury to choose to be weak. One of us has to be the strong one and I can’t depend on that being Chris or Cal, or anyone besides myself. Everyone can’t be a basket case. Someone has to hold it together for Caylen. The thought of her makes anxiety course through my veins. The good thing is this doesn’t affect her yet. She’s only one but what happens when she isn’t? How is she supposed to understand? Understand that daddy isn’t exactly the same daddy every day. How do I get a child to comprehend and understand when I, as an adult, can’t even understand?
That’s what my aunt Raven meant about protecting her from all this. But how do you protect her from a man that helped created her, that loves her? I know for a fact both Cal and Chris do. It’s one thing they have in common. Cal came back and broke through whatever haze he was in to be there on her birthday. Chris has fallen in love with her but how do I not worry? Am I doing the right thing for her? Are they doing the right thing for her? It’s like they’re both in a war, locked in a battle against one another and it’s not helping anyone but themselves. It’s destroying everyone around them. I can’t believe Cal. I wonder if he knew that when he woke up, Chris would be back. I think back to his words. Describing his absences as dreams. It makes me so mad. He gets to go away and dream while leaving me in this nightmare. He’s a selfish asshole and a smart one. He had to have known that this was going to happen. That’s why he fed me that bullshit last night, barely telling me anything, asking if it could be enough. I should have said ‘Fuck no! I need to know everything!’ but, of course, Cal plays me like a violin. No, not a violin. I won’t even compare this disaster to a classical instrument. He plays me like a three year old plays with a toy, without thought or compassion, and I’m the toy without a brain.