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mikeyhatesit113 · 3 years

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forever and never: Chapter 2

“You know you almost got shot last night?”

My dad’s voice on the other end of the phone was stern and serious.

“Come again?” I asked.

“You came in late last night, and she was scared out of her mind. If you would have taken one step towards our bedroom, she would have shot you.”

My dad was referring to his new girlfriend, Tammy. I was utterly confused.

“I was just hanging out with my friends, and I come in that late every night. She knows that. I thought I was being super quiet,” I said.

“Well you were making plenty of noise. She was scared out of her mind. Be more quiet next time,” my dad demanded.

Wait…can we rewind to the ‘she almost shot me’ part, and question why you’re continuing to let her hold your handgun at night?

This conversation was just an annexation of the crumbling home life I was experiencing at the time. I had spent 7 long years of growing up under my grandparents’ roof, as I always understood that my over-the-road trucker father could not afford a place of his own.

Or so I thought.

However, my dad had recently met a new woman and less than 1 month later, he rented a townhouse so they could live together. I had to follow him, of course.

Not that I wanted to go. I loved living at my grandparents’ house, but I was 19 years old and with my dad finally moving out, I had no choice but to go with him.

I hated that townhouse. A sheet of tin foil is thicker than those walls were. On top of it all, his new girlfriend clearly didn’t like that I was living there and occupying a room at Castle Paper Walls. She wanted the townhouse for only her, my dad, and her two children that she had part-time custody of. Without me there, think of the space she could have had!

So much room for activities!

Everything I did around that house became an issue, including taking a Mountain Dew out of the refrigerator. I wasn’t welcome to them, as I was not involved in the original “4 for $12” purchase.

My dad wasn’t the most secure guy either, for a man who just locked in a 12 month lease with a complete stranger. He called me one day and told me, “If Tammy ever romantically approaches you when I’m not around, please tell me.”

Wait...so what are we doing? Is this real life?

My escape from the turmoil at home was going to work and having a good time.

Janie and the fellow staff members would listen to the stories of my everyday struggles with family members and odd friends. They were the perfect audience, and their laughter helped me look at my life as the slap-stick comedy it was turning out to be.

I tried to spend as much time as I could away from ‘home’, which is why on the night of November 1st, 2007, I was walking alone in a dark parking lot.

It was a cool, autumn night, and I deemed it a good opportunity to get some fresh air.

That’s when my phone unexpectedly sprung to life, the bright screen lighting up the night around me.

It was a text message.

As it was after 9 on a Thursday, I couldn’t imagine who would be contacting me at that time of night.

I looked down and squinted my eyes at my bright screen.

It was a text.

From Janie.

And then another text.

And then another one.

Followed by another one.

And these weren’t just short texts with simple greetings. They were lengthy messages with lots of information.

Had something happened with work?

I started reading the first text, and something happened inside of me.

I don’t know if my heart sunk, or if it skipped a beat, but there was a reaction nonetheless to such an unexpected statement.

“I don’t know how to say this, but I have fallen for you.”

I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was reading, but then the texts kept coming.

To paraphrase,

“I have feelings for you.”

“I’ve been feeling this way for a while now.”

“I’m not happy in my marriage.”

“I know there’s an age gap between us, but my parents are even further apart in age, and they’re totally happy together.”

I stared at my phone screen, unable to fully process what I was reading.

Was this some kind of joke?

Seriously…I assumed she was probably surrounded by people and they were all laughing and high-fiving, waiting for my response.

This just wasn’t possible. I was at her house less than a month before, talking to her husband, Jay, in their kitchen. I liked Jay. I was almost certain the feeling was mutual.

And every time I had been to their home, I sensed no discontent.

No tension. No passive aggressive comments.

Nothing.

They truly came off like the perfect American family.

However, that perfect perception was a stark contrast to the information that was spewing onto my phone screen.

Just me and my phone, alone in this dark parking lot, shouldering this sudden burden.

I am a firm believer that life gives us critical tests at crucial times, where the choices we make define our character, and dictate the events that follow.

This was one of those tests. Tied with a bow.

I put my phone back in my pocket and continued walking. I did not respond, because I just didn’t know what to say.

My phone lit up again.

“Please say something, Michael.”

I continued walking, placing one foot in front of the other while my head spun.

As far as I was concerned, I had two options. For starters, my employment at the daycare center had been plunged into serious jeopardy. The center’s director had just professed her “love” for me, so my employment status was irrevocably altered, if not terminated altogether.

But still, I had 2 options.

1. Tell her that she misread everything about our friendship, wish her well, and never return to a place that paid only $7 an hour.

2. Attempt to talk her off the ledge, assist her in rectifying her obvious confusion, and pretend that we could just be friends after such a conversation. Also, continue earning only $7 an hour.

Eventually, I had arrived back home. My father’s girlfriend had since gone to bed, and I sat in the dark living room alone.

I picked up my phone.

“Hey,” I began, my brain struggling more than my fingers to find the right words. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m confused by all of this.”

“Can you come over here? I’m at Sheila’s house,” she wrote back.

“It’s late, and I don’t know if that’s a good idea. We can talk tomorrow?” I offered.

I knew the last thing in the world to be considered a “good idea” would have been to go over there and talk in person. This thing needed to simmer for a while.

“Can you please come over here? I feel like we need to talk about this tonight,” she pleaded.

“Um…”

This was my friend asking this of me. Technically my boss, which added a complete new dimension altogether.

“Please?” she begged.

This was the kind of decision in life that truly separates the men from the boys.

Wise men from fools.

She wasn’t in danger. She wasn’t stranded anywhere. She wasn’t in jeopardy.

By all accounts, I should have ignored her text messages, went to work the next day, and let her, and her only, share the awkward exchanges and glances.

The problem was, I wasn’t a man. And though I wasn’t seduced, not even in the least, I wasn’t thinking like a real man needed to.

I grabbed my car keys.

I wonder how my life would have turned out if I wouldn’t have left the townhouse that night. I wonder who I’d be today, and where I’d be now, if I hadn’t given in.

But as my car traveled along those back roads that night, it seemed that the future was the furthest thing from my mind.

20 minutes later, my car pulled into Sheila’s gravel driveway. I got out of my car and entered her backyard, where Sheila greeted me. “She’s inside,” said Sheila with a curious expression. It appeared as if she wanted to start laughing. It appeared that she knew how preposterous the situation was, but the beer in her hand was stopping her from addressing it in any type of appropriate way.

As I stated earlier, she was the owner of the entire daycare center. This was not only an inevitable professional mess, but it was also a personal one, as she and her husband had always been close with Janie and Jay.

Unfortunately, everyone’s adult mind-set, mine included, had taken a holiday that night.

I entered the house and did not immediately see Janie. I stood there awkwardly, questioning myself silently if I was doing the right thing. Should I leave?

Within seconds, Janie appeared through the doorway, also holding a beer. I was surprised, as I did not think that she had been drinking when she spilled her heart out to me. I thought it came from a personal place during an honest moment of clarity.

I was mistaken.

We made small talk before agreeing to go upstairs to Sheila’s daughter’s room to talk in privacy.

We entered the room and closed the door behind us. Janie sat down on the floor beside the bed, arms wrapped around her knees like a confused teenager who wasn’t sure who to take to prom. She took another sip of beer, smirking at how uncomfortable this was.

“So…what is going on?” I asked, standing at the other end of the room.

On cue, Janie launched into how she was unhappy in her marriage, and that she only stayed in it because she felt like she had to. If she even thought about divorcing Jay, her family would most definitely shun and disown her. She claimed that she had gotten married too young, but after Jay went into the military, they could only coexist due to the periods of time apart while Jay was on deployment.

Then she divulged that she had been unfaithful to Jay multiple times before. She claimed that she had slept with an old high school boyfriend when Jay went off to boot camp, and years later, she had an affair with one of Jay’s superiors in the military.

“After we had slept together, Jay and I were at a social event, and he introduced me to one of his superior officers. I looked at the guy and realized it was the same guy I had just slept with,” she recalled.

Then she smirked. “Boy, that was awkward when our eyes met.”

She also attempted to justify her extramarital adventures by speculating that Jay had cheated on her while he was overseas.

I listened to her words, but instead of seeing the raw irony sitting right in front of me, I could only confirm that she was indeed unhappy in her marriage.

I viewed her cheating as a simple result of her feeling trapped and unhappy for years. I mean, what kind of family would force a woman to stay in a marriage she didn’t want to be in? Did they not care about her happiness?

She also claimed that Jay had become verbally abusive to her and treated her poorly. She claimed that she often felt like he chose drinking over spending time with her.

Her long story weaved and wove its way back around to meeting me, and how she felt happy when she was with me.

To this day, I still don’t know why. I was 19 and care-free, but that was truly because I had little to nothing to care about.

My car was 13 years old. I lived at home with my dad and his girlfriend. My only bills were car insurance and cell phone. I wasn’t going to college, and I wasn’t pursuing anything long term.

This was a stark contrast to Jay, who had served in the military, was a great provider and father, had a really nice job, and had skills that could cement a future for her children. Plus, her family loved him.

But this enigma over the cause for her attraction to me also served as a curse, because it made me think that with having so little to offer her, maybe it was true love after all?

In any regard, I told her that she needed to figure some things out before anything else could happen. I didn’t drive to Shelli’s house that night to become a homewrecker, and I wasn’t about to get involved in a marriage that wasn’t mine.

I told her that I liked Jay, I respected her marriage and family, and the time wasn’t right for me to get involved.

God strike me dead if I’m lying about that. That’s exactly what I told her. Ask her.

But this is where I went wrong.

Janie had been drinking, and as it was now well after midnight, she was in no condition to drive.

I recommended that she lay down and sleep it off, and she asked me to stay with her.

I agreed.

For the second time that night, I sealed my fate.

She laid down on the bed, and I laid down on the opposite side.

Clothes were on. We weren’t touching, and we weren’t cuddling.

With Jay at home with her children, I was intent on not letting this night go any further. There was too much on the line.

God strike me dead if I’m lying about that, too.

The bright blue numbers from Shelli’s daughter’s alarm clock lit up the room as if dawn was already on the horizon, but the 12:13 on its face indicated otherwise.

I closed my eyes, willing sleep to come, but Janie reached out and pulled me toward her. I tried to scooch away, insisting that she go to sleep, and she relented.

But a moment later, she pulled me close to her again.

I should have left. But I didn’t.

I once again insisted that she get some sleep, but she wasn’t having any of it. I smelled the beer on her breath as she tried pulling my head towards her, searching for a kiss.

It was a kiss I did not want, but I felt my resolve slowly eroding.

But I was intent. This could not happen. This wasn’t right. It just wasn’t.

I resisted, but another advance immediately came. Janie forced her face towards mine, her lips finding my lips in the pale darkness.

It was a kiss I did not want, but it was a kiss I suddenly returned.

A betrayal of people I knew. A betrayal of myself. A betrayal of all that I thought I believed.

I kissed her back, and you might as well say that my innocence died right there in the blue glow of that alarm clock.

We did not have sex.

Somehow, she fell asleep and so did I, and we both woke up around 4am.

In silence, we both grabbed our things and left Shelli’s house, going to our cars without saying anything to each other except mumbling a brief farewell.

We were retreating back to our own separate worlds. She was going home to her sleeping family, and I was going home to possibly get shot by a paranoid woman with a handgun.

This wasn’t the movies.

There was no kiss goodbye. No alibi. No soap opera-worthy speeches.

I got inside my car and the engine roared to life in the cold, crisp dark. The sun had not yet risen, allowing us to still move under the cover of darkness.

Our own personal twilight, where things are easily hidden in the absence of light.

But the sun would rise in a few short hours, and it would shed a light upon what we had done, and who we had become overnight.

I would awake that next morning in a bright, sunny room with the smell of her perfume still on my shirt.

An intoxicating memory of the night before. And the dawning of a new universe that I was now wide awake in.

And that’s not always a good thing.

In my case, it sure as hell wasn’t.

Buckle up.

“Why don't you just... Sleep up, sleep up? You can call me in the morning when you’re feeling all blue-like Leave us, leave us In the past Took our love and you put it in a noose, so Why should I forgive you? You’re the reason I choose Feelings, feelings Feelings over everybody else I knew.”

Thousand Below “171 Xo”

NOTE: Though this is my side of the story, including my own personal recollections and opinions, the reader should not consider this note anything other than a work of literature. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

#marriage #divorce #breakups #relationships #relationship advice #dating #trust issues #depression #motivation

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