“You’re very different from her. You are not fragile.”
“No. I’m angry. So is she, and she has mental illness on top of it, so the way that she chooses to express it is different. The way that she is able to express it is different. But I am petty, and I am vindictive. Look at the way that I treated you all throughout school.”
“We were young. And you were going through things.”
“Yes. It’s true. I was. But I don’t know another way to be. And that is the honest truth. I do not know another way. And I know what it’s like to be held hostage by someone whose emotions are… It’s her. I did to my own father, after all.”
“You were a teenage boy. We spoke about this already. Your father should’ve reconciled things between the two of you.”
“Maybe. But I was also prepared to hold him at arm’s length forever. Punishment. I cannot believe that version of myself. I will not be what my mother has been to our child. I will not be that to you. Every strong emotion I have turned sour. And I will not subject you to that.”
“Maybe you should ask me what I want to be subjected to. Maybe you don’t get to make all the decisions.”
“It isn’t about controlling you. It’s about controlling myself. And I… You will fall out of love with me. This I guarantee you.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
Pain tore at her chest. Because she wanted to stay with him forever. She really did. They had a whole agreement. And suddenly, the agreement didn’t matter anymore. Because it wasn’t about a set of ideal circumstances that they were creating for their baby. It was about what the two of them could have. And what he wasn’t allowing because he was so afraid.
But she couldn’t carry on like that. So she was going to have to make this into something he couldn’t control. Because that’s what he was trying to do. She understood now. He was just so afraid of the strength of all of this. So he was trying to separate things. His mother, her, their passion versus their friendship. And this reality of having a child was what had pushed him over the edge. It was what had made it all too much.
She could understand that. She could sympathize with him. But she couldn’t enable it. She simply couldn’t. Not when they could have everything. And if he was going to draw lines so that he could hide behind them, so that he could give them both the least of what they could have, then she wasn’t going to be complicit in that.
Because what he didn’t understand was that there were other ways to hurt people.
“I love you. I love you enough to try and take a risk now. I love… Romeo. We’ve been fighting this fight for so many years. Fighting to stay away from each other. And we lost that, didn’t we? So now, I want to fight to have the most of what we can have. I think we were meant to be together. Maybe we’re the love story. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe all of this happened so that you and I could be together. Maybe we’re the happy ending.”
“I believe that’s true,” he said. “We are a mess. Created by a mess. And I believe that we can do our best with it, but I can’t—”
“You’re afraid. Then I understand that. Your mother turned love into a weapon for years. She turned it into a task that you had to complete. And today you did something incredible. You chose a different path. It doesn’t change how much you love her. If she tries to make you feel differently, then that’s on her. It’s not you. Your love is the same. Whether or not we call what we have love, it’s the same. I love you, and I think that you love me. But I don’t want to have friendship and sex. When I decided to marry you, I decided that I was doing it because I wanted you. In the beginning, it was about the baby. But that’s just a story I was telling myself. In the end, it’s about you and me. It’s about our love story.”
“You don’t understand what you’re asking for.”
“I do. I’m asking for you. All of you. And what part of me has ever seemed like I couldn’t handle all of you? It’s been that way from the beginning. When we only knew how to hurt each other.”
“Maybe that’s all I ever know how to do. Maybe that’s the most that it will ever be.”
“No. I just don’t believe it. I’m sorry. I know that it might make you feel better to think that this is all we have, because you want something to numb it, don’t you? You want some kind of a break from all of this. But this is intense, I fear. Becoming parents. Being married. Being in love.”
“And what exactly are you proposing?”
“The agreement is out the window. You’re going to have to penalize me. I’ll give you everything. Every penny that I have. But we will have to figure out how to coparent. Because I’m not scared anymore. What I’m scared of is us having only a little when we can have everything. That’s what I’m scared of. And that’s what I won’t allow.”
“You can’t leave me,” he said.
“I can. And if you love me, you’ll follow me. But if you don’t you let me go. And I will never keep you out of your child’s life. I’m sorry for what I said when I first found out that I was pregnant. But I would never do that to you. Not now. Not now that I know you. But I know you well enough to take this risk. So I’m giving you one more chance. Do you think you can ever love me?”
She saw fear in his eyes. Real. Raw.
“No.”
“Then I can’t stay with you.”
He said nothing while she packed her things and left. There was nothing to say. She had said it all. She wanted something that he did not have the ability to give, and he had no choice but to let her go. It was the only kind thing. It was the only thing he could do. She wanted to escape him, so he needed to let her do it. There was no other option.
But as soon as she was gone, he began the process of tearing everything apart. Absolutely everything. The bedroom, and then he went down the hall and went into the room he lived in so infrequently as a child.
And he began to dismantle that as well. There could be nothing left. None of these false promises. None of this…
