“What moment? Me breaking apart some more? Haven’t had enough yet?” My voice cracks and I turn from her and move so I am further under a large pine by the side of the road because I am freezing, miserable and trying not to lose my shit on the one person I love above all others. The one I am desperate to protect.
“I can't stand it Noah. You have blocked me from everything since the minute you woke up and shit was painfully different from there on out.”
“Since she died Carrie. Say it. Since she died.” I am in her face, toe to toe just like we like it.
“Since she died Noah. Since you almost died alongside her.”
“But I didn’t, did I?" I roar. "No I got left behind to deal with the aftermath. I am so fucking sorry that you can’t understand my lack of involvement in life these last few months, but you have no fucking clue what this is like. Paint it anyway you want to sissy but you won’t come close.”
“Wont I? Do you think you were the only one who loved her? Trusted her implicitly? That mourns her every single day and wishes and pleads for it to be a joke?” She is screaming at me, tears falling so furiously they blend with the pouring rain and I watch like a dumb fool, watch as she replays her own nightmare. It was here that everything shifted and became painfully, blaringly obvious. All of it and it shattered me. I am a fool.
A selfish fucking fool.
“I was in bed, with my husband of six hours when my world turned upside down. I was basking in one of the very few moments I have had of true undeniable happiness, one that is forever tainted by the most viscous loss in my life. I went from wedded bliss to forever changed. A change I can’t recover from." I know she is right, and it is why I have refused to come to her.
"Candey was my soul mate Noah. My kindred sister. She was the first person other than you, that I’ve trusted implicitly to never betray or hurt me. She was a valuable piece of my life and she was ripped from me.” She chokes on her sob, crying uncontrollably, wailing her pain, arms all over the place and looking to the heavens like somehow they will open and bring her back.
For us both.
It is here in this moment I realize how deep I have betrayed her and left her to suffer in silence. I pray toGodthat Chad has picked up the pieces I failed to.
“Carrie…” My voice breaking, overwhelmed by the pain she is in, pain I have refused to see. I feel it now, deeper than any other wound we share. “I am sorry sissy-“
She shoves me away from her. “Fuck you Noah… Fuck you!” She cries and pulls the hood of her sweatshirt over her head in a vain attempt to protect her from me seeing her. It hurts more than any other thing in my life has. It proves that for the first time in all her years, she doesn’t trust me.
“Trust me Carrie.” I say it in the same voice I always use when I need her to snap out of whatever painful thought has her in its grip, but she looks at me and laughs.
“Trust you? Really? In what world Noah?” She rubs her eyes, then folds her arms and hunches over, the pain is physical.
“No world, just you and me and all that has ever mattered. Just trust me to know exactly what you feel right now. Trust me to love you through it, trust yourself to know that I can handle you hurting baby girl. I didn't think that I could, but I see it now. I can handle it because it is another pain we share, connected in pain like fucking skeleton twins."
She looks at me forever, and I don’t know if she even sees me. "Just trust me.” We stay like this forever it seems but it is cold and one minute feels like an hour, but I will stand here as long as she needs me to until she feels safe near me again.
She looks at me with the saddest most distant glare, and falls to her knees, hunched over on the muddy road and cries. Sobs wrack her body and I stand stoic watching her mourn Candey for the first time, and I know then that this, this is what she has needed. I have known all along that she would comfort me, share in the loss and sorrow with me. That she would make it real and force me to face it, because she would face it. She was the strongest person I know. They all tried to pretend that I was some amazing great guy when all of my strength came from the woman on her knees in agony.
“I miss her so much bubba.” She cried, that soft sweet voice that brings me, all of me, back to the surface in one furious blow, impossible to push down and keep it hidden. I go to her, on my knees and pull her into my arms.
“Me too." I dry my eyes, wet with unshed tears. But it doesn’t help. "Oh my God, me too.”
“Then why shut me out?”
We stay like this through the rain for long minutes of nothing more than the pain that has split us apart, bringing us back together.
“I hate this…" I say and break the silence between us. "When I woke up and Shame confirmed my worst nightmare..." I shake my head trying to force the pain away. "I don't know, it was almost like this insane reasoning took over. I couldn't imagine the pain you were in, I was trying to protect you from seeing what that pain turned me into." I look at her and go for broke with the truth.
"I knew the minute Shame told me, I knew I was going to fade away high. I knew, and so it started there. I wasn't going to bring you down with me. It's like from there it spiraled and as parts of me healed; other parts built bigger walls to keep you out. New guilt's formed and I had shoved you so far from my pain that there was no way to bring you back. At times I wanted to, the loss of our bond was so profound, but I knew if I came to you that you would want everything."
She nods in understanding. "That's why you made me wait while you detoxed and therapy and all that?"
I nod. "I spoke to the therapist about my need to protect you from me and how before she died it was my need to protect you from everyonebutme."
She laughs, "Yeah? What'd they say?"
"Fucking ninety thousand in therapy to tell me I had trust issues."
We both laugh and finally we are back. With anyone else it would never be that simple, but with us it was. It was the simplest form of trust.
It dawns on me how much she needs me, and it clarifies how much I need her. In this moment more than any.
