If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.
As has become customary in this story of mine, he did call. The very next night.
And the first words out of his mouth were "I'm an asshole."
I didn't argue.
He apologized again. Said he couldn't really explain what had happened to him that night, but he knew I was right. That he had gone from being in a fairly good mood to being completely shut down with little to no explanation. That he had put a wall up between he and I. And that his only excuse was that he was a mess right now.
He started telling me how he had been feeling since she popped back into and out of his life once more. How it had made him begin to evaluate their entire relationship. Their courtship and marriage and everything else in between. How it had made him question himself. Question her. And question whether or not she had ever really loved him at all.
He was broken.
Lost and confused and so incredibly (possibly irreparably) broken.
He started calling daily again, just as he had the last time he’d been gone.
Every night my phone would ring and it would be from that distant far away number.
Really no more than an hour’s plane ride away.
But still so completely out of reach.
He was drinking regularly again, only now it was worse.
Now it didn't seem like the alcohol was helping.
It was just taking him further down that path of depression.
That wasn’t the only thing that was different though. That had gotten worse.
We weren’t talking about "us" anymore. At all. Ever. We weren't talking about how much he missed me, or the future we could have together.
He hadn't even thrown out a drunken "I love you" in what seemed like forever.
Instead, night after night, we were talking about her.
About what she had done to him.
And about how devastated it had left him.
I quickly became his therapist instead of his girlfriend, and even though I was completely cognizant of what was happening as the events were unfolding - I couldn't stop it.
I knew this wasn't the direction we should be heading in.
I knew this shouldn't be my role.
And as the days passed I knew more and more that he should be talking to a professional.
I pushed for that. More than once.
The problem was that he was out there in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. And the opportunities for him to get any kind of help while there really were few and far between.
He was with a group of guys who were all away from their wives and families, and who were all drinking together nightly to blow off steam. So the influence was already there for him to be engaging in too much of that.
And he wasn't exactly in the position to make an appointment with a therapist and go in on his lunch break.
So I was all he had when it came to talking about this.
Well me, and his mom.
But that was it.
I couldn't cut him off from that.
I couldn’t abandon him too.
Even though most nights he was irrational and unreachable. So lost and hurt and confused that the words flying out of his mouth sometimes scared me.
Even though no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to pull him back.
Which left me feeling defeated. And inadequate. And so very hopeless.
He was just so broken.
It wasn’t my fault. I hadn't done this. And I knew that everything involved in maintaining this relationship no longer held any promise of being in my best interest.
But I couldn't help it.
I just wanted to fix him.
So, I put my bachelor’s degree in psychology to work, and I went into practice for myself.
For him.
Something we can all agree I had no business doing.
But I didn’t know what else to do. So I did the only thing I could do. I sacrificed pieces of myself to be his friend. To be there for him. To support him.
To listen to him.
I began to let go of any hope for our future. I didn’t even care about that anymore. About what we were or were not going to become.
I just wanted him to be OK.
I wanted so badly for him to be OK.
We would talk every night. Sometimes for hours on end. Most nights long past when I myself should have been going to bed. Some nights even when the phone would ring at 3 am. And more than a few mornings when I would call him myself as soon as my alarm had gone off. Just to make sure he was getting up for work. To make sure he was functioning after the previous night.
To make sure he had made it through the night at all.
Because I will admit that in the deepest darkest recesses of my brain... that had become a very real fear of mine.
That one night, he would do something stupid. Something drastic. Something crazy.
And I would lose him.
We've all been there.
That dark and hopeless place.
Or at least, I know I've been there. More than once in my life. And I would like to believe that everyone else has been as well. That at one time or another, everyone has fallen that deep. That hard. And that everyone has struggled with how to move on.
One thing I can say I’ve discovered from those past moments of darkness in my life though, is that recovering from it gets easier for me every time. If only because I know there is recovery. There is starting over. There is always happiness to be found; no matter how much the heart has been broken.
But for him... nothing had ever shaken him like this. Nothing had ever really made him fall. And I knew he was starting to question whether or not he would ever feel happy again.
Which scared me.
Because I knew how dangerous that hopelessness could be.
I started pushing for him to come home. For him to do whatever it took to convince his job he should be working from town.
Here. Where he had his family. His friends.
Me.
Here, where he could be surrounded by the people who loved him.
And where on the bad nights, I would be able to simply get in my car and drive to him if I was worried.
Rather than waiting so helplessly to hear his voice the next morning. Falling asleep praying that he would just be OK.
So when he called me one night and told me that he would be home in just a few days, I was ecstatic.
I needed him home. I needed him here. I needed him with me, if only so that I could know he was alright.
The night he was supposed to come in I was actually heading about an hour south of town to Teeny’s wedding. I invited him to come along with me, mostly because I couldn’t stand the idea of his being here and me being there. He couldn’t manage to get a flight in on time, but he sounded genuinely disappointed when he said he couldn’t make it.
I almost believed he really wanted to be there.
He promised to call me as soon as he got in though, and we left it at that.
That night, I dressed myself to the nines for what was supposed to be a beautiful wedding. I made the drive, thinking the entire time about him.
Anxious to see his face.
The wedding was incredible, but when he called me an hour into the reception to tell me he had landed – it took zero effort for him to convince me to come back to town and have dinner with him.
As I was heading back to Anchorage, one of his buddies who knew about the wedding I was attending called me to say he was passing right by me. He and his girlfriend had pulled into a gas station to fill up after a day spent fishing further South. I was right there, so I pulled in to say “hi”.
Overdressed and out of place in a middle of nowhere Alaskan gas station.
They both got a kick over my apparel, and then upon hearing that the boy was back in town, asked if they could join us for dinner.
I had been looking forward to some one on one time for the boy and I, if only so that I could completely assess his current state of mind, but I knew he would be happy to see them.
So we made plans to meet at a local ale house a few hours later.
And I drove home. The boy meeting me at my place mere minutes after I had arrived.
The heels had been tossed aside, but I was still in my dress. My hair was still a fancy mess. I was still far more done up than he had ever seen me before.
But he didn’t say a word about it. Just gave me a hug, and waited patiently as I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt.
He was quiet, but he didn’t seem cold. Or distant.
Just, quiet.
Tired maybe. A little sad to be sure.
But overall… so much better than I had been expecting.
We met his friends for dinner, and the four of us spent a few hours laughing and exchanging stories. Eating more food than any of us really needed.
At one point his buddy turned to him and said “You should have seen her tonight. She really looked incredible.” Gesturing towards me, now sitting at the table completely scrubbed out, my face absent of even an ounce of makeup.
The boy looked at me for a moment. Caught my eye and held it before replying “I did see her. She looked beautiful.”
It had been almost a month since he had gotten off that plane to a text message from her. Almost a month since everything between us had been so effectively pummeled by her uncertainty.
For all the sweet words that had flowed out of his mouth in the months before that, this was the first time I had heard any from him since.
I had to look away before he did. Because I was sure that holding his gaze any longer would have caused me to fall apart.
The pressure that had been building for so long, suddenly releasing.
If only just a bit.
When we were done with dinner, he and I headed back to my place. We grabbed a movie and crawled into bed. Not touching. Not cuddling.
Just two friends, watching a movie.
Until the point, when I least expected it to happen, he leaned over and began kissing me.
After only a few seconds, I pulled away and looked at him. Examined his face for any signs at all of the broken boy I had been counseling in the weeks preceding this moment.
“What was that?” I asked. A fair question, considering how long it had been since we had behaved or talked like a couple in any way.
“I wanted to kiss you.” He said. “I just wanted to remember what it felt like.”
And then he did it again.
We had each consumed a single drink with dinner. Nothing more. This wasn’t a moment borne by a lack of sobriety or inhibitions.
Still... once it started, neither one of us made any attempt to stop it.
It had been 6 weeks since we had been together like this, and in some ways the awkwardness that hung between us was reminiscent of that first time.
Perhaps the reasons for doing it were as well.
He wasn’t entirely with me. He wasn’t completely engaged or attached.
But he was trying.
And in knowing how hard he was trying, there wasn't a part of me that could say “no”.
There wasn't a part of me that wanted to.
When it was over, he wrapped himself up around me. Cuddling so tightly I could hardly remember the distance that had been between us.
And I fell asleep thinking that maybe I had made the previous few weeks up.
Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as I had let myself believe.
Maybe all the worry had been a bit dramatic.
And maybe, just maybe…
Everything was going to be OK.
(to be continued…)
ADSPACE
