There’s only so long you can bask in the glow of sweet nothings whispered by a drunken man who has already proven himself to be nothing if not confused.
But the next morning, I couldn’t help my basking.
Wanting to stay in bed curled up in his arms for as long as possible – fearful that setting our feet on the floor would lead to the inevitable destruction of all the good that had been built the night before.
He woke up feeling pretty awful. Which made sense, because it had been the most drunk I had ever seen him.
And that was saying a lot, given our escapades at the cabin.
We managed to get up and start our day though, and I quickly announced that I wanted to take off soon and go to church. He made a crack about me being the perfect girl – one who knew when it was time to get up and get out. I caught his eye for a second and said “What? You mean you don’t want me moving in?” A look of pure panic washed across his face as he tried to assess whether or not I was serious, and it was all I could do to keep my expression blank.
When he hadn’t said a thing a few moments later, I took the lead.
“But…” I pouted, putting on my very best you’re-breaking-my-heart face. “You told me you loved me!”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I busted out laughing before he ever had a chance to respond.
I’m pretty sure he called me an asshole.
But he was laughing too. Breathing again. And looking at me like he was more than just a little bit grateful that I was willing to make light of the night before.
I could tell he was still trying to get a handle on it all. On what he felt for me. What he felt for her. And how the two could possibly ever co-exist.
I ended up taking him to his truck from there, which was half an hour back in the direction we had come from the night before. We talked a lot on that drive about the events that would be unfolding in just a week’s time.
The official end of his marriage.
I know it was weighing on him. That he was struggling with how it was he was supposed to feel anything but heartbroken over that impending date. I was fairly sure that as the day grew closer, he would be increasing the distance between us as he wrapped his head around what it meant to mourn the loss of his marriage.
Which is why I was surprised when he called that night asking if he could come over. I really had assumed that I would be seeing much less of him in the week to come.
He turned up fairly morose, and sat quietly on my couch before finally looking at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen and announcing “I really don’t want to be divorced.”
I didn’t blame him. I knew this was hard. That if I had been in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to be divorced either. He really and truly had wanted to see his marriage last. Forever. He had wanted to be with one person and one person only for the rest of his life. He wanted the quiet and settled contentment that comes with committing yourself completely to someone you love.
And he was losing it, through no real fault of his own.
I understood his sadness over that. Over the disruption of a life he had already planned on living from now until forever.
And I understood why he was having a difficult time coping.
Up to this point, the boy had led a fairly idyllic life. He was the only child of parents who were still together and loved him dearly. His core group of friends were the same guys he had been hanging out with since kindergarten. And they were good friends, who would do just about anything for him. He had never left Alaska, and anything he had ever sought out to do – he had succeeded in. He had earned himself a master’s degree and a solid job with a great company he had been with since his early 20’s. He had been with a woman he loved for 6 years, and they owned a beautiful home with floor to ceiling windows and 2 dogs they both doted on like children.
Dogs that she had taken with her when everything had fallen apart.
Nothing had ever really shaken him before this though.
And I know that as the weeks passed, he found himself less and less able to cope.
So much of what he was feeling was normal. But so much of how he was dealing with it wasn’t.
I truly think it was just something he had never really learned; how to survive the hard stuff.
Because the hard stuff had never really hit.
In contrast, the life I had led up to this point was very different from the one the boy had known.
And I recognized that.
In some ways, I was almost grateful for it.
Because here he was, learning these lessons for the first time. And I could see how difficult it was for him to process. I could see how much it was tearing him up. Having to come to terms with the fact that people leave. They lie, and betray, and let you down.
Not always.
But more often than you would ever expect.
It’s a lesson we all have to learn at some point.
One I had learned far too young, and one that in some ways at least – he was learning far too late.
We talked a lot that night, and when he took out a bottle of whiskey and poured himself more than a few drinks, I kept my mouth shut.
Even though this was starting to become a habit.
Her popping up again when he had just been getting to a point of letting go… it had thrown him. And he was trying so hard to get back to a good place, but he just wanted to be there already. He just wanted to feel good again.
So, he was drinking. A lot since that text. Bringing his own bottles of crown over to my house when he would spend the night. His own mixers. His own ice. It had been a solid two weeks now of his drinking. Every single night.
I knew for a fact that he had never had a drinking problem. All of his friends seemed as thrown by his new habit as I was. But we were all trying to treat it as exactly what we hoped it was; just a phase.
The sad part is that at least initially, I didn't discourage it. He was having a hard time, and when I first started noticing it - it did seem like drinking helped. He would immediately perk up and become fun again. Transform from sour and dark into light and uplifted. He would go from being distant and withdrawn, to being engaged and completely connected. The few times we discussed the regularity of his drinking, he confided in me that when he would drink – he could stop thinking of her.
I didn’t exactly get the drinking, because I know that when I’m circling the drain and obsessing over someone who has hurt me, drinking is the absolute last thing I should be doing, but for him... it seemed to be working.
He left for an out of town work trip early the next morning. Kissing me goodbye as I remained snuggled up in bed. Leaving behind that sneak attack in his wake; a toothbrush sitting in the holder now right next to mine. A subtle reminder that he was growing more comfortable with the idea of claiming his own space here in my life.
He would be spending the next few days in the more remote areas of Alaska where his cell phone didn’t work. But he still managed to call me a few times throughout the week to check in.
Always at the end of the day.
And always drunk.
But also always happy to be talking to me. To hear my voice. To know I was there.
When he got back in town Friday night, he called me as he was leaving the airport. Asked if I wanted to come over to spend the night with him. We talked about going out and meeting up with his friends, but in the end we just spent the night together. Drinking at his house and laughing over everything. His divorce was only 3 days away, and I kept thinking he was going to crack. That any minute he was going to fall apart. But his mood was good. And he was sweet, and affectionate, and making me laugh the entire night long.
The next night was Mel’s high school reunion. She and Jay were going to be heading out downtown for the party, and had invited the boy and I along. From there the boy had invited Dee and her husband as well. Dee being one of those two amazing women I've told you about who is now pregnant after IVF and has become one of my closest friends over the last year. Her husband being one of those core friends I mentioned the boy had been lucky enough to have in his life since childhood.
I ended up coming to the bar after everyone was already there and the boy was well into drinking. He was immediately happy to see me, wrapping his arms around me and smiling down at me like he couldn’t believe I was there.
I couldn’t help it. I liked him like this.
He made some comment about how beautiful I was looking, and even as my smile was spreading, the words came flying out.
“OK Fun Bobby… I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight!”
Immediately, everyone around us started laughing.
Including the boy, who I’m fairly sure still to this day has no real clue who Fun Bobby is.
(Note to readers: If you don’t know who Fun Bobby is either, I’m going to need you to cease reading and not come back until you have brushed up on your Friends references.)
It was a pretty perfect call on my part though, if I do say so myself. He was Fun Bobby to a tee. And I was Monica - realizing the alcohol was a problem, but also knowing that he was so much more enjoyable to be around when he was drinking. Recognizing that sometimes, in the deepest, darkest depths of my brain where I felt guilty even then for thinking it; I almost wished the drinking would continue. Nightly. Forever. Always, if that’s what it would take to keep him happy and engaged and with me.
I made the mistake of making this confession to Dr. Headshrink earlier in the week.
And she had, in the nicest way possible, accused me of being co-dependent.
Of wanting him to need me.
Of latching on to his problems, if only because they helped me to avoid my own.
I couldn’t really argue with her either. In my heart, I knew there was so much more to it than that. That there was so much more to him (and to my feelings for him) than that.
But in my head… I also knew that I hadn’t found myself dwelling on infertility since I had met him.
Not even once.
After a thorough analysis of my previous dating history though, she granted that this had never been an issue in my past.
That if anything, the opposite had been true – the men who had needed and latched on to me the most were the ones I had run the furthest from.
But she did encourage me to start putting limits on how much time we spent talking about his soon to be ex wife.
Which is something I really struggled with. If he wanted to talk about it, I wanted to be there for him. If he was hurting, I didn’t want him keeping that from me.
But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t recognize the very real issues our relationship had lingering beneath the surface at this point. A relationship that for the last few weeks had consisted mostly of his either:
- Pushing me away.
- Treating me as a therapist with whom he dissected the gory details of his divorce.
- Drunkenly declaring his never ending love for me with no clear recollection of the time he had already dedicated to the aforementioned options.
I just kept telling myself that at his heart, this was a man I really could see myself spending forever with. We shared the same sense of humor and penchant for bold and open honesty above and beyond what most people would consider normal. We wanted the same things out of life. We could talk for hours on end about nothing and everything all at once.
But more than anything, I trusted him.
He was loyal and solid and true.
I knew he wouldn’t ever be the guy to lie to me, or sneak around behind my back, or walk away for no reason when I least expected him to leave.
I knew he would be good to me.
If we could only get past this place of hurting he was in now.
So "Fun Bobby" fit.
And for a while there, it stuck.
That night, as the six of us drank and danced and laughed, I could feel him watching me when I wasn’t by his side. But I still had concerns. I was still wary about what his affection meant when it only seemed to be coming lately as an extension of his Fun Bobby persona.
Jay pulled me aside at one point and started giving me a pep talk. He told me that they had discussed me a lot, and that his personal opinion was that the boy was terrified of me. That I was everything he wanted, and he just hadn’t been prepared to meet me so quickly.
Jay told me that the boy had described me as the nicest person he had ever met, and that he had tormented himself over even the possibility of hurting me. But that when it all came down to it, the boy was always talking about me. Always recounting something funny I had said, or something kind I had done for him. I had so many reservations at this point, but there Jay was – encouraging me. Like my coach in a marathon. He was so sure the boy and I were perfect for each other. That if I was just patient, this would all work out in the end.
But he also conceded that more than anything, I needed to protect myself. And that if the point in time came when the boy got too out of line, I would need to choose me. To walk away.
He seemed so confident in my ability to do that. In my ability to protect myself first.
I have to admit that at this stage, I wasn’t so confident.
I knew how I felt about him. How much I wanted to be there for him. And it scared me.
But Jay; he was confident. Not just in my ability to protect myself, but also in the boy’s feelings for me. The fact that in the end, that would be what would win out.
A little later in the night the boy ran into a girl he knew from high school. Not an uncommon event in a town this small. But something about seeing the two of them huddled up talking set me off. Maybe it was because I was drinking, or maybe it was because I was already feeling unsure of how solid we really were, but… for the first time I got jealous. For the first time, I let myself picture him with someone else, and it had me seeing red. Because at this point, I knew that even though neither one of us was seeing anyone else, we weren’t tied down either. We weren’t committed.
If he wanted to go home with her tonight instead of me, technically – he could.
And I would be the one who was left behind broken and hurt.
I realized I needed a breather, and I marched myself to the upper level of the bar we were at in search of the furthest bathroom I could find.
I just needed some air. Some space.
By the time I got through the line and back to the room we had been drinking in, there was now a wait to re-enter. So I found myself standing in another line. Drunk and annoyed and unsure of whether or not the boy had even realized I was no longer there.
Just as I was contemplating actually leaving, Jay came around the corner and looked immediately relieved to have spotted me. He talked the bouncer into letting me back in, and then pulled me under the stairwell right before we entered the room.
He asked me where I had been, and I said the bathroom – without exactly confessing to the fact that I had intentionally sought out the farthest bathroom I could find.
He said the boy had been in panic mode when he realized I wasn’t there. That he had feared I’d left because he was talking to another girl, and he kept telling everyone over and over again that she was just an old friend.
It was now when I thought to look at my phone, and saw immediately that the boy had in fact sent me more than a few texts trying to figure out where I was.
Jay reminded me again that the boy really did care. That he didn’t want to hurt me. And that most of all, he didn’t want to lose me.
We walked back into the room, and I immediately spotted the boy sitting on a bench talking to Mel and looking completely distraught. When he looked up and saw me with Jay, the relief that washed across his face was evident. He instantly jumped up and came to my side, a hesitant smile expanding as he realized that I was still there.
He took my hand, and didn’t let it go the rest of the night.
And when we walked into my house a few hours later, after a cab ride spent barely able to keep our hands off of each other, we broke our own rule.
With so much of the same desperation that had been there two weeks before.
He did seem like he was starting to come around. Like slowly, he was getting himself back to where he had been. Like maybe even we were getting back to where we had been.
He told me that night that the only thing he knew for sure was that he was happier when he was with me.
And I believed that.
I knew that I was happier when we were together too. That drunk, sober, affectionate, or pulled away - I preferred to have him by my side. To know that he was doing OK. And to be in a position to help when he wasn’t.
In two days, he would be divorced.
And I just kept hoping that maybe then, we would be able to return to normal.
To put her behind us, and to move forward together.
Without quite so much whiskey.
Because as much fun as Fun Bobby could be;
I was ready for the boy to go back to being the man I knew he was.
The man I knew I wanted to be mine.
For keeps.
(to be continued...)
