My hand moves to press against my lips and I cry silent tears as I read what was going through his broken mind on a night when I went to sleep so happy and fulfilled and woke up the next morning with a husband who wouldn’t look at me or touch me.
I flip the page and move to the next journal entry, the day I came home to find him packing my things and ordering me out of our house. It’s like reading a fictional thriller as he talks about hearing the explosion of bombs and creeping through the house looking for an enemy that wasn’t there. My cracked heart breaks in half as I read about how he crawled through our bedroom, believing with everything inside of him that he was back in the desert, fighting for his life. I cry harder when I read that I startled him when I came home and he reached for a gun that wasn’t attached to his hip. He was so afraid he would hurt me, so afraid he would never be able to separate reality from his flashbacks, that he didn’t know what else to do other than get me away from him where I’d be safe.
I read the words he said to me in anger, as well as the words he chanted in his head the entire time he was shouting at me, and I’m crying so hard I can barely see the page by the time I’m done.
“We’re done, this is over. I’m packing your shit and you’re leaving.”
I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“Everything is fucked up, don’t you get that? It’s ruined, all of it is ruined and you need to fucking leave.”
I’m so sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“You need to get a life.”
I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“All those sad, pathetic letters.”
I’m lying, don’t believe me, please don’t believe me. I loved your letters, I kept them all and I cherish every one of them.
“I prefer women with a little more experience.”
I don’t mean it. I don’t mean any of it. Knowing I’m the only man who has ever been inside of you makes me feel like a fucking king and the luckiest man alive. I’m sorry, I love you, please forgive me.
“It doesn’t get better when I come home to you. I hate this life.”
I’m lying! Every word is a lie. I love our life and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I love you, I love you, I love you.
I quickly turn the page over, unable to see those words anymore through my tears, unable to stand the pain he must have been going through when he said them. The next page doesn’t get any easier. It’s later that night at Barney’s. The reason why I’ve been avoiding him the last week, and the reason why I can’t let go of my own hurt and anger.
I’ve never known the exact order of events from that night. I knew he got drunk at Barney’s, I knew that he thought I was Melanie, I knew he went on a rampage through the town and I knew Bobby knocked him out and dragged him to the ferry, but I never knew exactly how it all happened. Now I do, and it makes my stomach cramp and my chest physically ache. I read exactly what he was thinking and feeling and hoping for and I want to die from the pain in my heart.
Maybe it’s Lucy. Maybe she ignored everything I said to her and came back to me. I know it’s wrong and she shouldn’t be here, but I just need her right now. I can see her one more time and then I’ll leave and I’ll walk away.
She doesn’t feel the same and she doesn’t smell the same, but none of that matters. Her legs straddle my thighs and I clutch onto her ass, pulling her closer so she doesn’t change her mind and walk away.
I don’t like her voice. It’s not the same soft, sweet cadence that always makes my ears tingle and my heart beat fast. It’s probably because my heart died and there’s nothing inside my chest but a shriveled up, useless organ. This voice is shrill and annoying. Lucy is changing right before me, but I don’t care. It’s my fault, anyway. It’s my fault she’s different and doesn’t feel the same or smell the same. I changed her, I hurt her…all my fault.
She doesn’t taste the same and I hate it. I want my Lucy, not this drunken, morphed version of her.
I hear angry shouts and the shuffling of feet and the Lucy on my lap speaks again and it makes me wince. I want to tell her to stop talking like that. Stop talking in a different voice, stop smelling different, stop feeling different…just stop it. Be MY Lucy. I need MY Lucy.
I’m not a hero, I’m not a good man, I’m not a good husband…I am none of those things and they need to see that.
The papers and the folder flutter to the floor as I lean forward, wrapping my arms around my waist to try and hold myself together. I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe, each ragged breath I take in making my chest hurt and each tear that falls making my eyes burn. He loved me so much and, even during his darkest time, he never lost sight of that. I let a few words from a woman who means NOTHING to me make me lose my faith in him. I’m such a coward and a fool. I had the proof of his love right in front of me this entire time and I refused to believe it. When you’ve been hurt once, it’s so hard to let go and not be afraid you won’t be hurt again. I should have trusted him, I should have believed him and I should have taken the love he gave me, wrapped it in my arms and never let it go.
I think about the journal pages he gave me himself, his memories of when I tutored him in Chemistry and how he flirted with me and only had eyes for me and became the sweet, strong amazing man that I fell in love with.
The day he proposed and how nervous he was, how scared he was of leaving me and how I gave him something to fight for, live for and come back home for.