A Life More Complete

---Chapter 9---

I watch my relationship with Ben crumble. He’s slipping away and I know it. In the three weeks since our argument I have slept next to Ben every night, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like watching the sun set. No matter how beautiful it is, it would eventually disappear into the ocean. When he shows up at my house a week later, far too late in the evening, I know it’s over. I say, “I love you.” He knows that but sometimes it just isn’t enough. He tells me he can’t be second anymore. He says, “I know where you stand in my life, but I don’t know where I stand in yours and I don’t think you do either. You need to figure it out. I can’t do it for you.” He wants to get married, have kids and raise a family. I tell him I want those things, too. I make promises I won’t and can’t keep.

He stops and runs his hand though his hair. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wanted to love you forever. I wanted you to quit your job, move in with me, have babies and take vacations to Disney World. I wanted you to want that life. And it’s okay that you don’t. I won’t lie, it hurts, and I still want all those things and I hope someday you will too.”

That pretty much shut me up. How can I argue with legitimate facts? Every word he says is true. I can only respond with what I know. “Ben, I’ve been on my own for a long time. It’s hard for me to walk away from everything I have worked for and everything I have ever known. I’m sorry that I can’t be what you want. I do love you, more than you will ever know. But I want you to be happy.” With that he sets his key on my kitchen table and kisses my forehead, his lips lingering just a few seconds too long. It’s over, no screaming or yelling, no unkind words or excuses. Just over.

I decide to work from home the next day, so when Ben’s receptionist, Annalise, shows up at my house that afternoon with a box of my stuff, she’s caught off guard. I should be at work. She hands me the box, all my belonging crammed into one small cardboard box, a toothbrush, running shoes, some books, a t-shirt dress, chapstick, a bikini and some other random items. I think the box hurts more than the actual breakup. He must have immediately gone home and thrown all my stuff in a box. He is ridding me from his life without so much as a second thought, not a moment of clarity or regret to make him return. I don’t take the time to rummage through it while Annalise is there. She kisses my cheek and apologizes for my loss. She acts like someone died. I want to ask how Ben is, but I think that will cross some invisible boundary so I stay quiet. I thank her for my stuff and she leaves. I stare at the box on my kitchen counter. I still have all of Ben’s things here in my house, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. I carry the box into my bedroom and begin to sort through it. At the bottom I find a loose photograph of Ben and me that Ben had taken with his camera at arm’s length. Both of us smiling, my eyes bright and happy as he kissed my cheek. I drop the picture back into the box and as it floats it lands face down and what is written on the back is my undoing. It says, “I love you and just so you know, we were happy in this picture, truly happy.” I crawl onto my bed, pushing the box to the floor with my feet as I begin to sob.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know it’s eight o’clock. There’s a loud knock on my door and I hear the key turn in the lock. My thoughts race and I pray it’s Ben, yet I know his key sits on my kitchen table exactly where he left it the night before. I haven’t showered or changed my clothes since the break up. I don’t know when I became this person. I’m suddenly wallowing and crying without control, but I’ll pull it together. I won’t be that girl, the one who carries on and shares her story with anyone who will listen, the one who cries at old pictures and songs on the radio. I hear Melinda call my name and I quickly wipe the tears away, not that I will suddenly look like I haven’t been crying, but it’s worth a shot.

“Kristin? You home?” I can hear her stilettos skitter across my kitchen floor. Melinda never wears heels under four inches and for some reason that thought makes me smile. I can picture her teetering in her heels all those nights we got drunk together. Her, barely able to walk, but refusing to remove her shoes until Bob eventually agreed to carry her.

“I’m in here, Mel,” I call from my bed. I don’t even bother to get up.

“Shit! I thought you were dead. I’ve been calling you all day. You okay?” she asks as she nears the doorway to my bedroom. She stops when she finally finds me.

“Not really, but I will be. Ben and I broke up.” She climbs into bed next to me kicking off her five-inch heels.

“Should I even ask what happened?”

“Don’t bother. You already know.” I can’t help but sound pathetic.

“We’ve all been there. It’s part of our job. It’s hard to maintain when you’re never around, right?” We both lie next to each other for some time without speaking. Our eyes fixed on the ceiling staring at nothing. I don’t know how much time has passed when she reaches over and clasps my hand, but the pain eases and then rushes back just as quickly as it receded.

“Have you eaten? I’m starving,” she says.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Not much of an appetite.”

“I’ll go get something. What do you want?” I want to gorge myself on comfort foods and wallow just a little more. I should enjoy it while it lasts because come tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.

“In-N-Out. A Double, Double with cheese and grilled onions and an order of Animal fries.”

“You want anything else?”

“A chocolate shake, too.”

“I thought you said you had no appetite? Sure doesn’t seem that way,” she giggles.

“Making up for lost time,” I laugh.

She returns a little while later and we watch an episode of Friday Night Lights on my TiVo while we eat. Melinda looks at me, dead serious and says, “ I wish I lived in Dillon, Texas.”

“So do I. They make it look so easy. I want to be Tami Taylor,” I say.

“I just wanna get laid by Tim Riggins.” We both laugh because Melinda actually met him at a party one night, but couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She just stood there, her mouth hanging open, as he talked to another girl. We both meet celebrities left and right, but there are always those ones who make you clam up and humiliate yourself. He is one of them.

The night drags on and as it gets later I begin to wonder if Melinda will leave. I can’t decide if I want her to stay or if I want her to go. Staying means I won’t be alone, but leaving means I can cry with reckless abandon.

“Are you going home tonight?” I ask.

“Is it okay if I stay?”

“Of course. You know you don’t have to ask.”

I hand Melinda a pair of shorts and t-shirt to sleep in and she gets ready for bed while I shower.

“Better?” she asks as I join her in bed. I nod my head, because right now speaking will only bring tears. “The bed smells like him,” she says.

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” She is beginning to get annoying. I should’ve sent her home.

“No. I told you. It’s the same old shit. My job is too demanding. He’s alone too much. I spend too much time with clients. All the things I want to change but can’t or won’t. I don’t know.” I shake my head. I don’t tell her he wants a family and that I do too, but that I’m scared. I don’t show her the picture, the picture that says it all.

“Do you love him?”

“Yes, more than I want to admit. What if he’s the one and I let him slip away because of some stupid job? What if that day on the beach was a sign, a sign that he was the one? Now I’m going to be living in my condo for the rest of my life, miserable and alone and wearing ill-fitting suits and barking orders at people like Ellie.”

Melinda laughs. “Stop it. You will not turn out like Ellie and I’d never let you wear an ill-fitting suit. Rest assured, I’ve got that part covered.” I smile at her. “I’m a firm believer in true love, you know that, but I also believe there’s more than one person out there for everyone. Just because you and Ben are done doesn’t mean it wasn’t true love. It just means it wasn’t meant to last.”

“You’re probably right.” Even if she is right, I still want Ben.

“Oh yeah, I completely forgot why I came here in the first place. We have a meeting with Trini’s new lawyer tomorrow. The media is going crazy because her latest lawyer quit today.”

“Why’d he quit?”

“While you were here crying, she was missing her court date. She just didn’t show up. No explanation. Just didn’t show up.”

“Really? What’s that mean for her?” I ask concerned.

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re meeting with him to try to sort out a plan of action for Trini and what we can do as her publicists to curb the media backlash.”

“Great.”

“She’s a handful,” Melinda says.

“That she is. Do you want to go drinking tomorrow night? Now that I’m not someone’s girlfriend we can get back to getting ridiculously drunk.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”