On The Run: Part Two

Chapter Twenty - "Side Effects"

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

I did; I really did. But I had no idea where to start. Mostly, I wanted somebody to analyze the entire conversation with me, like I’d been doing since last night. I wanted somebody to break down each of the words and tell me exactly what they meant, and tell me that I was wrong. Because I had to be.

Fitch had not broken up with me. He hadn’t ended us. He hadn’t erased my forever.

I looked down at the floor folding the tissue squares between my fingers. I shrugged. The tears were coming back; I couldn’t look up.

What the hell was it with this crying thing? I had lost all control.

I looked up as Sarah began, “I’ve had about three serious enough breakups in my life. I thought the first one was the worst, because it was so much more than just the end of a relationship; because there was so much more happening, but even then, it was all I could think about. I remember feeling like I could disappear. It was the pain, you know. It made me feel so weak, so . . . I wanted to run and never stop running, so that I’d have some other pain to focus on. But I couldn’t because . . . I was . . . well, I was pregnant,” she said, gesturing at me.

I stared sadly at her; I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew she wasn’t blaming me, but I still felt a little guilty. I couldn’t handle guilt in addition to everything else. It was too much.

“I thought the first one was the worst, until about a month ago. Now, that was painful. It’s really the heart, you know. It’s not like pain in your chest or a cut; it’s like there’s a fist around your heart, squeezing and squeezing until all you can do is give in. It’s been a month, and it’s still there, but I got up, I went to work, you were a welcome distraction, and I’m dealing. My point is, give in to it. Cry if you want to; don’t hold back. But at some point, you’re going to have to get up and find a welcome distraction.”

The fist tightened.

Where?

What?

I could barely think past Fitch’s words.

“I mean, you and me. I can’t be with you anymore. You can’t come and see me, and we can’t be us anymore. It’s too hard, and you should probably focus on you right now.”

Me. Was that supposed to be a distraction? I’d been looking for a distraction from me all my life, and now, I was just supposed to turn to myself?

How?

“I don’t want it to be over. It can’t be over.”

I didn’t intend to say that out loud, but I was losing my brain to mouth filter as well as my heart, it seemed.

She stopped my twiddling thumbs with her hand, “I know. What happened?”

I shrugged. I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know how.

What happened?

I wished somebody would just tell me. What happened? Forever could not end in a two-minute one-sided conversation in the visiting room of Madison County Jail. It was completely laughable.

Sarah squeezed my hand, “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.

“We had a story,” I murmured, only half-aware of what I was saying.

“What?”

“We had a story. Once upon a time, this guy found this girl who he fell in love with her the instant he set eyes on her in the dead of the night, on a sidewalk in Brooklyn, and after she allowed herself to open up, she fell in love with him too. They lived together in a little borrowed apartment until one day, when he made enough money to buy them a place of their own – an apartment; two bedrooms, one bathroom. In that apartment, in the middle of their living room, he asked her to marry him, and she said yes. Ten years forward, that apartment is no more, and in its place they have a house of their own - far away from all the mishaps, all the tragedies, and all the broken memories – where they live with their two children Mia and James and their cocker spaniel – happily ever after,” I recited, knowing it completely by heart.