Rise and Fall

12 - We tell each other everything . . . or at least we used to.

I didn't want to feel this way. It wasn't a welcome feeling and I did everything I could to try to rid myself of it. I asked myself whether I would have come to this realisation without having first met Camden who I blamed as the instigator of this internal dilemma I was now experiencing. I couldn't say definitively that I would have, but I also couldn't really say that I wouldn't. For as long as I had known, everything that occurred within my life happened without my say in it. Parents divorcing, mother re-partnering with an asshole, sister getting pregnant at sixteen and leaving me with the lifelong responsibility of her baby to take care of, being forced into a job, albeit it an amazing one which I willingly remain in now. I can't even say that I willingly chose to enter into a relationship with Ruben in the first place. My heart gave me no choice in that matter either.  

Everything about Ruben was easy. Everything about Camden seemed the exact opposite. And the opposite of easy was all I had ever known in every other aspect of my life separate from Ruben. Juggling school and work and home wasn't easy. Raising a baby that wasn't mine as a teenager certainly wasn't easy. Being abused and hit every couple of days certainly wasn't a walk in the park. Neither was watching my mother get beaten and drinking herself into an early grave. I was used to not easy, despite hating and resenting it every day of my life, and Ruben deserved to have the opportunity to find his easiness with someone deserving of him, even if I would hate her very existence every second of every day for the rest of my life.

I tried as much as possible to avoid Ruben throughout the day. I ran it through my head for ages while we cooked and ate and kicked the footy around all day, but no matter how many rehearsals I had with myself in my head, there was no combinations of words I could find to express how deeply sorry I was for what I was about to do to him.

It was growing late in the afternoon and people were beginning to leave. Exhausted from trying to keep myself together and working out the least hurtful way to talk to Ruben, I withdrew to the shade of the gum trees next to the playground with Madden, watching the other three already playing there on the plastic slides and swing sets. Brayden was pushing Hadley on the swing, and Seth was kicking the ball with another kid from his school. I could see Ruben not far away, saying farewell to some of the guys. He turned and immediately searched for me, finally spotting us sitting on the dry, browning grass. The closer he came, the more distressed I grew until I was completely overcome with silent tears. I was wearing sunglasses, so hoped he wouldn't notice, but I knew that wasn't likely. Ruben notices everything.

"What's going on, Sade?" he asked solemnly, sitting down and picking up Madden from his blanket on the grass where he was stirring uncomfortably. Madden fell silent the very second Ruben's hands touched him, just as he always did. It made me feel even worse, if that were even possible.

I couldn't talk. Every time I thought I had stopped crying enough to actually say something, I'd open my mouth and look at him softly bouncing Madden in his left arm while gently rubbing my back trying to soothe us both, and it was like his big, knowing, green eyes would steal every last breath from my lungs so no words were able to come out at all.

He persisted after a few minutes. "I hate seeing you like this and I want to help, but I can't unless you tell me what's wrong, Sade." When I didn't reply again, he looked down at Madden and, noticing that he was already asleep in his arms, got up gently and placed him safely in the pram next to the blanket. He returned to me, sitting closer than he was before and pulled me into him. My head lay instinctively on his chest and I could hear his heartbeat, a fraction faster than normal. He was panicking, and it was all my fault. I was such a bitch; a horrible, selfish bitch, and I didn't deserve him. But god, I could listen to his heartbeat for ever. Apart from the way he runs his fingers through my messy hair, it was the only thing that ever granted me any peace.