At the moment, when it happened, I just couldn't put it together. I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why I felt so utterly sad on my birthday. I looked at the small notebook that was laying on my nightstand. I had a dream, and I had written it down but I couldn't remember. Neither the dream nor writing it on my dream journal.
The following is a transcription of the text:
Dream Journal Entry #23
I'm in the middle of an abandoned building. It reminds me of that game She likes. The Last Of Us. The building is tilted slightly like it's about to fall yet, somehow, it still supports its own weight. It has huge holes on the floors and the walls, and plants and grass have begun to grow inside. There is a bed next to me, to my right, it's naked and the mattress had green spots due to humidity and mold, probably. It smells like rotten wood.
In my dream, I'm supposed to be looking for something, and that was the last place it could possibly be at, and since it wasn't there, that meant I would not find it. I can't quite remember what it was I was looking for, but it was devastating to know I had lost it. I felt like this thing I couldn't find was a fundamental part of me that I needed to keep moving forward.
That's it, that's the whole entry. It seems incomplete, doesn't it? Like I either forgot to write what happened next, or I decided it wasn't important enough and went back to bed. Be that as it may, that's what I had.
After I finished reading it, I placed the journal down on the nightstand and rubbed my eyes with my fingers feeling like reading that made me want to cry. I couldn't even remember the damn dream but that sadness, it clutched at me. It made my chest tighten, my breathing shallow, and my throat ache.
I took a deep breathed and decided to focus on something else. I picked up my phone and looked at the messages. At 9 AM I already had two birthday messages. The first one was from my mom:
From Mom. At 5:54 am:
Good morning sweetheart. Today is the most important day in the world to me. I still remember when they gave you to me at the hospital. Your dad was shaking and didn't want to hold you because he was afraid he'd drop you. You were so little. And now you're thirty-three years old. Remember that no matter how old you are, you will always be my baby girl. Happy birthday.
Mom, am I right? I smiled at that message. I had gotten to a place in my life where I could appreciate how protective, and overbearing moms can be sometimes.
The second message was from Connor Brenan:
From Connor Bro, At 6:32 am:
Heeeeeeeeey Sis!!! Happy birthday man!!! It sucks that we can't celebrate it together this year but I know you're over there having a great time. Still, I wanted to just tell you that I love you, and I hope you have an amazing day!!!!
Ironical how Connor was the second person to wish me a happy birthday. Scratch that. Actually, if anything, that's pretty predictable. After She and I got married, Connor and I became a lot closer. It wasn't difficult, we had, by association, grown up together, and for reasons I never understood, he was one of the few people who always stood up to me. I mean, he's the only person who's ever punched anyone for me! I kinda wished it hadn't been his own sister, but still. That counts, right?
It was about six months before my birthday. The day she finally left for good.
I was sitting on the couch, with my arms around my legs trying my hardest not to cry, as I watched her go around the house with a big duffle bag packing up everything she thought she needed. She had packed a lot of her clothes, including that blue lumberjack shirt I gave her for her thirtieth birthday, and the leather Jacket I bought for her for Christmas. She also picked up all her toiletries. That raspberry lotion and drove me insane when she wore it, her brush, her styling cream. She also packed two pairs of shoes, her boots, and five pairs of socks.
She wouldn't look at me while she did all that. She just walked from one place to the other packing things and thinking over whether or not she'd forgotten something important because God knew she wasn't coming back. Not this time.
We'd broken up a lot of times over the years. Sometimes for really big reasons, sometimes for petty pathetic fights mixed with pride. Sometimes she'd say we fought too much. Sometimes I'd said she wasn't listening to me and I needed to feel listened to. Then she'd say 'What about what I want?' and I'd say 'Then what the hell do you fucking want?'. And just like we broke up for plenty of reasons, we always got back together in plenty of different ways. We'd lie and say that maybe we were better off as friends, and then we'd end up kissing at some party, or random town event and without talking about it... we knew we were back together. Other times, we'd have long conversations; hours, upon hours of discussing what went wrong, what we felt about it, what we wanted the other to do better next time, and why we should still be together, even when it was difficult. And holy crap it is difficult. Keeping a relationship happy for years and years and years is very fucking difficult. In the beginning, it requires very little if any work. You can't keep your hands off each other and everything you do is enticing to them and being away from them hurts, it physically hurts.
As time goes by, those enticing things become annoying; boundaries get crossed, voices get raised, and marked behavioral issues arise. How does that saying go? When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much... they get sick of each other. So it gets hard.
But as long as you're with the right person, they'll never give up on you, and that's really all you need. To keep trying to be better, to keep trying to make each other happy, to keep making sure you understand why this is worth fighting for.
The day she left, she had decided we were no longer worth fighting for and she chose something that wasn't me.
I will NEVER forgive her for that.
Because she promised. No matter what, for better or worse, we work through things, we talk, we compromise, we deal with whatever is wrong and we fix it together. That day, she broke that pact.
I remember it was around 11 AM when she finally seemed to have packed everything she wanted to pack, and I was still there, sitting on the couch, like a hopeless child. She stopped for a moment and turned to me. I don't know if she was about to say anything, but the doorbell rang.
She opened the door and it was Connor. He was agitated, anxious.
"Ry, what the fuck's going on? Mom and dad said you were..." his eyes lowered to the duffle bag she had in her hand. "What are you doing, dude?"
"Connor, get out of my way."
"You're not doing this, are you?"
"I said get out of my way."
Connor turned to me to look for support and saw me sitting on the couch. "Faye, stop her!" He yelled before he noticed, and once he did, his shoulders dropped and his eyes watered. He realized I was broken, I couldn't stand up and keep fighting. Not if I had to fight alone. I had spent the last three months fighting for my marriage alone... I couldn't keep doing it any longer. So I stayed quiet.
But there was something in his voice that made me start crying. The desperation, the trust that I could stop her from leaving when I couldn't. "Faye..." he whispered, with the amount of empathy that I know only Connor can feel. He turned to her and said, "Dude, look at her. Are you really going to do this to her?"
"Connor, you're really pissing me off. Move."
"Fucking look at her!!!" he yelled making me close my eyes and shiver. "You can't do this to her!"
She tried to use her free hand to push Connor away from the main door, but as soon as her hand touched Connor, he punched her. He seemed to have surprised both her and himself by doing that.
"Holy crap," he said. "I'm so happy you're stronger than me, otherwise I'd feel so shitty about hitting a woman."
She didn't seem quite as fazed by the punch, as she was by the act itself. The only physical reaction she showed was her face moving right with the impact, her tongue licking the new spot of blood, and the anger in her eyes.
She straightened up, and now, using impulse and putting her own weight on her left arm, she pushed Connor out of the way and down the porch stairs. Luckily, he landed on the overgrown grass so he didn't get badly hurt, but neither of us could believe She would've treated her little brother, the apple of her eyes, like that.
"I told you to step aside, dipshit," she whispered as she walked past him and towards her car.
Connor sat up and watched her knowing as well as I did, that he couldn't stop her. Or at least, I thought I knew.
Without being able to stop myself, or to even think about it, I stood up and ran towards the front door. I stood in the doorframe while I yelled. "Riley!" She stopped in her tracks. "Please," I begged, and in a crumbling, weak voice I said, "I love you."
She turned her face just a little, just for me to be able to get a glimpse of her side profile, and without saying anything, or looking back, she got in her car and drove off. I haven't seen her or spoken to her since.
I fell to the floor sobbing. Connor stood up and ran towards me. He had to help me stand up because I just couldn't do it by myself. He sat me on the couch, made me tea, and stayed with me until I finally stopped crying five hours later. He's the brother I never had.
So yeah, thinking about it, it's normal that he's the second person to wish me a happy birthday.
I replied to both texts with a thank you and some warm words. I didn't feel like talking so I was glad neither of them called, which I assumed was because they sent texts so early. I walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to see what I could make myself. It's the first time, since I've been married, that I have had to cook breakfast for myself on my birthday.
She always did that. It was this nice little tradition we had. She always made my favorite. Chocolate chip pancakes and took them upstairs for me to have breakfast in bed. We would watch TV and she would watch me eat trying to figure out how much I'd liked them.
I'll be honest with you, it didn't matter. Some years she made the best pancakes ever. Some others were more mediocre than anything, but who gave a shit? I didn't. I was just so happy to have her there, making chocolate chip pancakes for me because she knew I loved them. Who cares how they tasted?
But either way, I always told her they were the best pancakes ever. Because they were. She would smile and kiss me.
Now, when I think of this moment, I think of it as the very first breakthrough I actually had. I was sad and lonely, and I felt like shit. But damn it! It was my birthday and I wanted chocolate chip pancakes, and if she wasn't there to make them for me, I would make them for myself. That was the first time, the one thing I didn't run away from. I faced it... sort of. I mean I bought a pancake mix, a box of chocolate chips and just went to town. The first three were deplorable. The remaining pancakes though were pretty okay, and that actually made me feel alright. Like even if I woke up feeling like crap, it didn't have to be a bad day.