Positive/Negativity (41 page)

Seizing a moment can define you, and I was being given such a moment.
TTT

I observed Aria sitting composed, quiet and broken, next to me. Although her eyes were moist, she reigned in her sentiments with quiet strength. She held my hand and never released her gaze from my eyes.
Oh my God, her father!
Those eyes…they had cried tears for a scenario like this before.

She shouldn’t be shedding tears.
This was bullshit!
It wasn’t right.
She had cried for her father when he lost his leg. She had cried for her mother, whose heart was devastated for her husband so long ago. Although the circumstance of the loss were different, the result was the same. I was going to lose more than a leg. I felt like I was losing my mind! She had confided all of these things to me. How could I allow her more pain?!

The doctor, pensive and attentive, waited for a reaction from me. I couldn’t collect my thoughts, yet I knew I’d have a million questions for her. All I could think of was Aria, my beautiful girl. I somehow knew she was with me for days. Although I was the injured one, I felt an overpowering need to protect her.

I couldn’t remember all of the details of the accident, dammit, but I remembered Aria. I loved her more than life itself. She continued to look up at me. In her I saw everything that I could possibly want in life reflected back to me; love, devotion, affection, tenderness, attraction, admiration, desire, and loyalty. She was the truest and most honest example of a woman that I’d ever known. I knew my life would be more than astonishing with her.

This
had
to be my defining moment. I had to see the
big picture
and it had to be about more than me. I knew what I needed to say to her. I knew it beyond certainty…
A memory of a street…
I looked into those lovely, blue-gray eyes and my thoughts killed me. Those eyes pulled me in. They had magnetized and allowed me to see to the inside of her soul. The only eyes that had me captivated
… I saw her from across the street…
From the moment I looked into them, her delicate, lovely face would be seared into my brain…

But, wait a minute…what…I was running. I was running after Aria. I was calling for her but she wouldn’t stop…
I had to stop before she experienced any more pain…
Why wouldn’t she stop? It was what…an argument?
…I loved her too much to hold on to her…
I was running after her because of a damn argument! About what? I couldn’t remember
. I don’t know if I can ever let her go…
What the hell! No wonder she looked so forlorn!
…STOP! My head hurts!..
She felt guilty!…I can’t think…Now I was going to lose my leg because she didn’t…what?…
STOP!…MY HEAD!!!…
Aria, you’ll get hurt!!!
…
want to stop when I called to her?! Oh hell! This was a nightmare!!

My head throbbed. Thoughts and memories threatened to take me under. I couldn’t make sense of the images that were tumbling into my brain. I needed air…I needed to get out…I needed to make a decision that I knew I was going to hate! I felt that I’d suffocate or vomit as everything was running through my mind. I looked into her eyes. I wanted to save her and I wanted to scream at her! Everything was confusing and I couldn’t focus. I needed to look at her eyes! Dammit I needed to see her eyes! From what I could see in them they were pained, hurt and confused. I locked onto them, and to her, for just an instant. Her confusion was as great as mine.

With my own tears falling I looked at my beauty’s emotional spectrum. She couldn’t disguise anything from me once I saw her eyes. She knew what I was doing and she turned away from me. I felt I’d be sick or change my mind, but I’d reached the point of no return.

I said the words that horrifically incinerated every thought and emotion we had worked so hard to build. They were like acid, hatefully burning my mouth and throat upon their utterance…

“Aria.” She spun around to face me, daring me to give voice to what she suspected was coming next…

“Get the hell out!”

T
Come Away to the Water – Maroon 5 (feat. Rozzi Crane)

TT
Breakdown – Seether

Paige will be arriving today to drive me to my beach cottage renovation. It didn’t sell—actually, I decided not to sell it. She said a woman placed a contract on it, but I didn’t entertain the offer at all and declined. I needed a place to live as living with Declan was no longer an option.
T

He only remembers fragments of the day of the accident. Unfortunately, his memories are of the worst parts. He remembers that we argued, but he has no recall of the content of the argument. He remembers he screamed for my safety, pleading for me to stop, and that I completely disregarded him. He speaks very little to me, if at all. At first, his recollection caused him to lash out at me. My visits were met with a cold and callous man that was unfamiliar to me. His memory allows him to feel that he loved me, but he won’t acknowledge it, and I can no longer sense the depth to which he feels anything good toward me. He refuses to allow me to reflect and remind him of how good we were. In light of this, I can’t see what positive purpose it would serve for me to attempt to fill in the blanks for him. Not in this current state of mind. He doesn’t
want
to remember right now. I can sense that my presence isn’t welcome, and I can’t bear to cause him more discomfort, physical or emotional. Perhaps with time, when his apprehension toward me isn’t so great…maybe then he’ll remember the depth of the emotions he allowed himself to feel with me.
T

Daily, I’m a hollow shell. I function, at best, in the appearance of the woman I once was. I put one foot in front of the other and exert great effort to perform what tasks I’m required to do, when I must do them. I only allow people to see what they want to see. It’s easier that way.

I’m not certain what will happen with Declan and I, but I do know, in the depths of my soul, that he still loves me. My hope is that he can, and will, one day yearn to find that love from beneath the anger and resentment that are currently residing inside him where his love and affection used to live. I think about him and the love we shared. The love that I believed was almost as perfect as love could be; however, perfection doesn’t exist in this life. I’ve come to the knowledge that Declan now sees himself as physically imperfect and flawed. I also know that one day he will understand that I could love him and his self-conceived imperfection. He helped me through my weaknesses. He was strong for me during a sorrowful time in my life, and he loved me through my insecurities. He hasn’t realized that he won’t permit me to do the same for him.

Since he has refused me and my affections, I now have much time to think, so I walk on the beach and I think of him. I look for direction to guide me in breaking through the veneer of indifference with which he now covers himself.

This is where I started, walking on the beach and looking out at the ocean. My perfect place where I took my broken heart and found the love of my life. It has always been here, my healing place, where the sights and sounds embrace and tend to me. So I sit, as I have for so many days of my life, and I look to the sea and the sky for answers—answers that never come.

As has happened for so many recent days, the numbness inside of me continues. Rising from the soft sand I take in the unique crystal panorama. The sun on the ocean glistens like liquid silver in motion. I’ve come to peace with the decision that I won’t visit this particular spot again. There are too many memories. Pain seems to be the only emotion that pierces the numbness.

The knowledge that I’ll no longer take in this landscape leaves me resigned and I rise and take my coffee cup in hand. My heart has felt so many sentiments on this beach with my family, loved ones, and friends. Thoughts of them tumble through my memory, and suddenly, I’m frozen in my steps. Declan’s porch is in my view. Emotions begin to penetrate the numbness I have grown to embrace. My eyes automatically drop as I feel a stabbing pain penetrate my consciousness, as well as my heart. I look at my hand holding the coffee cup and an instantaneous image of him holding our coffees enters my mind. His handsome features begin to infiltrate my mind’s eye and my senses invade the cold vacancy that has so reliably been my protection of late. Suddenly the memory of his scent invades my nostrils and I breathe him into my lungs. My knees become weak and the trembling begins from the soles of my feet, traveling up my body as the breeze passes over my skin and masquerades as his touch. Simultaneously, something bubbles up inside of me and I feel an overwhelming urge not unlike a crashing wave. It encroaches physically from the pit of my stomach…it is something that I cannot identify. An undiscernibly painful reminder of the endless times that Declan loved me to the point of rapture binds me. The infiltration is physically and emotionally unbearable as I haven’t felt anything for so long. The sensations dissect my insides and begin to form a terrible, butchering storm over which I have no control. The placid and numb containment that had been my protection is hopeless to once again cover me, and I can no longer confine the torrent that has been biding its time to escape.
TT

Throwing the coffee cup, I have no recourse but to scream in agony as the beast of pain rips and tears me. I scream with every ounce of breath contained within my physical frame. I pause long enough only to gasp for breath and choke back a cry and then scream again and again with an excruciating heartache that has been tormented and contained. My screams continue until my voice is raw and pained—then I can scream no more.

Collapsing to the sand, I pull my arms into my waist to ease my affliction. Futilely hugging myself, rocking back and forth, over and over in my anguish and misery, I finally peel my arms away from my body and lift my hands to the sky in an attempt to release my despondency to the God I have prayed to since I was a child. I want to say words to Him, but no words come out, only one more scream hoping that God will have pity on me.

Finally, blubbering out words that seem to have no coherence, I scream for the Almighty to reach inside and take the pain that claws me from inside.

“STOP THIS! PLEASE, PLEASE!!! STOP THIS PAIN! KILL ME OR CURE ME, BUT PLEASE…MAKE IT STOP!”

I cannot breathe. The sight of Declan’s house fills me with a deep and despairing sadness that makes me want to disappear. I wouldn’t kill myself, but I realize that I don’t want to live. I fall to the sand and curl into a dejected semblance of my former self. Heartsickness envelopes me and smothers the air I’m desperately trying to inhale. The tears pulverize me so sufficiently that my breath only comes in short gasps, and my continued pleas to God for the suffering to end are met with silence.

“Why did
you
create me to feel everything so deeply?” I ask from my raspy, pained throat. “I feel hurt so crushingly, and I don’t want to feel anymore. I feel happiness as overwhelming joy, and I don’t think I want to feel like that anymore. I feel like I’m a joke. Like
You’ve
created a joke! I’m a mistake! I feel like I’m not normal, and people forever take advantage of me
because
of my emotions.”

The sobs wracked my body and I shook as I lay in the sand. I tilted my head up and looked at the house. The porch where we first talked—the place where he told me I was beautiful and that he loved me.

It was at that moment I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that a broken heart could fragment into as many millions of pieces as there are grains of sand on the shore.

Then something unexpected came up from the pit of my stomach. It rolled and recoiled and I began to laugh. It was a sad, freaky laugh that makes a person sound as if they’re going madly insane.

“You gave me a love beyond earthly description and the loss of it has taken me to a living hell!” I laughed and I cried; and I cried and I laughed. I felt I would lose my sanity.

I cried to purge every tear for every hurt and every pain that I felt… and for each tear that I knew Declan wouldn’t cry for himself…