Page 23 of The Vow

“Sometimes,” she said, her eyes hard, “they are the same thing.”

I was teasing her, but I wanted to take back the words and erase them from existence. This time, the words didn’t evaporate in the air. They lingered, filthy, and dirty.

“Can I finish?”

“I’m sorry. Yes.”

“When she heard his motorcycle rev in the parking lot, she felt a chill run up her spine. She jumped from the couch and ran outside, but her husband... he had already left.”

The woman with the silver hair stared in our direction as if hearing an echo from her past.

“I think I know where this is going.”

“No. You don’t. Not unless you can imagine sitting at someone’s hospital bedside. You hold their hand, whisper sweet nothings... sometimes, you even scream at them, and curse at them, because you know they’re never going to wake up. You know that no matter how much you love each other, you can’t make them open their big, beautiful, fucking eyes.”

“It... sounds like a nightmare.”

Without taking her eyes off me, she spoke the words that defined her, words that I wish I could unhear, “Yes. It was. It really was”, she said, laughing inappropriately. “Everyone lied. The doctors, my so-called friends. My parents. If you want to know who really loves you, Pip, try suffering through the hardest thing you can imagine. See who sticks around. No one does. No one. But do you know what made it so much worse? I never told him I loved him. My own husband, and I never said those three words. I only ever said, ‘I heart you’ because of some insane notion that if I said the words, they’d feel small compared to what I really felt.” She reached for her clutch to rifle through it and knocked over her wine glass. The liquid resembled blood as it spread across the white linen. “I want to cut my tongue out.”

“Sweetie... I...”

She shook her head violently before placing a ring on her finger. “Don’t. Don’t try to make it better.” Her hair fell loose. I felt myself falling into a dark, endless pit. “I don’t think I can write you a love story. I don’t think I can write another single fucking word for as long as I live.”

I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t dare breathe. As she stood to leave, the gold of her wedding band glinted beneath the romantic glow of the wall sconce.

Eight

My entire body hurts. The punching bag took a beating this morning, and not because I wanted to please Cable, although he cheered me on louder than he has in a while. Pissed off, I thought about Alex and the cruel hand fate had dealt her. As I punched the hell out of that bag, I pictured her parents. There are two types of abandonment: when people leave on their own accord, and when they die. As a kid, I wasn’t mad at pop for dying. It wasn’t his fault. Alex’s parents were completely at fault, and no one wanted the devil to have the last laugh.

I also thought about her husband. Her story was a tragedy, not a mystery. It all made sense; the men’s shirt she wore when she climbed through my window, her confession that she drinks because she’s scared. I also realized that on one income, she had no choice but to stop writing. Abandoning a dream will chip away at one’s soul, and I’m more determined than ever to win the big fight.

Although I didn’t expect her to answer, I tried to call her last night. I ended up leaving a convoluted message on her machine. I blathered on for far too long until finally, I asked her to meet me at Nick’s. There was no point in trying to sleep after that. All I could see behind my closed lids was a young man riding a motorcycle through a torrential downpour, a young man who didn’t make it home.

An hour before dawn, I succumbed to exhaustion. My sleep was ravaged with nightmares, like the ones I used to have after pop’s funeral. I was lost in the dark on an unknown avenue with no idea how to get home. As I tried to run, my legs remained stationary, like tree trunks. The quiet was suffocating. There was a reason I needed to get home, but I didn’t know what it was. I felt an extreme sense of urgency. It was unnerving, and while I don’t believe that dreams reflect reality, my fear was tangible. I almost called my mother who is an amateur dream interpreter, but she probably would have said to make the sign of the cross to ward off evil spirits and to start drinking chamomile tea before bed.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks for rubbing it in.”

Nick gave me the side-eye and refilled my coffee mug. When Brenda wanted to replace their dishes with something modern, she asked him to donate the old ones to the Ladies Bazaar. Instead, he brought them to the bar. I was drinking from the same mug that I’ve used at his house dozens of times.

“She’s gotten to you, hasn’t she? You know that expression? What is it... ‘tempt not a desperate man.’”

“That’s from Shakespeare, and what the hell does it have to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you. You’re putting a lot on the line for this woman.”

I briefed Nick on what happened last night. He listened without judgment, but deep down, I know he thinks I’ve lost my mind. When I told him about Alex’s husband, he was visibly upset, because only someone who has everything to lose can empathize with the person who lost everything.

“She’s worth it.”

“How do you know that? You barely know her.”

“Says the man who got married after only six months of dating.”

“All right, buddy. You got me there. I hope for your sake that you’re right about her.”

“Hey, Snoopy. How’s the doghouse?”