My head is pounding, my palms are sweaty. I am hot then cold and then hot again. I breakout in a cold sweat, the hair on the back of my neck is on edge. I can feel that something is wrong, I can smell it and it’s choking me. The smell is so pungent, raw and it makes the fear crawl up my skin. You have not said a word but I can read you by now; you won’t look at me… you play with the steering wheel, you are gathering your strength and as you do, you drain mine. The fear is rising in me, choking me… I can’t breathe. I clutch my chest, “stop!” I cry “stop, please. I beg. You need to stop the car…. I need the fresh air.” The car has barely stopped and I am grasping the handle, opening it so fast that the hand you reach out to grab me barely grazes my shirt sleeve. I open the door get out and grab huge gulpfulls of air, its cold, bitterly cold but for a moment I can’t feel. All I can feel is the pain in my chest, the one that forces me to claw the scarf from my neck, pop open the top button of my jacket…but that does nothing because the fist that is squeezing my chest, stealing my breath is not from outside, its from within. I slam the door and lean against the side, from a distance I hear you asking me to come back into the car, somewhere very, very far off I hear you telling me that it’s freezing outside but I am hot, burning up inside…

Then the cold finally penetrates the fog that clouded my brain from the second I sat in the car and you greeted me with those tortured eyes, the eyes that say to me , ‘Mel, I’ve made up my mind and I’m sorry’. You don’t even have to say it because I know you like I know myself. So there is no need to speak. I’m shivering now and you grab me and shove me back into the car; but there was no need for that for…Now that the cold air has cleared my head, now I can face you. Where the strength comes from I can’t tell…but its there. Slowly sweeping over me …stealing all emotion I have left. Leaving me cold, so so cold. But this cold is different, this one is so cold that it burns like the flames of hell deep in my stomach like a fist… then it turns to ashes and solidifies. It’s as hard as a rock and now I can face you. I can look at you and hear you say the words.

“I love you but I love my son more…”

I look at you and I can see through you, to the torture you feel inside, to the strength it took to make this decision. And though I hurt, in that little place where I will never allow another man to reside; I am able to say “It’s ok, I understand” because I know in some small way I have touched your life. But those words drain my strength, they begin to thaw the ice, the rock begins to shift and I know that I must leave your presence; I need to escape before the heat starts again.

Thank GOD we’ve now reached my house, the house where we first made love and I know I won’t be able to go into that room again, I know that I need to move to a place where your memory doesn’t haunt the couches, the bed, the kitchen for that would surely be the last straw.
That though will come in time, but for now it will be my solace because I will find some spot that doesn’t hold your scent… ‘ah yes’ I think; the basement is where I will sleep until I have irradiated you from my life. But is that possible? Why does it now feel like you are still fighting? That you are telling me the words but your heart still belongs to me? Why do you torment me so? Why do you want to break me… make me feel? You say my name…and the feeling of suffocation comes back, grappling at my chest, clawing threatening my cool. And I feel the need to run… run so that I don’t have to face you, that I don’t have to look into the face that I love so much but can never touch again, the hair that I can never rumple again…

So I get out, rush to the door and let myself in, turning around to shut you out. But you are too quick; you catch the door and reach for me. “No!” I say “Don’t touch me!”. And the look in your eyes is a combination of pain and shock… you’ve never heard me use that tone before.

But in the few seconds it took to say “No” a new Mel has been born. You’ve made your decision so be a man and stand by it. For I know if you touch me I will break, shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. With a certainty that shakes me I know it. I walk around you and hold the door open, the one that many a happy day you have followed me through but now it’s your, I mean our, end of the road. You attempt to say my name again and I can see how it catches in your throat. You cross the threshold, step outside and turn back one last time, “Goodbye” I say and you nod, turn and walk away holding yourself so stiffly that I know you are fighting the urge to turn back but pride won’t let you.
I close the door and sag against it as the sorrow comes crashing down on me now, ripping through me, leaving me bleeding, raw.

Its only seconds since you left and now my phone begins to vibrate… and without even looking, I know its you. But I don’t pick up, I don’t even have the strength left and that’s where I spent the night, curled up in the chair where we cuddled many a night. My mantra is ‘Just one more time, just one more night then I will let you go, I will eradicate you from my heart and soul’….and through it all like the end of a song…the phone vibrates…

THE DAY AFTER..

The dawn of morning hits me…and as I open my eyes, the pain comes crashing down and the tears I could not shed the night before leaves me in a rush, leaves me weak and gasping for air. This pain, this pain is driving me to run… I put on my sneakers, grab my head phones and sweats and head out… And I push myself, running hard till the wind is rushing past me so loud that I can no longer hear myself think and my lungs are screaming out for air. My body revolts but the alternative is much worse…
I return home and methodically start stripping all evidence of you from my life. First goes the numbers from my phone as I ignore the numerous missed calls and voice messages, then goes the msn, facebook, hotmail.

Then goes the sheets on my bed that smell of you, the cologne I wear cause you gave it to me, the lingerie I bought because I wanted you to see me in it, the pictures we took, the laptop you gave me… All packed and ready to be thrown away. And finally the accepting of the job out of town that I had contemplated not taking cause I preferred to be here with you. It takes days, days of avoiding your calls, at home and at work, of avoiding the calls of friends who I know you are in contact with. Days of blocking out the fact that you are camped in front my door, that you follow me when I run like the wind trying to eradicate you from my soul, my being. I will not listen for that will make me weak. You did what you had to do; now it’s my turn….

The day of reckoning has come, the time to move, to start over, to leave you and your sweet lips behind. I slip out in the middle of the night and like a mirage disappear… without a trace. Leaving you and my life behind…to begin anew.

2 Years later…

I am walking out of my house, it’s a beautiful outside and I am determined not to waste the day… Hair done the day before, nails? check, Nair? check, shorts? check, lip-gloss? poppin! Gators? right on. I decide I’m going to the mall, going to get a new outfit, and then meeting for lunch wid my girls. I jump into my whip and put the top down… blast Tanya “still ah go loose” down the streets, pull into the parking lot and flash the guys on the side some leg.. I bounce into the mall full of energy, grab a booster juice and I am revved to get my shopping on…I walk into my favorite store and immediately I start to smile even wider…Yup you guessed it my fave four letter word ‘SALE!’ –Holla! Now that’s what I’m talking about! Ooooh and it looks like they know just the kind of mood I’m in too cause all my fave’s are on the sale rack; cuteeee dresses and shorts, cool linen shirts. I grab a couple and head to the dressing room… whip them on and model to the mirror. I am so focused on my hott self in the mirror that I fail to hear the gasp to my left… I do a slow turn to admire my rear in the mirror and nearly kneel over. For standing to my left as if frozen is none other…immediately the past flashes before my eyes like a cinema reel on fast forward, too quick to separate the scenes..Just a jumble of feelings; incredible warmth, then the bitter cold.

I begin to tremble and rush back into the dressing room praying that this was just a crazy dream that I was going to wake up from soon, but deep down I knew it was real and that whether I wanted too or not I had to go outside and face him because I knew he would be there right there waiting. I could feel his presence….just as forceful as if it were 2 years earlier.
I take a deep breath and open the door, I don’t even have too look far because he is positioned so that I had to see him as soon as I open the door. I attempt to pass by with a quick “hello“, but he wasn’t having any of that. I was still clutching the clothes in my hand….”you need to fi scoop that, it tan good pon yuh” I glance at him and head to the cash and complete my purchases as if I am in a daze. He takes the bag and leads me to the food court as if I am a walking dead… through the daze though my mind registers that he still looks good, he has aged well save for the few more grey hairs around the sides of his head.

We sit down at Timmy’s and he orders; yeah he remembers what I drink. I slowly come out of my shock as he sits and stares…

And his first words rock my soul; bring back all those long buried memories….”You never let me explain“. My response is soft, so soft you had to strain to hear….”I couldn’t, or else I wouldn’t have been able to make it“, that response sounds weak even to me but you look at me and I know you understand, for I during those blissful days I spent in your arms I told you all my secrets, bared my soul to you.

We sit in silence after that exchange, a million questions swirling through both our minds but none making it to our lips… I want to ask ‘what are you doing here?’ but I don’t, don’t think I want to know the answer.

And then it strikes me…that I’ve given you power over me again…that by sitting there speechless I have let you know that I still care and now I am pissed. Not at you but at myself, for I had let you, just by showing up rip apart the new self I had built to replace the one that I gave to you those 2 loong years ago and you threw back in my face battered and bruised. I had let you expose the raw still hurting me that was hidden behind my successful image. The unstoppable Mel, that’s the new self I had built, this is the self that this town knows but deep inside I know that I am still hurting and just by showing up you have exposed that core. With nary a look or a touch, just by showing up! DAMN YOU! I rage on the inside and that anger builds and helps to cover the wound again…

“What are you doing here I ask?” Shopping for the wife? I jeer, “where is she by the way? Didn’t want to leave the baby I presume?”
You just look at me and murmur “No wife Mel, the only one I wanted was you.” I laugh, “pretty nice way of showing that eh? Think that shit can still throw me? Heard that one before and it wasn’t worth shit then and its worth even less now.”

Suddenly, I am seized by the need to put this particular part of the day behind me, forget it ever happened, cause just that comment and I remember the promises…yes the very said ones that you broke and I am impatient to be off.
I get up of the table finish my French vanilla (yes damn you you remembered), throw the cup out and say “anyway all that is immaterial now, it don’t make a difference anyway.” “Was nice bumping into you, take care, see you around“.

I grab my bags and attempt to leave the table, but you are not having that. One look at my face however is enough to dissuade you from anything more than offering to take my bags to the car. I refuse but you take them anyway…
I walk to the back, pop the trunk and place the bags inside, put my shades on and come around to the driver’s side. “Nice whip” ” thanks” I say… he comments “so you really did get that Lexus eh?” Yup I say this is my baby, proudly patting her on the side. “Still all about going out and getting what you want eh?‘ ,”Best way to roll“, I quip back. I slide into the seats and let my baby soothe my emotionally battered body; I hadn’t realized how the encounter had drained me…

As I drive off his parting shot rings in my ear…”So how come you never set your mind out to get me? You let me get away.”

I intended to let that comment ride, I really did, but I couldn’t…I reverse and pull up the brake…”you were the one that I never thought I would have to fight for, you were supposed to be my reward for all my hardships, you were supposed to be my rainbow at the end of my rainy day…instead you became the storm that tore me apart…go figure.”

I throw baby into gear and roar away with the tears that I hadn’t even been aware were falling whipping over my face as the wind roared through the windows.

To be continued…..