“I can’t, Cathy. I never signed on to be a father. I thought we were just having fun.” His voice is drained of laughter and flirtatiousness. “I can give you that, you know. Fun. But I can’t be a father. I’m sorry.”
I can’t say that I’m shocked by this response. I always knew that what we have would eventually end, I just didn’t expect it that it would be this way—that Arsen could dismiss me so carelessly. Amy and Ben’s warnings have come true after all.
“I-I…you wanted me to leave my husband. Y-you said so.” I stupidly remind him.
“Yes.”
“I thought you loved me. I mean, you’ve never said it, but I g-got the feeling you did.” There. I’ve said it. I don’t even know why I’m asking him this, it doesn’t matter, we’re over, but I guess I need to know. I want to know.
“Yes, maybe. I don’t know Cathy.” He glances around the room as if looking for an answer, the right answer, then turns to look at me once more. “I guess I do, but not enough to have a family with you. I’m not ready, and…I don’t know. I don’t love you like that.”
Suddenly very dizzy, I step back looking for something to hold onto before I fall. When my lower back hits the back of a chair, I sit and continue to listen to Arsen break my heart with his words. Dispassionately, I notice he’s calling me Cathy. He hasn’t called me by that name since the day we met.
“We have fun together, Cathy. However, no promises were ever made. I thought we were just—”
“Just what? Having fun? Was this always about f**king to you? What about me?” My words make him flinch.
Good.
“I like you, you’re cool. But yes…it was always about a good f**king, and you never seemed to be interested in more.”
“I can’t. I can’t. Are you even listening to yourself? I left my husband for you! How could that be just about a good f**king? What about your jealousy? Y-you told me I was yours!” I scream at him, hysteria beginning to take over me.
“Fuck, Cathy, what do you want me to say? I don’t like sharing. That’s all.”
“Sharing me? Are you f**king joking? Sharing me with my own husband? I cheated on him with you!”
“Well, I think it would’ve happened regardless. I saw a chance and took it.”
My body shaking violently, I pretend that this is not happening. That this is a horrible nightmare. Yes, that’s it. A nightmare. Arsen would never do this to me. Oh, God. I’m going to be sick. I close my eyes and try to fight the nausea when I hear him throw the last blow to my gut.
“I think you should go back to your husband. I love you, but not that way, Cathy. Not that way. I mean…is the baby even mine? For all I know, it could be his. After all, you were f**king both of us at the same time.”
I stand up, grab my bag, and head to the door. I turn around and look at Arsen who is watching me with the saddest eyes which is odd. He’s the one ending whatever we have.
I can’t bring myself to feel anything. It’s as if all emotions, good or bad, have been wiped from me. I’m truly paralyzed from the inside out.
“I don’t know who the father is, Arsen. Not that it matters because knowing my body, I probably won’t be able to carry it full term.” I watch Arsen close his eyes at my words. “As for Ben, I cheated on him with you, and he filed for divorce. So yes, that won’t work.”
Arsen stands up and makes his way to the door. I raise a trembling hand to stop him. “Don’t take a step closer to me, Arsen, or I will slap you so hard I will leave a mark. I knew this was going to happen…I knew it. It was too good to be true, but I never thought you would turn out to be such an asshole. I guess that’s what I deserve…I did the same thing to Ben.” Turning around, I put my hand on the handle.
“Dimples…I—” he says painfully.
“Good-bye, Arsen.”
Lying in Amy’s bed as she hugs me, I want to cry and scream but do neither. Staring at the sage green walls of her room, the fight is gone from me. I feel nothing.
I’m vacant.
Empty.
Hollow.
The only reminder that I’m alive is the pain around my chest. It’s unbearable but welcome at the same time because it helps me drown the memories of Arsen and Ben. I close my eyes tightly and pull Amy closer to me.
My chest…
I can’t breathe…
I can’t.
I punish myself once more, and I recall my meeting with Ben and the way he looked at me. The disgust and hurt on his face, his painful words.
After talking to Amy about my situation, she’d agreed that I needed to get in touch with Ben and tell him the truth. He deserved to know what was going on, even though there was a very high chance that nothing would come of it. So I called him and told him to meet me at the Starbucks around the corner from her apartment.
I remember walking to the coffee shop, sick to my stomach and thinking about Arsen. I thought I saw him following me to the store. I recall turning around, thinking that I saw his blond head sticking out of the crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen.
I was sitting on one of those maroon colored couches where your body automatically sinks in because they are so worn out as I inhaled the aroma of coffee and caramel floating in the air. Soon after I sat down, Ben walked in. He had changed. I hadn’t seen him in a month, and he didn’t look like the same man I was married to for six years at all. He had lost so much weight that he looked gaunt, and his clothes were hanging off his body. His usually pristine handsome face was covered in a thick beard, and the only thing you could see were his lips. His maple brown eyes looked blank and bleak, and the bags under them looked almost purple they were so dark. There was so much anger oozing off him...
I knew I couldn’t tell him.
And his words proved I was right. Without saying hello or asking me how I’m doing he got to the point.
“I agreed to meet you here because, frankly, I’m curious as to what you have to say. What is it?” He spits the words at me.
I told him what I’d wanted to say all along.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I g-guess I wanted to apologize to you once more.”
Lie, lie, lie.
“Oh? Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that, Cathy?” he answered as I stared into his beautiful yet empty eyes.
Yes…
I knew right then and there that I still loved him so much. Not even Arsen had been able to erase it. I’d been fooling myself.
“Where is Arsen? I’m surprised you were able to step away from f**king him long enough to meet me. I mean, back when we were married I was lucky if I got to spend five minutes with you on any given day.”
I flinched at his words. They hurt.
“He, um, uh…he’s gone.” I looked down at my hands.
Ben laughed. “Whoa. That was f**king fast. I’ve got to give it to the kid. Think he got tired of f**king you, huh? Tell me, pretty Cathy, you didn’t give it good enough? Think he got tired of you sucking his dick?” He wiped away tears from his eyes before continuing, “How long has it been? Two or three weeks? The magazines seemed to have lost interest in you two.”
“A month,” I said silently.
Ben stood up and looked down at me with a cruel smile on his lips. “Well, I hope you’re happy. Eleven years down the drain for a month of f**king. And no. I can’t forgive you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, he opened them and pinned me with his angry gaze once more. “I hate you as much as I loved you. Probably more because I can’t f**king make myself stop. I have to go. I can’t do this anymore.”
He turned around and left. I was crying by then, so I didn’t see him coming back. I only noticed it once he put his hands on the table, and leaned down to whisper in my ear, “You know, Cathy, you were supposed to be my past, my present, my future…my forever. But now…nothing is left. You broke me, you hear me? You broke me. I look at your eyes and your beautiful face, and it still f**king hurts. You f**king bitch, it still hurts. I want to erase every single memory of you. Every single one, until I can wake up one day without thinking about you. Until it doesn’t f**king kill me to think what you did to us. Do you hear me? Please, don’t try calling me again to apologize. I want you out of my f**king life. Out of it.”
Then he was gone
“What are you going to do, babe?” Amy asks.
I shake my head. I can’t speak because the pain is so unbearable. I’m trying to breathe in through my nose and exhale through my mouth to see if it will help me get past the overwhelming feeling that I’m not getting enough air into my lungs. The worst part is that I don’t know whom and what I’m grieving for anymore. Arsen, Ben, the way Arsen dismissed our relationship, or Ben’s anger and his hatred. I bury my face in Amy’s neck and let the physical contact soothe me to sleep. I’m so tired. So tired.
Can you hear it? The sound of my heart breaking, ceasing to beat.
Can you feel it? Excruciating pain, eating me alive, slowly tearing me apart limb by limb.
It’s my fault. Only mine. Not his. Not theirs.
I’m alone.
“Cathy, love. Whatever happens, I’m here. Just know that. You can move in and live here for as long as you want. As you know, I’ve been seeing Charles for a while now. He really liked you, and he feels like shit for what Arsen did to you. Anyway, we will help you through the entire process. You don’t need those two assholes in your life. You need to be dickless for a while and focus on this pregnancy, focus on the good things in your life. Maybe call your dad? He’ll forgive you. Okay?” she whispers as she runs her hands through my hair.
I nod and begin to fall asleep, wondering if I will ever forget Ben’s last words, wondering if I will ever get over Arsen’s betrayal, wondering if I will ever be whole again.
Wondering.
Wondering.
Wondering.Love is infinite.
There is no beginning and no end.
There’s no starting point and no finishing line.
Love just is.
Love is born, grows, matures, and sometimes it dies.
But the memory will remain with you for the rest of your breathing hours.
You fall in love, you fall out of love.
But you will love again.
You always do.
It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, making the windows of the tall buildings reflect its light. It looks like thousands of tiny mirrors adorning the Manhattan skyline.
“How are you today, Cathy?” Crystal, my therapist, asks.
“I’m very well, thank you.” I smile, waiting for her next question.
I started seeing Crystal two weeks after I last saw Ben. At first, I didn’t want to because I really just wanted to drown in my misery, wallow in it until I was dead. At my lowest, I actually considered suicide to make the pain disappear. It hurt so much waking up every morning and living. I wanted to be able to breathe without feeling like my chest was being knifed with every breath I took.
I wanted sweet oblivion.
To vanish.
To feel nothing.
But it all changed on my nine-week ultrasound. Because I’m considered high-risk, I had to have ultrasounds every two weeks until my second trimester, then once a month if the growth of my baby had been on target. Smiling, I touch my huge belly, but I know I won’t be able to breathe a sigh of relief until I am holding her in my arms and I feel her soft little hands in mine.
As I look at Crystal, I think back to the day I decided to fight again. The exact moment when Dr. Pajaree showed me the image of my baby on the monitor. When I saw the little head and the tiniest of bodies, I broke down and cried, the numbness evaporating from my body. That little creature, my little peanut, was mine and all I had left—all that mattered. I decided to fight. It was in that moment, when everything was up in the air with my life, that I realized it was time to seek help; to open up about my fears, my mistakes, and learn not to shut the people out from my life that cared the most about me.
So, twenty-seven weeks later, I’m sitting huge, and very pregnant, on a comfy worn leather couch staring at one of the prettiest brunettes with the bluest of eyes smiling back at me. By the look of her smile, I know what’s coming, and I think I’m ready to go there with her. Little by little since we started our weekly sessions, we’ve talked about everything from my childhood to my miscarriages, but she hasn’t brought up Ben or Arsen again. I think it was in the third session when I explained to her how I had ended up alone and pregnant, but I never felt comfortable discussing them again. I suspect she wants me to introduce the subject, and I want to, but sometimes just thinking about Ben and Arsen brings back the pain, the memories. It brings back the overwhelming feeling of loving someone when all hope is lost.
So, I wait.
“How is the baby?” She smiles. She’s stalling as well.
“Baby is great. She’s moving so much. Sometimes I think I have a future gymnast growing inside me,” I laugh lightly, resting both my hands on my belly. I love feeling her move and the guessing game of which part of her precious body is sticking out. “She particularly kicks after I’ve had ice cream or chocolate to eat. Oh my God. Here!” I grab Crystal’s hand as I bring it to rest on the left side of my stomach.
Looking at me with smiling eyes, Crystal asks, “That’s so nice. What am I feeling here?”
I smile and move her hand with mine following the trajectory of Nadia’s limb.
“I think that’s her butt. It could be her leg for all I know, though. I told you, she loves to move, especially when I play Taylor Swift.”