“I raised her standards,” I revisited, subdued by its sting. “I raised her standards just so she could meet someone else.”
Culver laughed maniacally at my assessment, finding deep pleasure in it. As he glared at me, in his moment of triumph, while Paige writhed underneath his talon like hooves, a long-lost memory came into existence. Culver’s countenance resembled one of a man I knew, not in the last life, but a previous one. The only thing missing was the top black hat he wore back when it was fashionable to do so. Once I started to picture his face, Culver’s began to change—believing his past was one completely forgotten, especially by a soul who had a lifetime to forget. I didn’t know if there was something beautiful in this memory, something that could set me and Paige free, or something more terrifying than I ever wanted to know or face.
When the Beast looked over at Culver, taking his eyes off his meal, something had rattled them both and awakened me to a fact in the afterlife—thoughts and the truth ruled. The beast began to roar in distress, and Culver had to calm it down before it struck out at him, giving a chance for Paige to get some needed relief from the weight of his hooves. This was why Paige wanted me to tell my story—it would bring my thoughts where they needed to go in order to right a great wrong, or, to save us from eternal damnation. Either way, these embodiments of pure evil were a little less powerful than they were before my story was known. In order to bring my memory of who Culver was into focus, I knew I had to continue with the current time line, and hopefully by its end, make sense of everything else. Once the beast put its focus back on me, bringing the stinger of its tail right to the tip of my face, I began to recount a time I didn’t know I had the strength or courage to relive again—my allure to steel.
In all of its faded marine green colored glory, the Vincent Thomas stood 185 feet above the port of Los Angeles—a 6,060 foot long suspension bridge that reached 365 feet at its highest point. Below this seaside steel conduit was putrid, shallow water at some points and unforgiving 10-ton steel containers at others. I had a clear view of this local landmark from my parent’s house, and other than knowing the bridge provided the shortest distance between my home and college, it was always nothing more than an eyesore to me. After Denise left me, though, I started to see this dull-colored monstrosity in a way I could’ve never possibly imagined as it morphed into a refuge for my hopeless thoughts. Each time I drove over the bridge, I no longer focused on its picturesque sunsets but rather how its maintenance workers were able to reach its highest points. I even studied the several suicide attempts that appeared in the local paper, chiefly noting those that bore failure. After a month of satiating my depressive curiosity, I knew exactly how and what time would work best for a successful jump. Each time I drove under its tallest point, I imagined how it would feel to be at the very top and what the artist of the sky would paint for me that day.
In a span of over eight months, I sent Denise at least ten emails, hoping she would leave the door open in case Cameron’s true character shone through. Begging her to reconsider, I apologized for anything I may have done wrong. Each time I sent off an email, every following second felt like an hour—hoping she felt something, even just a little compassion to respond to me, but she never did. In fact, I never heard from Denise again. After she discarded me, I felt truly defeated. I then started to lose focus on all I ever set out to accomplish for myself. I looked back at all the things she said to me, a person I’ve never been closer to, and was constantly reminded of how my disabled belief in love blinded me to all the signs. I recalled the time she told me, “I need someone to take care of me” and how I completely misread it even after my experience with Karyn, who chose a man for his financial capabilities over me. How I forgot about all those times I used to hike up my socks to hide the bone on my left knee, while overlooking I still had another bone on my right one. How I ignored her silence at the movies during a comedy we saw that kept me laughing throughout. How she left me alone in her bed while she slept outside in the living room instead. How she flirted with the waiter right in front of me during a dinner I paid for, and admitting her attraction for him even while knowing how much I felt for her. How she snapped at me for missing a simple turn at night in a city I’ve never driven in before without the benefit of a single doubt. And how I missed the greatest sign of all—when she told me, “I’m not ready to hear it yet” while I was ready to announce it to the world.
After my experiences with Karyn and Denise, I started to believe all women truly cared about was being taken care of financially. To have a man take care of them emotionally was a bonus, but without financial support, it was worthless to them. Being taken care of monetarily should be important to women. It’s imperative for a man to be able to provide a stable environment for his wife, family, and his children. I know it matters. It should matter…but at the expense of a man’s character and integrity? It rattled my entire belief system that Denise could actually choose a man with demonstrated character flaws, one who repeatedly cheated on his last girlfriend, over a man who would be loyal to her even in his dreams. Without a doubt if I had the means to take care of her financially, she would’ve never dated Cameron, but I was honest with her about my financial situation from the beginning. She knew I had a year left in school, and I was working as a staff accountant. If “being taken care of” financially was her “be all end all,” then just tell me that matters more than having a “nice” guy. Instead, she made me feel like the bad guy in the relationship—even criticizing me for being a gentleman just so I would do her dirty work. In all fairness, maybe it was unfair for me to be upset about her decision because of the distance and how physically unavailable I was. Then again, how could she discount all we shared together? Why bother getting close to me, enough to make future plans, and then hit me with ‘I need a man to take care of me’? I simply believed she understood my situation and respected me enough to not pass judgment on me—especially for something I was honest with her about that was temporary.
All the things she ever confided in me that revealed her fear of abandonment, constantly replayed in my mind as if on a loop. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t love me that was crushing, but why she didn’t. I accepted her imperfections, yet she never accepted mine. She had every right to dump me if she didn’t feel the same and respected her right to do that, but did she have to make me feel so terrible about myself? How could she be so disrespectful after all the respect I gave her? I was simply punished for what other men did to her, and that was hard for me to get past after Karyn essentially did the same thing. I had the power to change my financial situation, and I knew it would get better after I graduated, but I had to drill deeper inside myself—to a place I was afraid to go but had to reach. I had to go through a merciless, unforgiving entity inside myself to get there. The darkest of tormentors who seized my mind to use it against me: She didn’t love you because you have nothing to offer. You’re a loser. No matter how well you love someone, that will never change. Your character and loyalty can’t pay anyone’s bills. It’s not about how hard you work or your accomplishments. Love doesn’t love you. God doesn’t even love you, and He loves everyone. You are unlovable, don’t you know that? Your father doesn’t even love you—you were a mistake, remember? You were cursed from the womb. How could you have possibly believed in love when your entire existence is one big lie? You can dream all you want—that’s all you have now. Go to sleep and dream. Dream until they all turn into me…to the darkest black.
Through Denise, I learned my mind was a torture device as final as the guillotine—my heart’s own cross. Believing in nothing but the allure of a bridge I drove over to get to school and back. It wasn’t solely my relationship with Denise that brought me to this level of hopelessness, but rather a culmination of all my relationships. With Sara, even though to a much lesser degree, I thought she loved me romantically enough to at least wait for me to come around. Instead, she dated almost immediately and even gave her complete self to him almost as quickly—a part of herself she never gave to me. With Karyn, even though we never dated, I felt betrayed when she chose the successful COO over the lowly accountant who truly cared for her. Then there was Denise, who chose a known cheater over me because he could take care of her financially—after she told me she wanted a nice guy.
All my life, I’ve been the “nice guy,” but all they chose to see in me was the bad, even finding me too good to be true. It didn’t matter if I had character. It didn’t matter if I treated them right and if I could be a good father or husband. All I could see that mattered was the size of my wallet or how far I stood off the ground. Based on my three experiences, I came to the conclusion that true love was dead for me. I was living in a loveless society, and it was pure insanity to keep believing in something that simply didn’t exist for me. At only thirty-one years old, I felt more like a senile eighty-year-old man, diseased in mind and broken in spirit. I’m not saying love wasn’t out there for others. It just didn’t exist for the person who believed in it as much as I did, so why continue believing in love when no one else truly did?
During this time, after I lost the only thing that gave me hope the world was fair, I fought with everyone…even myself. For thirty-one years, I’ve had nothing but big dreams, but as it suddenly stood, I’d surely be remembered for nothing if I died. It felt like I attended a party I wasn’t invited to, and merely being there ruined it for everyone. Like being abandoned on a sinking ship whose only destiny lay at the bottom of the sea—while everyone else made it safely to land. I was reduced to a mere cell of who I thought I would be—my mind tearing my hopes and dreams away from me. I always pictured myself happily married with a kid or two at this point in life, not betrothed to such loneliness after a lifetime of it. All I ever wanted was to love and be loved. If that didn’t exist for me, then I had no purpose here anymore.
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I tried to hide the pain I felt inside from everyone, especially my mother. She would only worry about me, and she had enough on her plate already. One afternoon, we decided to meet for lunch at the indoor shopping mall close to my work. Since a free lunch was rare, I took her up on the offer. When I arrived at the food court to meet her, I spotted her already seated at one of the tables.
“Over here, Honey!” She announced while waving her arms at me with a vibrant smile on her face. “Thanks for meeting me! You look nice today.”
“Hey…of course,” I said, standing in front of the seat across from her while she dug her black plastic fork into a large salad.
“How do you like my hair?” She asked, her lips moving behind a napkin.
“Did you do somethin’ to it?” Giving her the same response I always did.
“I just had it permed,” she exclaimed, lifting her head proudly.
“It always looks the same to me,” I replied without offering the compliment she should’ve received.
“Oh, well,” answering in a dejected tone as she reached inside her purse. “Honey, please go get something to eat. Here’s twenty dollars.”
“You know what, mom…no thanks. I’m not really hungry at all. It’s good you’re eatin’ a salad, though,” Taking notice she’d put on at least twenty pounds.
“Is something wrong?” She asked as her hands rested inside her purse.
“Nothin’s wrong,” I shook my head, annoyed. “What makes you think somethin’s wrong?”
“I don’t know…when I saw you walking over, I noticed you had your head down. Your eyes were on the ground the entire time before you saw me,” she explained. “Is everything fine with work?”
“Everythin’s fine,” I snapped. “I’m just tired. That’s all.”
“Is something else bothering you?” She prodded with a worried tone, putting her purse aside.
I just shook my head, took the empty seat across from her, and folded my arms.
“Well, just remember to put whatever’s troubling you in God’s hands. Say a prayer and talk to him…that’s what I do when I get down,” she offered. “He always knows what’s best for us and will never give us more than we can handle. Everything happens for—”
I cut her off angrily. “Everything happens for a reason. Will you just stop it…okay? I’m not placing anything in God’s hands. I’ve already told you I don’t believe in God.”
“That’s because he can’t make himself known to you if you never talk to Him.”
“I don’t have conversations with things that don’t exist,” I bit out, trying to keep my voice down. “Who do you think I am? A four-year-old who talks to imaginary friends?”
“Of course not, Honey…”
“It sure doesn’t seem like it. By the way, if God can oversee everything, then I should never have to talk to him—he should already know what’s going on, so just…stop it with the God crap!" I snapped, trying my best to keep my voice down. "I’m so sick of IT—he doesn’t exist! God is Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the fuckin’ Tooth Fairy all rolled up into one extravagant fairy tale. I don’t need any more falsehoods or lies in my life—I have reality to worry about. And if God did exist, I’d have more respect for him if he just removed me from this Earth. He could have this life back at any time. I don’t want it, and I don’t need it.”
I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face just before she bowed her head at the table in subdued silence. She slowly made the sign of the cross and returned the twenty dollars to its place inside her purse. She then apologized and quietly continued to eat her salad—a meal she never finished. After Denise broke my heart and spirit, I reached the breaking point with my mother’s preaching, as her reasons for everything could no longer be reasoned. I was sick of talking about things that didn’t exist, like God and love. Those things existed for other people, just not for me. Even if God had a Hubble telescope, he’d still be unable to see me.
Until my mother brought it to my attention, I had no idea how deeply depressed I was. I became so disenchanted with this loveless society that I couldn’t bear to take in the world around me. As I boiled inside my own cauldron of self-hate, I would learn a week later the reason behind my mother’s invitation for lunch—her cancer had metastasized. Instead of chemotherapy, the doctors opted to use an experimental drug called Femara. She would be on it for the rest of her life and with an unknown prognosis. On the day of my anti-God rant, all my mother wanted was a little time to get out of the house to better deal with another frightening obstacle in her life. I stole her serenity with my selfishness—a peace she rightfully deserved. As much as my heart ached over losing Denise, my mother would’ve traded places with me in a heartbeat…yet she never said a single word about the inequities of our plights even as I tore down a world that meant everything to her—the reason for her survival. If God existed, I could find understanding in His position to punish me for my lack of faith, but I could never comprehend punishing my mother, who trusted Him more than anything. When I learned her life became much more difficult, I really began to rebel against God, turning from agnostic to atheist—no longer a witness to life’s greatest lie: Love. It existed for other people or in other dimensions, but not for me here on Earth. I then aligned my disbelief in love with my disbelief in God and refused all further discussions about Him with my mother…until I had no choice but to bring the subject up again.
For the next two years after Denise’s departure, I sulked into a miserable existence—resigning to my fate that having a girlfriend was never meant to be. As another year passed, I still believed a girlfriend was not in the cards, but maybe in time. By the time the fourth year lapsed, I was content with being alone. I was disgusted by what women seemed to be about: Money that bought them popularity. The tangible; the things they could only touch and see. Denise left me jaded, but it was a culmination of everything else that left me defeated, giving me no alternative but to adapt to what they wanted me to be. I had to rip the heart from my sleeve and bury it so deep it could never be found. No woman could ever again know how much I cared for her—the cards forever in my hands. It was time to head to the battlefield to declare a full-scale war on love, with no arms tied behind my back and leaving nothing to chance. If they wanted an asshole who didn’t care about their feelings or needs, then that’s what they were going to get. Protecting what dwelled inside my chest cavity was my only goal—to keep it beating at my own pace. If they didn’t want me to be their hero after putting me in the position to be, then I would be a hero of my own. I stepped up my workouts from three to five days a week and increased my bench press a hundred pounds—to three hundred pounds. After I received my accounting degree, I planned to leave Pedichairs to pursue a career in public accounting. In 2003, the national average for passing all four parts of the CPA examination in one sitting was 17%. That same year, driven to prove them all wrong about me, I took the CPA exam and joined that elite percentile group. I was then hired by a large local public accounting firm and worked as an audit staff accountant for two years. During those two years, I spent more time at the airport than I did at the office, traveling from Seattle to Ogden or Charlotte to Manhattan, spending months at a time on audit engagements. My career became my lifestyle, and for twelve hours a day, six days a week, that’s all I did—taking a one-week vacation each year and banking my residual hours. I wanted something much more realistic and attainable than love—I wanted to be a partner at my firm. In my third year, I was promoted to an Audit Senior, and in my fourth year, at thirty-five, I was promoted to Audit Manager, a position that usually took six years to reach.
During my promotion luncheon, the head partner of the firm, Alan Kanian, made it no secret what the firm expected from me.
“We want you to be a partner, Landyn. We’re going to give you all the resources you need and all the right jobs to make sure that happens,” he said, his thin graying hair hanging over his forehead.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Mr. Kanian,” I smiled. “There’s nothing I want more than to make partner.”
“We see that every day,” he nodded, his hawk-like blue eyes staring into mine. “You’ve done a great job for us, and we really appreciate it. We’ve never given you anything easy, yet you’ve delivered for us each time. Our clients love working with you—the sky’s the limit.”
It was really all I needed to hear. Instead of putting my heart into loving someone, I put my heart into my work, and unlike my luck in love, I was rewarded. Partners at my firm earned over half a million dollars a year and spent more time out on the golf course than the office. They lived in superior neighborhoods, had attractive, caring wives, year-long suntans, and kids in private schools. Mr. Kanian’s words made it easy to see a dream life awaited me if I worked hard enough. In the six years since Denise left me, I learned to play guitar, graduated college, passed the CPA exam, obtained a new job where I was promoted twice, and moved into an apartment of my own in Newport Beach—closer to the home office located in Irvine. The only thing that stood in my way now was time. I had the drive and ambition to get there, all I had to do was stay focused on the prize. Strangely, it was my lack of success in love that brought me all the professional success in the world. All I had to do was turn my back on the fantasy of what true love really was; true fiction. I was so driven and focused to make partner, I didn’t want anyone slowing me down. I no longer needed anyone—all I needed was me; certainly alone, but never lonely. The person I saw in the mirror was the only one who could ever complete me.
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