“I see the tip of the iceberg and I worry about you.”
~ “Early Distant Warning” Rush
Late Sunday morning, I text Anya after I awoke from my slumber. There were some things I needed to know. She text me back and the following textversation ensued.
11:58 a.m.
“Hi! Had a fantastic time! It was very nice to see you! You looked sooo cute! Hated to say goodbye.”
ME: “I hated to say good bye too! I had a blast! I can’t get you off my mind. Did you drink at all last night?”
ANYA: “No babe, I didn’t drink at all. Did you?”
ME: “Really? Me neither! Do you remember all I said to you last night?
ANYA: “I remember everything. You said some of the most beautiful and touching words. You’ve definitely won my heart over, xo.”
ME: “Easy things to say when it’s the truth. Did you mean what you said to me last night about wanting me to fight for you?”
ANYA: “Yes babe, I meant it. I hope I didn’t embarrass you. I hope I didn’t say too much, but I love you…can’t help it”
ME: "If what you said was supposed to embarrass me then keep it coming please! I hope all I said didn’t embarrass you at all I meant every single word.”
ANYA: “Not at all. We love each other and should be able to share.”
ME: “Did your friend Cheryl say anything to you last night?”
ANYA: “She was gone when I went back out there. Did Mitch say anything to you?”
ME: “I didn’t see him when we left that reserved dining area. He must have hooked up with someone. Poor girl. I apologize for all the things he said and did last night. I don’t know what his problem was, but he’s got a big one.”
ANYA: "Ha! She has her hands full for sure! It’s okay babe."
ME: “No it’s not. It’s not right. He needs to grow up.”
ANYA: “Thank you babe. Really…it’s okay. Isn’t it crazy how time flies by so quickly when we’re together?”
ME: “Too quickly. When you told me we were in that room for a half an hour I couldn’t believe it. It seems whenever I’m with you I’m oblivious to my surroundings. It’s like I have tunnel vision; you’re all I see and know, no matter what’s around me. A car crash could happen right in front of me and I would probably miss it.”
ANYA: “It was like that for me too babe. I forgot all about my friends.”
ME: “It was really nice to kiss you again. I’ve never kissed anyone that much before. I hated to see the night end. I hated to see you outside my line of vision. I wish we could have gone home together.”
ANYA: “I’m so glad we could finally kiss. Loved every second! Going home with you would be like a dream. I think we both get lost when we look at each other, greatest feeling! I love you so much.”
ME: “You looked beautiful last night sweetheart, but you always do. I love you very much too.”
ANYA: “You looked so handsome, loved that black shirt on you. Black is a good color on you. I could say I love you all day long, just wish I could announce it to the world.”
ME: “I feel the same way. I wish I could show you every day.”
ANYA: “Maybe someday…it’s my dream. By the way isn’t your birthday coming up?”
ME: “Oh yeah. That. It’s this Saturday, February 2nd. The Day of the Groundhog. You remembered?”
ANYA: “Of course I remembered; you’re in my life now. Will you be home on Saturday? Can I stop by to wish you a happy birthday?”
ME: “What are you trying to do? Make this birthday an actual happy one for me? I would love to see you.”
ANYA: “Okay! I will arrange my schedule this morning! I gotta run babe. I love you!”
ME: “I love you too!”
Although the situation was less than perfect, our love could not have been more perfect, and that was the remarkable thing about it. It took an imperfect situation to find a perfect love. After all these years of belief, I had found it, and it put me on a natural high every day as getting out of bed was now something that wasn’t only easy but something I looked forward to. I was passionate about life again, not just in one area but in every aspect of my life. I never cared about my birthdays much, and never gave them much thought if any. I think I really stopped caring about them, at least subconsciously, way back when I turned four after the birthday card incident with my father, but this birthday was going to be special. For her to come by and visit me alone was the greatest birthday gift I could ever ask for; she meant that much to me. I could break a leg that day, or lose my job, or even total my car, but if I was able to spend time with her, I’d have to say, with no disrespect to Ice Cube, the day was a damn good day.
On January thirtieth, I received a text from Anya a few seconds before I stepped out of my apartment to head for the office that was one of the sweetest ones I had received from her.
8:01 a.m.
“Good morning! Happy two months! Have a good day! I love you!”
After nearly thirty-seven years of not feeling any real love from anyone before, the fact she remembered we met two months ago to the day was meaningful. I remember with my first girlfriend, Sara, I would celebrate our monthly anniversaries and she would think it was stupid, but when you’re happy to be with someone, as silly as it seems, a month anni is a special day. Since Sara I was self-conscious in recognizing monthly anniversaries or any milestones in my relationships, but this showed me how Anya and I were alike in the way we loved others, and I don’t believe a greater blessing could had been bestowed upon me from the one who ran the Universe.
I didn’t expect to hear from her again today with it being a workday, and I still adhered to my rule not to text her in the fear of distracting her, but sure enough, as she always did, like the sun behind the clouds, her heart made an appearance.
12:16 p.m.
“Hi! I’m working out of the house today and was just thinking of you! Listening to Buble! I miss you and love you baby! I miss kissing you!”
ME: “Wish I was there with you! I miss you and love you too! I love kissing you!”
ANYA: “I love kissing you too babe! You’re a good kisser! It’s the best! Now I can’t concentrate!!!”
I ended the text exchange abruptly because I started to get hot and bothered thinking about the intensity of Saturday night and I had to go back to work. It was a night I knew I would remember forever. To have her tell me I swept her off her feet and that she wanted me to fight for her only intensified the display of affection we showed each other. Everything just seemed to go so perfectly for us, as if it was part of a plan we had no control of as natural as the earth’s orbit around the sun, a relationship just meant to work out some way.
As I carried thoughts of pure happiness throughout the day, and as I fell deeper in love by the minute, thirty-seven long years in the making, little did I know an asteroid was speeding toward my peaceful world that threatened all I had felt and all I had built.
8:21 p.m.
“Hey L are you there? I need to talk to you. Can you call me please?”
I now felt an ache in my heart whenever she referred to me as “L” instead of “Love” or “Babe”. This frantic text did not sound like good news awaited me and once again I was up against it in a way I could not have imagined nor prepared myself for. I waited ten minutes to rein in my perceived pain before I called her as there was no stopping the meteor headed my way.
“Thanks for calling me.” she said as she picked up on the first ring.
“Of course. What’s going on?” I asked with fear in my veins.
“When we were away on Saturday night, Mitch told my friend Cheryl we have been dating for eight months.” she informed me in the most serious tone I had ever heard from her before. “Cheryl is the wife of my husband’s best friend.”
“Are you serious?” I said in disgust. “I can’t believe him.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen but I’m very upset and scared.” she said. “I’m not ready to leave if he finds out.”
“I understand.” I said as my heart sank.
“I know a lot of people. If they find out this might ruin my reputation.” she said. “I care about what they would think.”
“I’m so sorry and I understand.” I said as an indescribable anguish consumed me.
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“I have to go now. Have a good night.”
“Okay. I’ll try. You too.”
And with that call, one that did not consist of any “I love you’s” that left me on the verge of tears, I immediately began to dial Mitch’s phone number. To say I was upset would’ve been a gross understatement and he needed to know how his ventilator driven life affected mine. When I told Anya I would fight for her, I meant it.
“Dude! What’s up?” said Mitch as he picked up the phone. “I was heading out to Paseo’s! Come pick me up bro. I could use a ride over.”
“What the hell’s your problem?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Seriously man, what’s your problem?”
“I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about. Come pick me up.”
“I won’t be hanging out at Paseo’s anymore.” I said. “Take a taxi.”
“What? This is all her fault!” he yelled.
“No.” I snapped. “This is your fault. I don’t get you man. You see a friend who is happy with someone for the first time in his life and you ruin it for him.”
“Ruin what? The fuck you talkin’ about?”
“Why would you go up to Anya’s group and start making up lies about us?”
“What lies? I told them the truth. You’ve been dating her for eight months now.”
“It’s only been two months and I told you that. You were well versed about the situation. It isn’t something you announce to everyone and you know that! Those people were her colleagues! Even friends of her husband!”
“Why the fuck would she bring them out then?”
“Who cares who she brings out or hangs out with? She wasn’t expecting a lunatic to go tell her friends anything private about her life. You had no right to do that and you knew that was private information.” I said. “A friend wouldn’t pull what you pulled on Saturday night. Why would you do that to me when I told you not to? You basically just gave a man who had cheated on her numerous times the upper hand because of your ignorance, and now she’s going to have to stay put in a miserable marriage, and I’m going to be single for a long time because you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.”
“Was she really going to leave him though?”
“I told you she would! I wouldn’t be in her life otherwise! Did you listen to anything I said or only what you wanted to hear? I told you this!”
“Well, she should stand up for herself. She’s in love with you right?”
“It’s not that easy Mitch. She has two kids. She can’t just walk out and leave them. That’s not realistic and it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.” I stated. “I’m not ready to have her leave him yet anyway. I want her to come into a great seamless situation before she does and I’m working towards making that happen. That friend you told is the wife of her husband’s best friend! I don’t understand why you would do that to me. I really don’t. I told you not to but you did it anyway, and that’s really fucked up.”
“You don’t know how those women are. She is wrong for you.”
“She’s the only thing that’s ever been right in, with and about my life.” I said. “And you are such the hypocrite. You know I listen to you Mitch and I must lose ten IQ points per second. I mean you know nothing about love or about doing the right thing. You hang out at a bar only to have sex with different women and you’re the authority on who and what is right or wrong for me? I simply cannot associate with you anymore because you don’t see anything wrong with what you did. I need real friends in my life, not this negativity. I’m through with it. Stay away from Anya if you see her. She doesn’t want anything to do with you and doesn’t need your rudeness.”
“Good!”
“I won’t be going to Paseo’s anymore. I’m through. You can hang out with the rest of the losers since you fit right in.”
“I will!”
“Good! Have a nice life!” I shouted, surprised he didn’t object to fitting in after I hung up on him.
I was really fed up with Mitch. I was tired of his relentless complaining and negative outlook on life. It brought me down with him and if the sole purpose of meeting Anya was to get away from that then this relationship was a good thing. It was unacceptable in my eyes what he did and I felt if I didn’t tell him about it he would go on in life thinking what he did was okay and it wasn’t. It’s okay to care about people, and some of what Mitch was doing came from a good place, but he walked in shoes with holes on the bottom while I wore shoes that I took care of so he had no right to tell me how I should take care of mine or how I should walk in them.
After I got off the phone with him I sat on my computer and began to journal my thoughts. It was the only way I could get them out of my head as I knew there wasn’t going to be any sleep for me tonight; I was torn apart inside by what he did as I was on the verge of losing the only thing that ever truly mattered to me. I was devastated, and it felt even worse than beingrejected by Denise. I loved Anya so much and for her to tell me all the things she did on Saturday night, to lay it all out there without holding back was unheard of in my life. I didn’t believe women like her existed and if anyone on this planet deserved love and happiness it was her. I was greatly pained by what Mitch did to her. What he did to us. If her husband got a hold of what Mitch said to Cheryl, he would use it as a noose around her neck. I trusted that Anya would be honest with him when the time was right, but now was just not the right time. At roughly two in the morning I made an effort to fall asleep and about an hour later I finally did. When I woke up two hours later, I knew I had to do something to show her I was going to fight for us. I couldn’t just sit here and sulk. I had to believe. I had to make her believe we could get through this. At five ten in the morning, I sent her a text telling her I missed her and I was here for her if she wanted to talk. She responded an hour later and asked me if I could call her in ten minutes.
“Good morning.” she said as she answered.
“Good morning.” I said. “Did you get much sleep?”
“Not really. Did you?”
“Not at all. I was thinking about you all night. I’m sorry about everything. This is all my fault. I should have just ignored him the entire evening or better yet not agreed to meet you there. I knew he would be there and wreak havoc.”
“I don’t hold you responsible for Saturday night. I don’t regret meeting with you either. It was a fun night and we should remember is as such. We can’t dwell on the negative.”
“Okay.”
“Decisions are made every day. Decisions are just that, they are made and dealt with. We made the decision to meet and whatever the outcome, we deal with it.”
“Do the girls know about this?”
“Yes, they know.” she confirmed. “Your friend is now affectionately known as Special Ed.”
“Sounds accurate even though I think that title is insulting to Special Ed kids because they’re much brighter than he is.” I said. “I gave him a piece of my mind after I got off the phone with you.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I just ripped him for what he did then told him I’m not hanging out with him anymore.”
“I hope it wasn’t because of me.”
“It’s because of him, Sweetheart. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. I don’t need to be around his negativity. He’s not a real friend anyway. A real friend wouldn’t have done that. He knew that information was private, but he didn’t care. He knew how much you meant to me.”
“I’m sorry you have to go through this with him even though I think it’s better to hang with people who add value to our lives.”
“I totally agree.”
“Carolyn had a talk with me last night.”
“What did she have to say?”
“She said if my husband finds out about us it would be huge. She thinks I’m being irrational to throw away twenty years. In fact she believes I’m being irrational about everything.”
“In all fairness to her, she doesn’t know all that’s led you to me though.”
“You don’t know the half of it. It’s really complicated.”
“What’s the half of it?”
“A business, real estate, just everything. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to handle it all.”
“That’s where I come in Sweetheart. I know it sounds overwhelming and so burdensome, and I’m sure it is, but you wouldn’t go through it alone. I would help you with all of that.”
“Carolyn also seems to think you may be too young to raise kids since you’ve never done so before.”
I tried not to let Carolyn’s comment bother me, but it was hard to swallow. That was something about as easy to change as my height. The truth was Carolyn did not know about her husband’s infidelities, and I felt if she had known the entire truth, the irrational would sound more rational to her. I knew there was nothing I could do about never raising kids before, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t know how to.
“Did your husband know how to raise kids when he first had them?”
“No.” she responded.
“Katie is twelve and Andrew is ten, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Then it sounds like your husband, and I have never raised teenagers before.” I said.
“I worked at a Day Care for three years, and have had a lot of exposure to many kids and their different personalities. Even though I can acknowledge it's not the same as raising your own kids, I feel I'm not entirely unqualified to raise kids. How that job came about was strange but it makes sense now that I would work there helping to care for the children of others. No disrespect to Carolyn but she doesn’t really know where I’ve been and half of all that’s going on for her comment to be completely valid.”
“That’s true babe. She doesn’t.”
“Have your feelings changed for me because of this?”
“My feelings towards you haven’t changed at all. I love you very much.”
“I love you very much too. I’m sorry to even ask that, but I haven’t had the greatest of luck in my life with love.” I said. “I’m just having a really hard time not blaming myself for all of this especially if the cost is not being able to see you or hold your hand or kiss you again. I’m not surrounded by love everyday like you are so it hurts.”
“Ok, please don’t blame yourself babe. Even if you have to lie to me, tell me you don’t blame yourself. The whole thing is not your fault. Things will work out if meant to be.” she said.
“And yes, you’re right. I’m surrounded by love every day so I won’t cry you a river how complicated my life is…but I long for our love.”
“I long for you to have our love.” I said. “because I long for it too.”
“If we were together I’d shower you with love every day!!! You would get sick of me!”
“I love you way too much to ever get sick of you. You would get sick of me wanting you to shower me with your love all the time!”
“I could never get sick of you.” she said. “I better go. I’m meeting with Cheryl’s friend, Valerie to see if I could smooth this out.”
“Please let me know how it goes Sweetheart.”
“I will babe. I truly love you.”
“I truly love you too.”
When I hung up the phone I almost called in sick, but I had missed a few days already over the last couple of months. I just knew it was going to be another very long day. Later that afternoon while I was on my lunch break my cell phone’s red light started to blink to signal I had received a text message.
12:58 p.m.
“Are you ok? Straightened things out with Valerie. Can you call me?”
After I read her message I quickly rose from my chair to close my office door so I could call her. A cool sensation traveled through my body as I felt relief when I heard her voice sounded much more relaxed.
“I talked to Valerie. She’s going to set the record straight with Cheryl. I don’t know if it will be in time or not but she said she would.”
“This is all just so unnecessary. I’m really sorry you even had to go through that.” I told her, still seething about Mitch internally.
“Can I ask you a question babe?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you think we met?”
“To save each other.” I replied without hesitation.
“But if we were meant to save each other don’t you think we would have met sooner?”
“I don’t think so Sweetheart.” I answered without hesitation.
“What makes you believe that?”
“Because I think if we had met twenty years ago you would have never appreciated a guy like me. I think you had to become who you are now first, so you could appreciate a love like this. I think you know where true happiness is derived from now. It just took some time and some heartache.” I said. “I believe we were meant to meet now so we would appreciate what we have found in each other.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Maybe that was something she didn’t think I knew about her. Maybe it was even something she wasn’t willing to admit, but I knew how certain women thought when they were younger especially at the age of nineteen when Anya first met her husband. She was so young, still a teenager, and she hardly knew herself at that age. I didn’t state my position any further as I didn’t know any specifics of how they met and didn’t want to generalize so I didn’t press her for a reaction about it, but the fact she didn’t elaborate further told me I had hit that one right on the head and out of the park. When we hung up, I had fifteen minutes left on my lunch break so I decided to leave the office to take a quick power nap in my car as I was beyond exhausted and stressed from the whole ordeal. I was learning rather quickly it wasn’t easy to come into a stressful work environment after a tense night on the heart.
Later on that evening Anya text me again. I didn’t know what to expect in her message. I was emotionally drained from the constant worry of losing her as I feared there may be more to come.
8:09 p.m.
“Hi, how are you?”
ME: “I’m ok. How are you?”
ANYA: “I’m ok. Carolyn and Debbie said hello.”
ME: “Please tell them I said hello.”
ANYA: “Are you exhausted? They are bashing Special Ed.”
ME: “I'm beyond exhausted but if you need me to add any further color commentary about him let me know. Again, I’m so sorry about everything you’re going through over there."
ANYA: “Thank you for understanding. I hope this doesn’t ruin your birthday weekend.”
ME: “Thank you. I guess I should try and get some sleep. I’m not even making sense.”
ANYA: “I’m sorry baby. You know I’m still crazy about you. Okay, sleep tight then. Love you.”
ME: “Thank you for staying in touch with me today. It’s been rough but I’ll be ok. My main concern is you. Just wanted to let you know I appreciate it. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. Love you too.”
ANYA: “I miss you sooo much! I hurt just as much as you do if not more. On my way to book club. Can I talk to you for a few minutes? Would love to hear your voice before book club.”
I gave her a call because I wanted to hear her voice too and to be honest, I can’t remember all that was said because I was so tired. What I did remember however was the anguish in her voice as she expressed the same concerns she had communicated earlier that day to me which I totally understood. When I got off the phone about ten minutes later I laid in my bed and got lost within the loneliness of my surroundings; its plain white bedroom ceiling and the quiet four walls around me that encased me like a prison cell as I believed the end for me and the end of us, was near.