“Must we end this way

When so much here is hard to lose

Love is everywhere

I know it is

Such moments as this are too few

It’s all up to you”

~ “The One That You Love” Air Supply

During Anya’s Friday night evening in Cabo, I struggled to get her politics out of my head. I despised politicians, never more so when Bill Clinton claimed he never had relations with Monica Lewinsky. Anya claimed to be a conservative yet it seemed she played the exact same game Bill did. It seemed if I wanted Anya’s love, I would have to accept it on her terms, or it didn’t exist at all. Was her love for me only a form of politics? If my heartache didn’t fit in her schedule, she was ready to remove me from it completely. How could she have loved me at all if she wanted me by appointment only? If I didn’t fall in line with her terms of love, she only had an incentive to play politics with my heart. How could true love ever exist on the terms of one?

I wanted the truth, but I wanted the truth to come from her. I would only seek it if I felt she betrayed me. The pain came on so great now when I felt disconnected from her, that my mind had no mercy on me. Her silence in Cabo threatened my life as if she were to choose another man over me, all because I pressured her to be with me, I wouldn’t be able to survive it mentally. When I thought about her being in someone else’s arms, after all I’ve given and sacrificed, I would feel so betrayed—suicide would be my only option. I needed her to prove me wrong, and if she couldn’t, I’d be too traumatized to think again—just like a rape victim afraid to relive the experience. If Anya planned to break my heart, it would be my last heartbreak. I wouldn’t see the lesson or the reason in meeting and falling in love with her—other than her love was meant to end my hope and my belief in love for good.

After the Saturday sun rose, with another day of expected silence ahead, Anya sent me a text.

ANYA: “Good morning! At the gym by myself! The girls didn’t get home until after 3:30 a.m. last night! I went to bed right after dinner so I’m the only one up! How r u?”

Her text made me first at ease, but it soon opened up a fissure in my critical mind. If she was by herself, how come she didn’t text me at all? How was it possible, that in a span of less than twenty-four hours, it went from romantic feelings to such silence? I believed she did leave before the girls did, but she left right after dinner and didn’t text me at all the rest of the evening? Did she come back with Shana or alone? I could understand maybe she wanted to talk to her kids for a little bit, but I found it very unlike her not to text me especially if she came back alone. I didn’t want to ask her anything and ruin her trip like I did when she went to Mammoth so I decided to let it go. As I decided to keep the heartache to myself, it reminded me of the time she told me she didn’t want to be a nagging girlfriend when she dated Jackson. For the first time, I considered her position and realized if I didn’t nag, I would probably suffer the same fate if we were married. It just seemed the more tolerant I was, the less she began to respect me. If I let loose though, I don’t know what would come from my fingertips with all the negative emotions I felt.

ME: “Good morning! I’m good. Why did you head back right after dinner? How r u?”

ANYA: “Good but tired of drinking. I knew they were in the mood to drink heavily last night and I just didn’t want to go there. I’m glad I didn’t b/c they’re all out!”

When I read she was “tired of drinking”, I began to trust her more—she must have been drunk by the time she got home after dinner. I knew how she followed what the girls did, and she probably drank all day long. I’m sure she had a bit of a headache and that’s why she decided to go to sleep instead of text me. That seemed like the most likely scenario anyway and I’d be selfish to say anything. I understood better why I didn’t hear from her after she told me she left early. If the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn’t have texted her either, and it didn’t mean I wasn’t crazy about her. Who knows? Maybe it was her friends who wanted to pacify me by sending me the bikini pics so she wouldn’t leave them to go to the hotel and text me? Maybe they teased her when she left and she wanted to prove them that wasn’t the plan, even though her heart wanted to?

After she texted me, I felt much better as the worst of scenarios got the best of me. Sometimes, I wish I was really ignorant to heartbreak, but I wasn’t. I connected with Anya over heartbreak and losing Anya would crush me more than anyone I ever had. This was the first time though I seriously considered what if she were in the arms of another man? Even if she didn’t love him, as she reasoned she had just sex with her husband. If she considered us not together, then nothing stopped her. I worried for the first time I dated a version of Jackson, and not the wife in distress she led me to believe she was. The scary part about that was, it was also the first time I knew that the only remedy to resolve those emotions was by suicide.

I told her to enjoy herself then retreated into my usual Saturday of errand running. As the day progressed though, the Saturday only morphed into another version of Friday as I didn’t hear from her for the rest of the day. I found it kind of strange how Wednesday and Thursday felt like her Palm Springs trip and Mammoth, but both Friday and Saturday felt like when she was in Tenerife with Jackson. Could it be he was there and that’s why she texted me from the gym? I recalled how I felt when she was in Spain with him and she was fearful how I might not feel the same when she returned. I never doubted her love for me when she left for Spain with him. She told me it was a business trip and something she had to do for work. She even considered not going at all, but we had only been seeing each other for a few months. It felt the trip was something she committed to before she met me and I didn’t feel threatened by it at all—that was until she texted me from the Canary Island of Tenerife, three days into her trip. I felt she knew Jackson had something planned for her as the trip also coincided with her fifteen-year wedding anniversary. The way those days felt after she told me of her time spent with him in a somewhat romantic place, made me feel she knew it all along. She even told me these trips last longer than planned sometimes, and I knew she cut it short because of the Canary Islands. If she worried, she would lose me because of that trip, then she had to know all along about the detour to the Canary Islands. I guess that was the difference between the way I felt back then and now. Not that I loved her any less, but because I not only loved her more, but an admission I needed her more too. There was nothing I could do after Tenerife, but I knew if she ever went again, that would be my confirmation of betrayal. The most horrific things about this was that I only chose to be in her life because she was betrayed, I had no idea I would be the one betrayed in the end. The thought of that possibility, drove me absolutely crazy, and if I let her go, I’d still feel betrayed because I had no choice to. The only way I could make any sense out of her allowing me and encouraging me to fall so deeply in love with her was because of the infidelities and the gross disrespect he showed her afterwards. If she couldn’t help falling in love with me, then how could she help not to leave him? To me, that’s what created mistrust. All these things added up to something I had a bad feeling about, but my love for her, so deep, is what kept me hoping I was wrong. That she knew if she betrayed me it would be to lie to me about everything she ever said and felt. The reason Jackson allowed her to go to Cabo without a word was because Jackson was more than likely with her. Her silence couldn’t be deciphered any other way in my mind. If he was watching her like a hawk, and he just suspected the other day, how did he trust enough to let her go to Cabo for four days? It would make some sense considering I only heard from her in the morning and at night, the same level of communication the weekend brought. If he was there, she knew it would bother me and lead me to pressure her, so she had no incentive to tell me unless I asked, a very dangerous game she played with my heart and mind. The more I thought about it, the more I believed Jackson was likely with her.

At about eleven that evening, to my surprise, Anya texted me.

ANYA: “Goodnight u! Just waiting for a cab to go back!”

ME: “Are you by yourself?”

ANYA: “No w/all.”

ME: “Ok! Goodnight!”

ANYA: “Goodnight!”

It was nice of her to say “goodnight”, and I cared to know she was okay. In that’s sense, I was glad to hear from her, but other than that it was obligatory. I didn’t want to bug her at all like I did in Mammoth and relied on her to keep in contact. It just seemed each time I texted her, she could care less. Her silence though caused me to lose trust in the trip to Cabo. Would any friends ever stop you from communicating with someone you loved and wanted to be with? You would do whatever it took if you loved someone to talk to them. I knew my friends would never be able to stop or deter me, because I’d never allow them to. I tried to consider both sides of the coin as much as I emotionally could, but the truth was, I didn’t know what to believe—other than what my heart feared may be true.

As she was set to return home on Sunday, Mother’s Day, I swallowed my pride and reached out to her early that Sunday.

ME: “Good morning! Happy Mother’s Day! How r u?”

ANYA: “Good morning! Thank you! Good! We’re just packing up to get outta here! I hear the line at the airport is crazy cuz they’re checking temps!”

ME: “Well, Okay! Be sure to eat before you board! You probably won’t get a chance to eat until you get home. Don’t want to fly on an empty tummy!”

ANYA: “You’re kidding, right? Have you been talking to my mom?”

ME: “Hey, I need somebody to talk to! JK! Have a nice flight home! Let me know when you get in please. Love you.”

ANYA: “Ha! Love you too!”

I felt better to know her Cabo trip was over, so I could just go back to worrying about the façade. I couldn’t tell if her husband was with her or not and I wasn’t going to ask. It could be he wasn’t with them at all, or maybe he came down for just a night? At any rate, it seemed like he wasn’t there because I don’t think the girls would have partied all night if he was in the vicnity. With it being Mother’s Day, maybe she just wanted to ensure she had no drama on this trip and I couldn’t fault her for that especially with the way I thought while she was away. For now, it seemed like trips away with the girls were kinder on my heart and mind than trips away with her husband.

I went to the gym that morning and pulled my back on the squat machine—the only exercise I ever tweaked my back doing. I cut my workout short and hobbled sideways back to my car and up the stairs to my apartment; a rather painful hike. I grabbed an ice pack from my fridge and placed it beneath me as I gingerly brought myself on my bed. After an hour passed, I then made my attempt to spend Mother’s Day with my mother. When I reached her house, my back stiffened up on me when I slowly rose from the car seat. I then felt a sensation of heat and pain shoot up my back as all I could do was lay face down in the grass for the next five minutes until the pain subsided. I then lifted myself up off the lawn and immediately began to itch all over my body—I just had to wear shorts and a sleeveless shirt to her house. As I reached her backdoor, I remembered the gift I got her was still inside the car, and its retrieval took another five more minutes after I could say I officially arrived. I then walked through her open bedroom door, bent over and looking up at her in the corner of my eye upon entry.

“Who do I owe the great honor to be blessed with the presence of Quasimodo on Mother’s Day?” she joked.

“Very funny.” I said as I handed her a DVD. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

“Thank you! Oh my God. Soap?” she asked. “I hadn’t seen this show in years!”

“I remember you used to love that show. Always watching it when I was a kid.” I said. “I saw it and had to get it for you. All four seasons.”

“I can’t wait to watch it!” she announced with excitement and then a hug. “You look like you’re in a lot of pain.”

“I’ve been sitting down in my car for the last forty minutes on the way over here. I just need to loosen it up a bit.”

She then walked over to her dresser, grabbed her bottle of Vicodin and then put several in my hand.

“Take one now.” she said. “It’ll help. Please be careful with the rest.”

I nodded then pointed at a bottle of water on her dresser. “Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead.” She said while I swallowed the pill then brought the bottle to my mouth.

“Are you feeling any better?” I asked.

“I still have a hard time eating.”

“Nausea?” I asked.

“Not really. Just mostly the sores in my mouth.” she said. “I can’t even have a nice salad anymore. Everything burns.”

I nodded in understanding, but I couldn’t have understood how that felt. Food brought great comfort to us all. To look forward to a tasty meal may have been the thing to get a Cancer patient through the days, and she couldn’t even eat a bland salad. My mother always made it seem it was just another silly side effect of the chemo, but eating was a big thing for a Stage Four Cancer patient. If she couldn’t put food down, she would have to go to the hospital to be fed intravenously, and it broke my heart to even think about it. After all she’s been through in her life, here was her reward. With a bad back, Anya’s silence in Cabo over the weekend, and my mother’s inability to find something that helped get her mind off her battle, it really put me in a terrible mood. When the Vicodin took effect, and I started to feel better, I took time to notice how other than her hair loss, my mother looked like herself. Thankfully, she seemed to gain weight, and didn’t look like she lost any.

During my time with my mother, while my father worked at the park, Anya sent me a text to let me know she made it home but she was “beat”. I thanked her for letting me know she made it in safely and wished her a “Happy Mother’s Day”. I couldn’t help but think though; here it was Mother’s Day and she just returned home after she spent the last four days with friends. If that didn’t tell the kids something was wrong with the marriage, I didn’t know what would. If she wanted the kids to feel secure, why would she opt for time away from them near Mother’s Day? Unless Dad was with her, then maybe that’s why they thought nothing of it, but what did they think when she went without him? Although I was hurt by her Houdini act over the weekend at Cabo, it’s on me to find a way to communicate with her to avoid the way I felt. I just had to present it when the time was right, and the time wasn’t as I didn’t want to steal their mother away from them on Mother’s Day.

At about six that evening, I hobbled from my parent’s house and headed back home. My mother watched me the entire time as I struggled to sit inside my car for the ride home. After I did and started my car, my mother waved goodbye from the window in front of the house. I waved back at the bald woman with the wide smile who made a mockery of my bad attitude. After I pulled into my carport forty minutes later, it took twenty-five minutes to get into my apartment—a usual two-minute exercise. I then crawled in agony onto my bed, with my ice pack in tow and let it rest upon the source of my pain for an hour. The entire time, I couldn’t help but think that not only was I a mental train wreck but now a physical one as well. Even though I took another Vicodin and it helped, I still couldn’t sleep through the night as one movement left me wide awake. At about five-thirty that morning, I received a text from my heartbeat.

ANYA: “Good morning! Sorry about last nite. Came home and spent time w/kids then crashed.”

ME: “Good morning! Oh, babe please don’t apologize! I totally understand. I pulled out my back and couldn’t sleep. I’m getting ready for work now. Btw, are you available this week? I’d love to see you if you can.”

I rarely asked to see Anya, but after her weekend in Cabo, and with all this mental and physical pain, I could break down emotionally on her and I didn’t want to pressure her. About an hour later, she responded.

ANYA: “Sorry was walking Suki. 3 Motrin for back. Tons to do this week but maybe Fri for a bit?”

ME: “Ok, I’ll see if Motrin works. Friday is perfect if you can pull it off. Thank you.”

Cabo left me with mixed feelings, although I felt better now she was back, if Jackson allowed her to act like a single person, what incentive did she have to leave her marriage? She could just meet any guy she felt attracted to, tell them of his infidelities and let her version of love fill the gap. Then she could just go back into her marriage and let nature run its course and the cycle continued, over and over. Anya’ love seemed just like a Tank in Tiananmen Square that rolled over good people who genuinely cared for her. The only way it seemed to stop the carnage was to make our relationship known. To not fall away like Lance did and simply go into a treacherous night. My heart was never made available to her unless she left. I even secured that promise in the beginning based on her performance marker. I went all in, and never held my love back from her, even after all the disappointments from my past. I loved her more than anyone I loved before, and I restrained myself sexually only for her own good, not my own. Yet here I was, in a worse spot than ever before. Anya’s mixed feelings only created mixed feelings within me. Either she allowed me to cut the right wire to connect us forever, or we would all blow up defusing this difference we had and forever be disconnected.

Later that day, I texted Anya to see how her day was doing.

ANYA: “Just buried. How’s yours?”

ME: “Sorry to hear that, babe. It’s going good so far. I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. Oh btw, did you call your mom yet? She wanted an update to see how much you ate on the Cabo trip.”

ANYA: “Haha! Thx! Since u talked to my mom u should know she’s worried sick b/c I didn’t get enough to eat. Love u!”

ME: “Haha! That’s a good thing though! More bikini pics for me! Love u too!”

ANYA: “Haha! No bikini pics for a while!”

After a fun text exchange, I realized how much my feelings depended on our communication, or lack thereof. Anya didn’t want me to have negative thoughts “all because” she couldn’t text me sometimes. She then followed that up with “sometimes I can’t and sometimes I don’t want to.”. Could she honestly ask herself how it would make her feel if told her the same thing? I wasn’t a buyer of politics, and I didn’t buy pacification. Honesty was the only currency I dealt with, even if it ripped my heart out. Although it was hard to hear honesty at this point in the game, I’d at least know how to feel. Her silence during Cabo weekend put me out of touch with how I should feel. How she went from romantic feelings at Frida’s on Thursday night to nothing but “goodnight” and “I crashed” on Friday. It started to feel at times she did it on purpose to break me, and if that was the case, she was close to having that become a reality. I would hope at this point, her silence only existed because she was as tired of this contained relationship as much as I was. I felt and knew too many things to continue this way. Her silence was an effort to disconnect and stymie our growth, a control mechanism she used on someone who had nothing but defense systems built in him for years. Each time she fired a missile, I planned to shoot it down. I’ve outgrown my cage because she fed me too much and allowed my love to grow for her, and she couldn’t just stop feeding me. I felt like a puppy who got all the attention but now grew to an old dog who wasn’t adorable because it learned things from its owner that made it lose its puppy-like innocence. It wanted to live in the house now, and not be tied up to a tree with a leash that only dug into its neck forever. The Universe brought me in her life to bring out the beauty in her, and not the ugliness. Who was she to defy the Universe? Who was not to believe in its message to us? From the night we met to the girl at the baseball game, the Universe was on our side from the very first day we laid eyes on each other and I had to make sure these galaxies that collided to destroy her marriage would lead to the construction of something beyond beautiful. If we weren’t meant to be, then nothing could ever be.

I didn’t hear from her that evening and as much as the silence scorched my world, I understood she had a lot on her plate after a weekend in Cabo. It was nothing I could be critical about as she needed to time to get things done so she could see me on Friday, if possible. The next morning, I got a quick obligatory text from her.

ANYA: “Good morning!”

ME: “Good morning!”

When I described her text as “obligatory”, I questioned if that was an unfair thing to say. I just couldn’t determine her motive for it. She was almost damned if she did and damned if she didn’t at times, and that wasn’t fair to her for me to consider her texts “obligatory” but they felt like they were sent simply as means to control my thoughts. I remembered sometimes she couldn’t and sometimes she didn’t want to. Why would she never want to is what worried me. We were too late in the game for anything she texted me not to affect me. Even her silence did, but she built this city, I just lived in it. She couldn’t just turn off the electricity, the heat, and the water completely all because I complained when it wasn’t working. She was the landlord of our relationship, and if she didn’t want the responsibility, she should’ve never told me all she did. She just wanted the fantasy to get her through the day, but denied me the reality to get me through mine. I could tell she was loving me in a different way, and I had to take some responsibility for it. I wasn’t perfectly noble in this, but even when she was in Cabo with her friends, she was as quiet as if she were at home. As much as it hurt, I could understand the silence when she was at home, but I didn’t think it was irrational for me to think that she went to Cabo so she could feel closer with me through the phone without being hawked by Jackson. Nothing on this earth, even if my mother hated her, would stop me from wanting to be close to someone I claimed to miss and love dearly. The weeknights in Cabo, just like her “Good morning” texts now felt like they were meant to manipulate the way I felt. I just didn’t know what to believe. All I knew was that I wanted to believe her. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to trust in her love and tried to put the onus on me for her loving me less than she did. My life now depended on a deeply depressed person to only think positive thoughts.

ANYA: “How r u feeling?”

Another thing I noticed; the old Anya would have asked me how my back was feeling. This new Anya seemed to just remember, and that seemed to tell me I wasn’t on her mind as much as I used to be.

ME: “I’m not walking sideways anymore. Thanks for asking. How r u?”

ANYA: “Busy but good.”

Since she had a busy day ahead of her, I didn’t want to distract her so I didn’t text her back for the rest of the day. I felt if I did, I wouldn’t be able to spend time with her on Friday. Later that evening however, she texted me.

ANYA: “What’s for din din?”

ME: “I made the Truffle Rice.”

ANYA: “R u serious?”

The truffle rice became my favorite thing to eat since my Birthday lunch. I made it at least twice a week, and each time I did, I would play the CD she burned me, and have a glass a wine as if she were next to me. Of course, it was tough to see an empty stool next to me, but it’s the only way I could fight the sadness and loneliness, and it helped. I didn’t want her to know I did this often because it would make her feel bad, I didn’t want her to love me because she felt obligated, but because she loved me.

ME: “Of course! It’s tasting better every time.”

ANYA: “Awww babe that makes me smile.”

ME: “Makes me feel close to you.”

ANYA: “Ur breaking my heart”

Over the last seventeen months, I’ve texted her about the things I did so I could feel close to her. From reading the “Twilight” books with her to watching TV shows to going to “our beach”, and not one time has she ever responded that I was breaking her heart. For a woman who missed and loved me as much as claimed, I expected her to smile or text me “awww”. She even forgot to add a period to the end of her text, and I couldn’t tell if it made her mad, sad or both.

ME: “Why babe? I always do things like that.”

ANYA: “I know, just b/c we’re not together that’s why.”

Did she mean we weren’t together physically or figuratively speaking? If she meant physically, I could feel the sincerity and sweetness behind her text. If she meant figuratively though, why did she visit me while I was on vacation if we weren’t? Just to tell me she didn’t want to share custody and she was scared to jump into a relationship with me right away if she left Jackson? If she didn’t want to share custody was Katie’s letter really the deciding factor? Yet, she also wanted me believe she loved and missed me too? I didn’t know how to interpret her text—the dangers of this type of communication I began to grow weary of. As I turned down the heat on the pan of rice I had on the stove, I went from being hungry just a minute earlier to having an upset stomach.

ME: “Ok, I won’t tell you these things anymore. You do the same things too. Just the other day you went to Wholefoods to feel close to me.”

ANYA: “I do.”

ME: “I still read “Twilight” just to feel close to you too.”

ANYA: “I know.”

When she texted “I do” instead of “I did”, then she had to have meant “physically” rather than together as a couple. She made some things known to me, how she felt at that moment, but she never gave me the impression we weren’t together, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked her to visit me during the week. I doubt she would’ve gone to Wholefoods if she thought we weren’t together as a couple. Was she under the illusion if we weren’t together as a couple that I would just forget about her? She could hold me to every single thing I ever said, texted and did. I truly put my entire heart and soul into loving her and she could never just leave my mind.

One thing I never considered before her silence in Cabo was what if she felt she betrayed her kids by loving me? That she decided to love me less because she felt she betrayed them? For seventeen months, after she led me to believe Lance left her because of them, she could possibly feel she betrayed them by loving someone who honored her, truly respected and loved her? Did Jackson’s abuse bend her mind that much to believe that if she ever left him, she would betray her kids? If she felt that way, how could I not feel absolutely used to fill a void in her life? To say she felt she betrayed her kids, would be an admission that she used me to feel love again. If she felt she betrayed her kids by loving someone who honored her, then she never had plans to ever leave Jackson. This was something she had to know because she stayed with him for years after and during his great disrespect for her. If she felt she betrayed her kids, yet allowed and encouraged me to fall deeply in love with her, who did she really betray? Not only would I feel betrayed because I trusted her to let me know that was why she stayed with Jackson, but she also betrayed herself to even believe she betrayed them by wanting to be respected and loved. Things she should be teaching her kids was important in life since she risked everything to have it! So much so she couldn’t help herself to betray them. She even told me there was a goodness to our love, so how could she ever feel her love for me betrayed them? Especially if she had no regrets? How could she possibly ever look at a man who honored and respected her as an act of betrayal to her kids?

Anya betrayed her kids long before I entered her life. She betrayed them when she hid her true self from them—so much in fact they believed she was unloving. She betrayed her kids when she lied to them about how wonderful their father was to her. She betrayed her kids the day she decorated Andrew’s room with dollar bill wallpaper. She betrayed her kids when she allowed them to have boats and horses as means to hide the truth from them. She betrayed Katie the day she read her letter, and still let her go to bed each night blaming herself for a marriage she threatened to leave for a real reason. She betrayed them when she taught them that money was the only thing with real value in life instead of the importance of having values within. In fact, Anya never betrayed her kids, Jackson did the day he cheated on her. Each time he chose to disrespected their mother. Jackson betrayed her kids, our love did not. Unfortunately, I began to fear that Jackson’s money and the friends it afforded her, was what betrayed her, even twisted her mind enough to believe that loving someone who truly valued her was an act of betrayal against her kids.

I refused to believe she could feel she betrayed her kids, not after all she told me about Jackson and not after seventeen months together. Not after I walked away from her when we first met for five whole months—plenty of time to consider if loving me would equal an act of betrayal against her kids. Jackson’s gross disrespect and dishonor is what betrayed the kids. That betrayal opened the door to love for her, and I would not allow her to believe she betrayed her kids for a second. Jackson betrayed her kids by chipping away her love for him. Our love was too good to betray them. If Anya felt that way, the only person she betrayed was me because of all she told me that allowed and encouraged me to feel this deeply for her. I’ve explained to her how my heart works, over and over, from day one. I didn’t want to drive her nuts with it, but she knew from the time we began that I only allowed myself to fall in love with people who would choose to be with me. If she felt she betrayed her kids, she betrayed me too—it was that simple. If she truly felt she betrayed her kids, then Jackson’s money was more important than love, shattering to pieces all we ever shared together. When a marriage affected the lives of people outside of it, when it should only affect the lives of people within it, that marriage should cease to exist. I would feel violated and emotionally abused if she believed our love represented an act of betrayal against her kids because I walked away from her for five months when we first met and trusted she would never feel that way. Especially when she told me “You broke my heart” when I did. I couldn’t allow her marriage to hurt more people with kind trusting hearts, if it hurt myself and the others before me. I couldn’t believe she would hurt me like that, but her silence and the inconsistent way she loved me, a way that only seemed to serve herself, handed my low self-esteem the wheel—my memory of past failures now catching up to me.

The next day Anya didn’t text me good morning, and for the first time ever in the seventeen-month relationship, I was relieved. If she didn’t have time to care if I was alive, then why bother? It only seemed as fake as her marriage whenever she texted “good morning!” but had plenty of time in her day to go kickboxing.

Later that morning, I texted her because I genuinely cared how she was doing. Unlike her, I couldn’t change the manner in which I loved her, especially if it hurt her or made her wonder.

ANYA: “Hi! Just finished KB! Good just trying to figure out where to start my day. A billion things to do w/no right direction! I guess I’ll start in the middle. How r u?”

ME: “Haha! Well, I hope you can get a few of those billion things done today! You must have a lot of stickies around you at the home office. I’m hanging in there!”

ANYA: “The next few weeks are going to be crazy for me. Dance recital, competition, baseball, all stars, grad week of activities, field trips, parties, grad day prep.”

When she shared all the things she had on her plate, I felt bad I even contacted her. I knew she was legitimately busy and I didn’t want to take her away from it. I knew her kickboxing class was important for her mental well-being, and not only her physical well-being and I didn’t want to discourage that. I missed her to death, and I felt like she should have never allowed me to feel so much for her if I was something that had to be penciled into her life. She seemed to show me every day, that as long as you had money and you could take care of my kids, then you were good enough to be with her. The man that commanded her respect was the one who gave her kids a great life and could buy her friends to have and popularity. The more she texted me, the more she gave me the impression love, and any man who believed in it, were a novelty item. Nice to look at, but not worthy enough to keep around. The only problem I had at this point, was she chose my heart to do that with after I walked away from her. Instead, she told me I broke her heart regardless of all I came to know over the last seventeen months. Here I was; and there she wasn’t.

ME: “OMG! I don’t know how you do it. I’ll let you go so you can get started. Have a nice day!”

ANYA: “I have to go to so many shops for all their needs! I’m spinning! On top of that, Katie goes on a NY trip next week and I will have a house guest for a week!”

Both news items put me in idle but the word “house guest” was what stopped me in my tracks. Why was the word “house guest” so vague? Was this another half-truth she fed me? The truth was she did have a house guest coming, but I feared the specific half of it would hurt me. While at work the entire day, I wondered about the “house guest” and all of the other half-truths she left out there for me to decode—how badly the part she elected not to share would hurt me. I didn’t want to ruin her day with my doubt. She needed to get things done and I didn’t want to interfere. The hard part for me to get past was that much like the holiday plans she made, that whoever the house guest was, she made up her mind to go through with it regardless of how much it would hurt me. Again, the scariest things about Anya, was she felt what people didn’t know, including her kids, could never hurt them. I always believed this was a tool narcissists and liars used to manipulate and control people—the influence Jackson had on her. She told me she protected me, but who’s feelings did she really protect, mine or hers? Her change in the way she loved me left me to feel even the things I didn’t want to feel. I was now sensitive to her silence and words, even those actions and inactions that maybe shouldn’t have bothered me.

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As the day went on, I zeroed in on my work. I rarely talked to anyone at the office anymore, a huge change people had to notice. I usually joked around and stopped by offices and cubicles to see how people were. For the last two months, since Anya’s letter, I never left my office as I tried to deal with all I felt. I lost myself in myself and a lot of the drive Anya gave me was sapped from me as Anya’s love and my mother’s illness stole my soul. Anya didn’t think I understood her situation with the kids, but I wouldn’t have been patient at all if I didn’t try to understand. What Anya didn’t know, and I could never share with her, was how much sleep and mental focus I lost whenever her love was inconsistent with what she told me and shared with me. How much her silence threatened all I built over the last nine years of my life. If I had told her how much I stood to lose, she would have left me, and I wasn’t ready to accept she didn’t truly love me. That her love existed for me only because the relationship was all on her terms and that it was a secret. A love that could be penciled in on a calendar as I learned every single day, that Jackson’s money and the friends it afforded her meant more to her than love did. To learn this seventeen months after I poured my entire being into her, was now also a death sentence. I wasn’t ready to die yet while I stood on the edge of heaven. I had to give her a chance to prove me entirely wrong; my life depended on it. I just wasn’t ready to believe she could betray the only man who ever honored her for anyone’s sake. I wasn’t ready to believe she betrayed me. I couldn’t deny along the way, I lost Landyn, but only Anya’s love could make me whole again, and resurrect the spirit within me. As these thoughts penetrated my mind, it seemed the Universe heard me.

ANYA: “Thinking of u”

These texts nowadays were far and few between, but I valued them the same as when we first started dating. These were the ones that lacked an obligation and only carried a feeling. When I didn’t see a period at the end, it carried even more meaning as it connected me to her. As much as I questioned her intentions and love, whenever I interpreted emotions in her texts, it made me feel extremely foolish, but it’s what I wanted her to do. I couldn’t have miscalculated her love like this. If I was in my twenties, it could happen, but not as I neared my forties. She didn’t realize how much of an emotional stranglehold she had on me. She couldn’t tie me up to a tree with a rusted chain that would only cut through my neck. I wasn’t the dog, her husband was.

ME: “Always thinking of u.”

Every feeling I ever communicated to Anya was truly heartfelt. They were more real than anything, and that’s why they hurt me when they went unreturned, or deleted, or were lost in cyberspace. It seemed I didn’t know to reach her when she disconnected my heart and soul from hers with silence or any other tactic she used. Every chance she gave me though, I would try everything I could to reignite it.

ANYA: “I love you.”

ME: “I love you too.”

Her love left me for dead at times and then brought me right back to life. Did couples who considered themselves “not together” ever tell each other “I love you”? Her texts only warmed my heart and not one time led me to believe we were not together. Of course, our love would be perfect if she was next to me, but fear kept her from me, regardless of the purple heart she earned over the last seventeen months. She knew how much I loved her, and she knew there was no other woman I wanted to be with—a security I didn’t have. It’s why I wondered more than she did. I didn’t want her to wonder though—I wanted her to feel secure in my love and that told me I did my job. A job that wasn’t supposed to be mine—one assigned and taken on by someone way before I arrived on the scene.

The Anya I knew and loved. The Anya that encouraged and allowed me to be in her life, was the most special woman on this earth. When she made the choice to love me, those times she did it so naturally, she understood what most women didn’t. When I felt her love, Anya showed she understood what mattered most in life and it made my love for her grow. The need to make sure she would never be disrespected again under my watch and her heart would be well taken care of. I couldn’t leave her fate in Jackson’s hands. He failed her many times before and he was certain to do it again now with more temptation before him if he got elected. Although I felt it each passing hour, I didn’t realize the tenacity of the fight that brewed within. The battle between the Anya who understood love and the Anya who believed it to be irrational. After seventeen months together, and five months spent apart with a broken heart because I walked away from her, there was no way I’d accept she betrayed her kids by loving me. Especially not after the way she loved me over the last seventeen months and it’s what led to the end of us, I would take my battle to the true betrayer of her kids—Jackson Caiaphas.

An hour later, my phone vibrated upon my desk as its red light tried to grab my attention.

ANYA: “How’s your back?

ME: “All better! I’m walking upright like a homo sapien again!”

Her texts on this particular day left me with great feelings as the Anya I knew and loved returned. For the first time it what seemed like forever, she even texted me “I love you” and there wasn’t one obligatory feeling I felt about it. My only concern was with the “house guest” she invited over as I hoped her return was not a act of playing politics with my heart. As much as that concern existed, my heart needed to feel her love and overruled my mind’s question of it.

When the next morning, a Thursday, arrived, I texted her when I didn’t receive one.

ANYA: “Good! Yes, waiting to go in soon! How r u? Still on tomorrow? What time?”

ME: “I’m good! Yes! Can you come by at noon?”

ANYA: “Yes!”

There was an excitement from her I hadn’t felt in a while. If the “house guest” was the reason for her return to love, she would have texted in the morning to stay on the side of me that didn’t pressure her. Her excitement felt like we were at the height of our love, and after seventeen months, it relieved me to know she felt the same way I did. Her texts, I perceived to not be made out of obligation or sympathy, inspired me to send uninitiated texts to her of my own.

ME: “I miss you.”

ANYA: “I miss you too! Less than 24hrs!”

When I read “Less than 24hrs!”, I knew we were back on the same page. A woman who felt she betrayed her kids, would’ve never sent me that. Only a woman who knew the value and the goodness of our love would. This was love, not a lust that would leave her kids in pain if she left him.

ME: “This will be the longest 23 hours and 42 minutes of my life! Please forgive me for being so excited! I hope I don’t pull out my back again!”

ANYA: “Ha ha! I’m excited too! Be careful there!”

ME: “I was thinking about going to the gym. Bad idea?”

ANYA: “Yes rest up. Just watch Grey’s Anatomy tonight!”

ME: “Grey’s Anatomy? Babe, I’ve never seen one episode.”

ANYA: “Doesn’t matter. Finale, going to be good!”

Her love brought a euphoric feeling in me no drug could rival. I found it sweet she didn’t want me to go to the gym. I found it funny she wanted me to pick up watching Grey’s Anatomy at the finale of only God knows what season. I also learned the real reason why she wanted me to start at the Finale; so, I could feel closer to her. Much like the truffle rice I made the other night. Two hours later, Anya sent me a text.

When nine rolled around, I started to watch Grey’s Anatomy—certain she did the same. I got lost in imagination though, as I pictured Anya and I together in our master bedroom with a large big screen TV upon the wall watching all the shows we liked. Of course, my colorful commentary filled the air, and in the middle of the show we couldn’t keep ourselves away from each other and had to TiVo it anyway. At the same time my imagination ran away from me and I tried to catch up on the episode that played out before me, Anya sent me a text.

ANYA: “How’s the show? Just picking up from baseball and still have to feed Andrew when I get home. Don’t know if I’ll get to see it. So tired! Gotta love TiVo!”

ME: “It’s pretty good so far! The only character I know is that McSteamy dude from the movie “Can’t Buy Me Love”. Trying to follow along! Hope you get time to see some of it.”

ANYA: “Ha! We’ll c. Been up since 4. Pretty tired.”

It always astonished me how Anya could wake up at four in the morning and could go until ten each night. I usually woke up at six and was ready for bed when I returned home from work – at six. Overall, this was a good day for us to build from, although her “house guest” brought with it some measure of concern for me. Compared to how I feared if she felt our love was a betrayal of her kids, a question her love answered to prove as baseless, I didn’t want to waste my time wondering about a likely insignificant house guest.

The next morning, her forty-fifth visit to my one-bedroom apartment, I texted her first to see what she thought of the Grey’s Anatomy finale.

ANYA: “OMG! Did u watch the whole thing? I stayed up till midnight to watch it! Can’t believe they ended it that way! Did u notice Greg Laswell’s music at the end?”

ME: “I watched the whole thing but I didn’t know the characters well enough I think to appreciate it. I did hear Greg’s music at the end though!”

Anya met Greg Laswell, a musician, at her son’s school’s principal retirement party months ago. I remembered the candid, almost personal, conversation they had and it reminded me of the way she must have talked with Lance, another musician but one she dated while married. I felt confident in her love for me back then when she told me about her conversation with Greg, but now, I didn’t feel nearly as secure. I wondered how he felt comfortable enough to ask her if she ever missed someone really badly—and when she told him she knew that pain. His question just seemed like one you would ask a person who made themselves available alone with you or did her neighborhood reputation just precede her since her friends were with her also? I always had some strange feeling about that conversation they had as it came at the same time she got back from New York with Katie. After I had just poured my heart to her with my “All I Know” texts.

I felt Anya loved me. I felt she truly cared about me, but I now felt her form of love was not on the same page as mine. If she could give me up so easily, regardless of her kids, there could be no chance she loved me the same way I loved her. What reason did she have to leave her marriage when she could talk to Greg Laswell, have a brief relationship with Lance the romantic singer, and a full-blown relationship with me? A marriage that gave her that plus a nice home, a nanny, and even a wage-earning job? I wanted to talk about these things when she visited. I wanted to see what she thought about our forms of love, and how they differed, but when she sent her “Here” text to me, and I saw her beautiful sun-kissed face ten minutes early. When I felt her soft hand in mine—how the air smelled so good when she brushed against me, to hear her laughter fill me with both confidence and happiness, and why my day was so dramatically better with her next to me, I knew I’d be unable to discuss anything that threatened to take all of that beauty away. All I could do was pray she didn’t bring me news that would bring forth the pain inside of me.

For two solid hours, her and I displayed our affection for each other—like it was the first night we met. Her visit seemed to carry bits and pieces of every visit she ever made to my place. I got lost in the simplicity of her beauty as she laid face up with her dark hair strewn royally upon a white pillow. She laid there with my necklace on her breastplate, and with her arms lying just above her head—a pose that told me she was mine for the taking. As I hovered above to kiss her neck, I felt my bone graze her leg—a moment that grounded me back to reality. I wondered if she could feel it, but when she kept her eyes closed, it annoyed me that it threatened the moment after so many years after Denise. When she sensed something may have been wrong, she put her hands along my shoulders and moaned with pleasure. Anya showed affection the same way I did; unselfishly, as we both wanted the other to feel really good before we allowed ourselves to. I then brought my body back above hers and drove my lips deeply into hers to ensure we shared the air between us. She then stopped to trace her hands along my back, and they even made their way towards my buttocks. I then thrusted my pelvis slowly into her as she gave an uncontrollable moan.

I had the woman I loved more than life itself before me and when she I brought my chest down upon her breasts, her skin within mine nearly left me in tears. I wanted to love her the way I wanted to. I wanted to lose myself in her love. I wanted to love her like I always dreamed I’d love someone. Not one single time we made love did I not wish I could have a child with her. Every time I looked into her eyes, I wanted something that would make her a part of me forever. To bring her into a situation where she had to promise to leave. As I pushed her legs outward, she moaned without resistance. Each time I found myself with her in this spot, I wanted to get finish inside of her. To show her that the love she experienced with Jackson wasn’t love at all. She never told me, but I believed Jackson cheated on her while she was pregnant with Andrew because the pregnancy didn’t put her in the mood for sex. A thirty-year old man who dated a teenager cared more about his manhood than he did about her feelings. I knew if I had a baby with her, I would easily be able to prove what love was to her. I loved the closeness we shared at these moments, but if she wasn’t feeling well, or wasn’t up for it, I would never take it personally enough to find someone else to make love to. That must have destroyed her inside and I’m sure Anya blamed herself, but it didn’t matter because Jackson loved himself more than he loved her. If she didn’t give him what he wanted, to hell with her. Maybe that’s why Anya’s love existed on her terms with me—in fear I’d do the same thing Jackson did. The only way it seemed I could prove myself that I was nothing like him, that I loved her more than life itself, was to have a child together and show her how easy it was to remain faithful to her. How could he be concerned with sex while she battled morning sickness? If he put on twenty-five pounds would he have felt sexy? Confidence was the lifeblood of arousal. In his sick head, Jackson reasoned if he cheated with a married woman and Anya found out, she would feel his mistress was unavailable anyway. There was manipulation in that though, a lesson to never deny sex to Jackson or else he would use his money and influence to get what he wanted. Now, fifteen years later Anya dealt with it at her son’s baseball games.

For the first time I thought of getting her pregnant. If she thought Jackson was like most men, then how could I ever prove her wrong unless I got her pregnant? She said she dreamt of having a child with me. She did absolutely nothing to stop me from loving her. Why not let love sort it out the way it was meant to be? She never asked me to use a condom and the look in her eyes saying “please, just love me” said all I needed to know about what Jackson had put her heart through over the years. It the reason why I chose to love and to trust her as deeply as I did. As badly as I wanted to love her the way no man has ever loved her before, there was one problem—I truly loved her. It would only give her kids a reason to hate her, and I didn’t want to give Jackson that power. It just wouldn’t have been the right thing to do as the very thought of it showed how desperate I became. When I didn’t follow through and held back, she looked at me with all the trust and love in the world in her eyes.

“I don’t want you to go inside me. I just want to feel you here.” she said.

“Okay.” I said as I fed her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you.” she whispered, softly moaning again.

As we loved each other, I felt bad to question her form of love for me, but I never expected her love to breed so much loneliness within. At times I felt, she loved me the way Jackson chose to love her, and she knew I didn’t believe that was love. I didn’t know what else I needed to do to prove my love was real and to secure a promise other than to get her pregnant. It would just set a bad example and it would make our love wrong. I didn’t want to ruin the moment we just shared but I needed to clear my conscience. This moment was one of a lifetime and I knew it, but I wanted to be with her forever in a manner that respected her and those who loved her. I remembered how little I saw of her last summer, and this summer appeared to shape up the same way. It tore me to shreds to not know when I’d see her again. My heart wasn’t built to love so deeply to only be led to loneliness. I didn’t know how to explain this to her because I couldn’t explain it myself. I just didn’t want to see her leave anymore. My heart couldn’t take it. I could have truffle rice every night of my life, but what did it all mean if I could never have her? How could feeling close to her leave me forever alone? It broke my heart to feel the negative things I did. The form of love I gave her and that she gave me meant the world to her, but it was easting me alive. I never wanted nor ever intended to pressure her, but if she truly wanted to be with me and had plans to, should it ever feel like pressure to her? My thoughts overwhelmed me at times to the point I began to live my own lie. As I held her in my arms, and fought back time so I could hold her longer, I felt a desperation like no other as I knew the minute she left, would be the exact minute I’d start to die all over again.

About a half hour after she was free from my left arm that always pulled her back, I texted to see if she made it home safely.

ANYA: “Just got home! I had a great time too! I like it when we are at peace!”

ME: “I like being at peace too, babe. I loved having you back in my arms.”

ANYA: “I could have fallen asleep for hours in your arms.”

After our textchange, I rolled off my bed and it felt like I passed through ghosts as I found it hard to believe just minutes earlier my room was so full of life. I thought about all the hours her and I spent on my bed together and how much time seemed to stand still. How many candles I burned, and how many times my ears heard “I love you forever” from her very lips. How many traces of her hair I found afterwards, and how many breaths we took in from each other. I stared at my untidy bed and it never looked more right as I blew out the candles that still burned, in denial she had the strength to leave it behind.

As I walked into my living room, every where I went was a memory of her. Some bad, but even those bad times were perfect and only brought us closer to our fall. This was the first time though after the moment she left that I just didn’t want to feel the loneliness anymore. I didn’t want to rely on a rice dish to make me feel whole. I didn’t want to feel as if she chose Jackson over me, and that’s what it began to feel like. That she chose a philanderer. A man who dishonored her, and loved himself more than he could ever dare to love her. A man who mocked her, abused her and betrayed not only her, but her kids. How could every single one of my relationships end up the same? It had to end differently this time around. A person who loved me couldn’t leave me alone just like the ones who never did. I expected Denise to break my heart, but not Anya. Not the one who claimed I had broken her heart by walking away from her. People would say Anya stood to lose more than I did, but my problem with that was, she never made me aware of that before she told me I broke her heart. She allowed and encouraged me to mend it and I did, and that couldn’t be an argument. After she told me I broke her heart, she had no right to tell me mothers made sacrifices for kids, or that she didn’t want to share custody, or she didn’t want to jump into anything if she were to leave, or she feared she would lose seventy five percent of her friends, or “I love you forever”. She told me I broke her heart and if those things were true, there’s no way her heart could’ve ever been broken, only her ego. If she didn’t know the difference between her heart and her ego, how was she any different from the man she married?

At about six that evening I sent her a text to tell her I missed her.

ANYA: “At Bunko. Miss u too.”

“At Bunko” left me to feel more alone—she never told me about a Bunko party that evening during her visit. Although that was the last time I’d hear from her that evening, I tried to remember the love we shared earlier in a desperate attempt to etch away her mostly silent weekend in Cabo from my memory. It didn’t seem that long ago when even a Bunko party never stopped her from telling me “I miss you” and “I loved today”. The end of a miracle must be near.

When Saturday morning arrived, Anya sent me a text.

ANYA: “Good morning!”

ME: “Good morning! How’s your day looking?”

ANYA: “Full day for me! Running around w/kids getting ready for next week and end of year grad stuff. Baseball in the afternoon and then baseball pool party tonite.”

Anya never really asked me how I was anymore—likely out of fear. What would be her incentive to if she feared we wouldn’t be at peace? Her “good morning” felt like she just hoped she make it out alive as it seemed she continued to walk on eggshells around me. If anything, it only proved she didn’t want to lose me, and what we had—a love on her terms. I knew she didn’t want me to chip more of her away, but she seemed to think I had complete control over what I perceived and then felt. If she changed the way she loved me, my perception would be she didn’t love me as much anymore. She only loved me when she could control me emotionally. How could she allow me to feel so much, then try to control all I felt? I never expected her to not know if she could be with me if she shared all of herself with me, even her kids, that made me feel nothing less than special and loved. I knew this wouldn’t be easy on her, but at the same time, I trusted it would not be an issue after she allowed me to feel so much for her. It surprised me to hear of the “baseball pool party” as I wondered if she hosted it, and if so, did she bury the hatchet with that woman at the games? She couldn’t exclude that boy from Andrew’s party, right? It seemed to me something happened that made it no longer an issue, which would go hand in hand with her suddenly not wanting to share custody and wanting to see if she wanted to date me if she were to leave her husband. It would also explain the silence during her Cabo weekend. I just didn’t feel the love like I used to, and the more she pulled away, the more it felt she played a game with my emotions. I wanted to ask her about the woman at the games, but decided with all the stress in her life at the moment, I decided to let her tell me on her own.

Later that afternoon, Anya sent me a text. One of those that caught me off guard.

ANYA: “It was nice to see u yesterday. I always feel like you’re holding back. True?”

ME: “It was nice to see you too. Holding back? How so, babe?”

ANYA: “In bed”

Her text caught me by complete surprise. I could understand how she felt that way, because a part of me did. I amazed myself each time I held myself back because I wanted to love her like no man ever had before, but losing control would have hurt her. I held back not for myself but only because I loved her. We had a pregnancy scare and she made it clear she played with fire. Once inside of her, I’d never be able to stop myself, and a part of me wanted to get her pregnant, but I knew that would hurt Anya and her kids more than anything. I held back mostly because I knew I couldn’t once I went to the place that loved her so damn much. To not be able to have her in my arms, or know when I’d see her again, would only cause me to pressure her. She even told me she didn’t want me to go inside of her, so how could it bother her if I held back or not? I hope this wasn’t a question of my love for her because I never wanted to hold back. I wondered why she would ask me such a thing after she told me she didn’t want to lose custody of her kids and she needed some time to think us over if she left her husband? Would she have not held back a little if the shoes were on the other foot? Did she think it was easy for me? The truth was, I’d do anything for her and I wouldn’t get so upset about things at times if I didn’t love her. There was also one other reason I held back. The reason that left my heart in the dust with Denise. Maybe the time arrived to test her love for me? To show her the extra bone on my leg?

ME: “I get a little scared sometimes, babe.”

ANYA: “Why scared?”

ME: “Nothing about you scares me babe. It’s something else that holds me back. Can I tell you about it in person tomorrow? Can you get away for a little bit?”

ANYA: “Don’t know if I can get away tom.”

ME: “Ok, babe. If you can, let me know. I won’t take too much of your time.”

ANYA: “R these things about sex?”

ME: “Not at all.”

ANYA: “Then what?”

ME: “I need to tell you this in person.”

ANYA: “Why don’t u tell me things when I see you?”

This text came from the Anya I didn’t know. Did she not understand if she had told me she feels like I hold back yesterday, I would’ve told her “things” when I saw her? I had to understand she reacted this way though because it was so hard for her to get away these days with so much going on in the upcoming weeks. The Anya I knew though, wouldn’t have wasted a minute to tell me, “Okay I’ll see what I can do. I miss you.” Another reason I held back now.

ME: “Babe, it’s not easy to break away from what we shared yesterday to talk about it. If you can’t make time tomorrow don’t worry! I can tell you the next time you visit. You feel like something is holding me back and I feel I owe you an explanation in person and not over a text. It’s something I’d like to show you, not just merely talk to you about.”

ANYA: “Now I’m curious about what it is that u want to talk to me about.”

ME: “I wanted to apologize to you too.”

ANYA: “For?”

Her “For” response surprised me as it seemed she forgave me for my past mistakes, almost as if I never chipped a piece of her away.

ME: “For the way my emotions have gotten the best of me at times. I feel I owe you an explanation why they do.”

ANYA: “Have u noticed a difference in my way of loving you? More guarded?”

ME: “Yes, and I’m sorry that you feel you need to be guarded. Babe, you know I don’t want you to feel that way.”

ANYA: “Can’t help it.”

Or maybe her “for” meant no apology could change the way she guarded herself now. I didn’t think her “guarded” stance inspired honesty, and was even done more to hide things that would hurt me. I needed her to crack those eggshells into pieces and that our love deserved the truth even if it ripped my heart out of my chest. If she needed me to move on, she needed to be honest about why I had to, and I had the right to feel she didn’t love me the way she led me to believe, and she was less than an honest person. I know she loved me, but I wasn’t Katie or Andrew. Her love for me had to be just as great but different. I didn’t want her protection because without the truth that should come along with it, it could never serve anyone but herself.

Anya left our electronic exchange with the feeling she would try to meet me the following day and would let me know in the morning. As the day turned into night, I sent her a text to tell her I hoped she had a good day.

ANYA: “Hope u did 2. Baseball party now. They’re in 1st place and now going onto championship so they are celebrating. Miss u 2. Goodnight. Oh, possibly 1sh tomorrow. I’ll know for sure in the morning. Ok w/u?”

ME: “Sounds great babe! Thank you! Goodnight! I love u.”

ANYA: “K goodnight. I love u.”

I felt Anya questioned my love when she wondered if I was “holding back” and what better way to show her who truly loved who in person. This just had to be done in person as I laid a lot on the line with her. I’d also be able to tackle one of my greatest low self esteem issues. I didn’t want my issues with Denise to affect her so I had to clear the air—to let her know she wasn’t the reason I held back. For all I knew, she may have had some low self-esteem issues as well and that’s where her question came from, but nothing could have been more ridiculous.

The next morning, as promised, she texted me.

ANYA: “Morning! 2:45? Sorry best I can do.”

ME: “Morning! Now worries! I appreciate it babe! See u then! Thank you!”

ANYA: “K see u then! Good Morning Cafe, Right?”

ME: “Yes! See u then!”

The confidence I felt the night prior was now replaced by sheer nervousness when I imagined my past could now come back to haunt me. I then remembered how those nights spent with Denise on the cruise never meant a thing to her. How she used my interest in her as a way to unwind on a business trip. I tried to make the nights romantic for her too because I wanted them to mean something to her. I wanted her to know she wasn’t just a fling to me. I may not have loved her quite yet, but I cared for her and respected her enough to. Those nights I spent with her wasn’t something I just did with other women. I had to see something special enough in her to be able to experience what we did. In the end, I guess it was all too unreal for her—too good to be true even though I really wanted to be with her. I could still hear her voice in her hotel room and her words “What’s that” as she pointed to my leg. As low as my self-esteem was at that time, I still thought nothing of it. Even treated it as a chance to get closer to her—an opportunity for her to tell me she loved me. All my efforts went to waste however when she treated me like I had an STD and tried to hide it away from her. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to fall for anyone if I thought it would change someone’s feelings for me. The truth was, the growth was small and insignificant. I could get it removed tomorrow if I wanted to, but I had too much pride about it. I got tired of moving my leg away from Anya in fear I’d be transported in time; to hear “What’s that” again. I saw this as yet another opportunity to see if I could trust Anya’s form of love—if she truly loved me. Of course, it wasn’t the main reason I held back, and just one of the reasons. I never held back because I wasn’t attracted to her. It was quite the opposite; I was so attracted to her I wanted my kids to have her features. I decided to come clean about the small bone on my leg simply because I wanted her to know when I held back that it had nothing to do with her. That she was perfect in every physical sense of the word to me. I hoped this would make her feel less self-conscious about it. To know I wasn’t perfect, and if she ever thought I was, here’s her proof.

I was always fifteen minutes early to our meeting spot at the café just in case she got there early and I had a chance to spend some extra time with her. I also went inside to buy our respective teas so we could set off for our spot right when she arrived. Our time together was a precious commodity these days and I didn’t want to waste any of it waiting in line for a drink. When she arrived and parked next to me, before she exited I wondered like I always did—how beautiful would she look today? When I saw she wore a loose purple blouse with a pair of tight white pants, before her bare tanned feet hit the pavement, I wished we were meeting at my apartment instead. Each time she took off her clothes I couldn’t wait to feel her soft cool skin against mine. It honestly was an act of a much higher power that gave me the strength to hold back and nothing short of miraculous I’ve done it for as long as I have. When she entered my car, her smile gave me the feeling the world couldn’t have been more right. She then brought her lips to mine, and her freshly shampooed hair instantly aroused me as I ran my right hand along the inside of her hips. She breathed deeply as I kissed her, and when I pulled away her eyes were still closed—her lips still slightly open. She then opened her eyes and when she saw her Grande Unsweetened Passion Fruit Iced Tea in my cup holder, she thanked me profusely. She always made it known how much she appreciated my simple gestures that led me to believe that even in their courting days, Jackson never did something that thoughtful for her. As she sipped from her drink, I drove us to Cascade Park with my left hand on the wheel and my right hand holding hers. When we arrived at our destination, I turned to her, her hand still in mine, and got sidetracked—lost in her eyes. A look of concern was reflected back at me as she looked down and then back into mine.

“Thanks for coming.” I said.

“What is it you want to tell me?” She said. “I’ve been dying to know.”

“Forgive me if this sounds a little strange to you, but this has been on my mind since we met.” I revealed nervously. “To be honest, it’s probably unnecessary at this point because we’ve been intimate so many times now.”

“Okay.” She said as confusion seemed to fill her face as she gripped my hand tighter.

“I want you to know that whenever I “hold back” it has absolutely nothing to do with my attraction for you. Holding back from loving you is the hardest thing to do. I want to love you without restraint, and I’m not going to lie—I want a child with you.” I said, momentarily looking away then back at her. “The reason I hold back is because it’s the wrong way to have one. I hold back because I love you, and has nothing to do with not being attracted to you. As much as anything or anyone on this planet can love someone, I love you even more.”

“Aww babe.” She pined, as tears filled her eyes. “Thank you.”

“The reason I asked you to see me is because I wanted to show you something.” I continued.

“What is it?”

With her hand already in mine, I put it near my shin and on the inside of my right bare leg. I then moved her hand in a circular motion across the same bone growth that scared Denise.

“Can you feel that?” I wondered fearfully.

“Feel what?” She asked. “The bone?”

“Yes, that bone right there. Did you notice anything different about it?”

“Let me feel it again.” she said as she ran her hand across it on her own a few times. “Is this what you’re referring to? The bump right here?”

“That’s it, right there.” I said. “It’s an extra bone on my leg.”

“Really? Let me feel again.”

I let her feel it a few times, as I prepared my explanation—the defense I should have used when Denise asked about it.

“Are you serious?” She replied.

“Serious about what?”

“Is this what you had me come out here for? Just to feel an extra bone on your leg?”

“I told you it might sound strange, but I needed to get this off my chest. If there’s anyone here who isn’t perfect, it’s me, babe.” I answered. “It’s something I wanted you to see and feel.”

“This? This bothered you?” She asked, incredulously.

“It never bothered me until it bothered my last girlfriend enough to leave me.” I said. “I have purposely kept my leg away from your body when we’re in bed together because of it, and I didn’t want to lie to you about it. If it made her change her mind about me, then you deserve the same opportunity.”

“You’ve held onto this for a year and a half?” She smiled.

As I nodded in response, she kept her hand on my bone growth and then began to massage it.

“I think that if she left you because of this, she wasn’t in love.” She said with the sincerest look of concern in her eyes—as if Denise had left me just yesterday.

“I know that…now.” I replied, feeling foolish. “It’s crazy how at the time I wouldn’t have been able to hear that from anyone, but coming from the person who made me realize I never loved her either—that I just thought I did, it means the world to me.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m dismissing what you’ve shared with me. It’s real to you and I totally appreciate it.” She said. “I’m just trying to tell you—I love you no matter what.”

As her hand remained on my leg, I brought her face to mine to kiss the woman who took away over seven years of doubt and pain. After Denise left me, I thought I would never find love—that my dream was officially dead. I realized at this moment, all I fought for both of us to have was the reason why I asked her to meet me today. I needed to believe she truly loved me, and that true love did exist. And if Anya were to leave me, just like Denise did, it couldn’t have been true love. As insignificant as it seemed to Anya, I risked everything today just hoping to believe what we had was true love, I risked it all with this one action she deemed to be silly, and it gave me another reason to hold on and to fight for the true love I always believed in. As I slowly and reluctantly broke away from her lips, I had a few more words to say.

“Well, I kinda already knew you loved me with a couple of wooden legs.” I said. “I just didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”

She smiled and then brought her lips down to kiss my bone.

“Sweet loving kisses for your “extra” bone.” she said as her eyes aligned themselves back within my own watery ones. “Another part of you to love.”

My mother used to tell me for years that the extra bone on my leg wouldn’t matter to someone who truly loved me—and I never believed her. Anya’s love had a healing power I never knew existed when her kiss did something a surgeon never could. She not only took away seven years of doubt, but also proved my mother to be prophetic.

“What you just did, babe.” I said as I fought back tears. “Was something I thought I’d only be able to dream of. For seven years, I subconsciously let this imperfection prevent me from getting close to people—afraid it might turn them off. Although now I feel pretty damn embarrassed by asking you to come see me, I’m glad I did.”

“I’m glad you shared and got it off your chest. Don’t be embarrassed. I love you and it doesn’t bother me at all.”

“I’m relieved…and just when I thought I couldn’t love you more.”

“I think it took a lot of you to open up to me. And I’m touched. Thank you for telling me.” she said, her eyes falling sincerely into mine. “You should know me by now—I love all of you.”

“I just didn’t want you to think I’m perfect.” I said. “Far, far from.”

“Remember I’m a nurse and have seen a lot. Not impressed by much. If you told me you had a third eye in the back of your head that would impress me!”

“Oh, that reminds me.” I laughed while moving my hands frantically behind my head in search of a third eye. “I know it’s around here somewhere. Hard to find that little bastard sometimes. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to show it to you another time.”

“I’m not perfect!” she laughed.

“In my eyes you are, babe.” I said.

“You are in my eyes, too.” she said, her eyes filling up with moisture like mine.

I put her face in my hands and put her soft cheek to mine. Sometimes, I just loved to feel her face against my own. I then put my lips to hers, inhaling her fully before kissing her. The sincerity in Anya’s eyes as she spoke to me, and the way she turned her body to face me, with her legs under her on my car seat, made the blood race through my veins. I never felt more alive, and more in love with life or with anything else. With her by my side, it was easy to remember all the beauty we shared together. From the time she asked me if I would fight for her to the exact moment I arrived in Laguna Beach—her perfect beauty before me. The night it rained and we retreated to her car to make out to the sound of rain drops on her windshield and to the way I felt when I drove home on that same rainy night listening to the CD she burned for me. Her four in the morning visit when she walked past me, her pony tail bouncing behind her anxiously—the best morning of my life. Our three mini dates on a usually lonely Saturday for me to the time she came to my apartment in tears because she felt she had to break up with me because of her summer plans, and not because she didn’t love me. To the way the sun failed to outshine her on our beach to the moment she showed up at my room’s door in San Diego, a bottle of wine in tow. The time she visited me with a rice dish I’d taste forever and the happiness in her eyes and a smile that left me speechless whenever she proudly showed me the necklace I gave her. If we’re lucky, we may get to experience the elation each of those moments brought me one time in a lifetime, but someone must have loved us from up there—they must’ve loved us very much and knew our pain. Now, I had this moment to hold onto forever—when she kissed the bone on my leg, a burden beyond burdensome for the last seven years, was just another instance of her perfection, and why she was so beautiful in my eyes.

As she sat in my car with so much love in her eyes for me, a love she allowed me to feel like never before on this day. I felt so sad I ever questioned it. After the things I said that left her unsettled, she forgave me enough to meet me on a Sunday—an extremely difficult day for her to get away with her kids and Jackson at home. She did it with a smile on her face and all the love in the world for me in her heart. She kept my dream that she would leave Jackson alive and my dream of true love alive—why she was beyond the woman of my dreams and why I fought so hard inside myself. I would say that even my dream woman would’ve never shown up today. On the day I planned to reveal my greatest physical flaw, Anya appeared before me flawless.

“I know I’ve made you feel uneasy babe, but I’m really tryin’ to make it to where you don’t have to walk on eggshells anymore.” I said. “I struggle because I don’t know what goes on at home, and I miss you so much. I let my mind wander when I don’t hear from you and it gets the best of me, but I’m working on it. It’s not fair for you to feel you have to love me differently.”

“What do you think goes on at home between him and I?” she asked with genuine concern.

“Other than what I’ve told you. Other than what you’ve told me.” I explained. “I wouldn’t know what else to wonder about beyond that.”

“We’re not a couple.” she said, her eyes within mine.

“As contradictive as this sounds, in a way, that makes me feel bad to hear. For a wife to say such a thing, it’s just so sad.” I replied. “You’re just too beautiful inside and out for that. You’re the last person in the world who should ever feel that way. It’s why I fight so hard for you. Everything that makes you so beautiful, is going to waste.”

“I’ve always told you the truth. We’re just not a couple, Landyn. I live day to day—just waiting to sleep it off so I can do it all over again the next day.” She said. “I’m afraid I’m always going to be guarded with you now.”

“I respect that.” I nodded, agreeing it was my fault. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She said as she moved her lips into mine.

The “extra” bone was a subconscious source of low self-esteem for the last seven years, but Anya’s reaction released me of the torment I felt from it, and brought me back to the same sense of peace I had before I met Denise. She kept my belief in our love alive and this could only help me understand her situation more. I knew my missing would only become greater, but at least the love Anya showed me today would not only revitalize my positive thoughts, but also our relationship, our friendship, and all the other things that made us soulmates.

Unknown to us though there was a monster that still lurked in the darkness. An entity that worked in the shadows that only looked to break me down, and to destroy the love we found in each other. Along with my belief in true love.