A Toast to Starry Nights (10 page)

In a blink, the memory of that period in
my life passed and I relaxed enough to take a deep-cleansing breath.

“He apologized to me, blamed the
alcohol. Tried to start a new chapter with him, but that didn't last long.
Things started sucking really bad with Mike. There were a couple of times I
ended up crying during sex, and it didn't even make him slow down.“ I don't
have to tell him all this, I reminded myself. I answered back, yes I do. I
didn't have to tell Neilsinhaur about the damage incurred that got stitched up,
however.

“I left him and moved in with my mother.
Then the hands-down first place winner of the Ultimate Asshole award goes for
this entry: found out I was pregnant soon after I moved out – but I was on the
birth control ring, so it was a double whammy. Told Mike, felt he had a right
to know. He ended up throwing a table fan at the wall and demanded I get an
abortion. If I didn't, he'd take that baby away from me. Put it up for
adoption. 'If you don't, I will'. That's exact verbatim.” I heaved a deep sigh.
It hurt to my toenails to remember. “I ended up having a miscarriage. That
solved that.”

I didn't mention the punch to the gut,
nor when Mike slammed me against the wall for having the audacity to tell him
he was a bastard for his fan-throwing temper tantrum. It had been the first
time I raised my voice against Mike. Losing control of myself and that
situation still bothers me. For being as intelligent as I thought I was, I felt
stupid for putting myself in that position. I should have listened to Willow
when she told me it wasn't the best course of action... I owed him nothing. He
was worthy of Nothing From Me.

I didn't realize I was crying until Dr.
Neilsinhaur leaned toward me, tissue box in hand. I took a couple and blotted
away the waterworks. Crying in front of a stranger mortified me, more than
vomiting on Dmitri. But I needed to finish, so I spoke again. “And the Best of
Show Shittiest Thing To Say purple ribbon goes to Mike: he thanked me for
'cooperating,' by having the miscarriage.”

I hiccuped a cry of agony, and held the
tissues to my mouth, stemming any further sounds of hurt. Mike's brutality and
callousness still ate at me, more so since I needed a hysterectomy from
endometriosis gone wild a year after Dmitri and I renewed our acquaintance.
Bearing children was totally out of the question for me. What chances I had
were squandered on a man not worthy of 'fathering' a child.

It took a series of deep breaths to find
my center and regain my composure.

“You are a strong person, Kaylis.
Amazingly strong.” He flipped to a blank page in his notebook and wrote
something. His slender fingers tore the page out and handed it to me.

Curious, I read it.

There is something you must always
remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter
than you think.

Tears welled up again. It was sweet and
touching. A balm for my chapped soul.

“Thank you.”

“That's from
Winnie the Pooh
.
It's one of my favorite quotes. I think many people can relate to it.”

I certainly did. As I contemplated its
meaning and how to apply it to my life, my fingertips slowly folded the scrap
of paper into a square and tucked it in my pants pocket.

“Did you report the rape to
authorities?”

He was greeted with a moment of silence
before I answered. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because after he saw what the drunken
thing did to me, he got really apologetic and went out of his way to be nice to
me for a little while. He loved me in his own way, I guess. And, although I
know what he did was wrong, I didn't want to deal with all that hassle. I
should have, I know, but people do stupid things when they think they are in
love. But he didn't love me enough to know how that would hurt me. Mentally and
emotionally. He didn't care until he got faced with it...and the ugly truth
about himself. That he was a manwhore. He wasn't sorry it hurt me, he was sorry
his idea backfired and I was an emotional wreck he had to deal with. And I
faced the truth about myself... I was in love with love, not him.”

“So tell me about your fiancé .” I
appreciated Neilsinhaur changing the subject to a more pleasant one.

“Dmitri?”

He leaned back in his leather-bound
computer throne, hands resting lightly upon the open notebook and ball point
pen situated on his lap. “Tell me about Dmitri.” It wasn't an order, but a
pleasant request. His head cocked to the side and awaited my reply with quirked
fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows and a smile.

Okay. Honestly, I thought that he would
do the little swinging pocket watch routine and work his voodoo on the first
visit, even though Willow said he'd want to 'get to know me'. I wasn't caring
for his particular brand of getting to know one.

Flustered and like a dimwit I stuttered
my retort. “Uhh, um.. okay then.” I didn't know where to begin. I suppose back
story would be good. “Umm, we first met in high school. We met through a mutual
acquaintance, a friend of mine since 5th grade. She moved away sophomore year
in high school to live with her biological mom in Sacramento, and he was her on
again, off again boyfriend. She wanted to set us up for my junior year winter
ball during one of their longer off periods. He was an exchange student from
Croatia.”

As I spoke, he started scribbling away.
I continued my recitation. “Ended up going to the dance with a buddy. But
Dmitri and I got to hanging out a lot that summer. He would drive up from Sac
couple times a week to hang out with me. He asked me out three times before I
said yes. Felt a little weird about dating a friend's ex, but I was smitten
with him and didn't think he'd ask again. So I got the title of 'Girlfriend'.
It was really cool. He and I just clicked personality-wise. He was and still is
one of the people I'm most comfortable just being around. Right after he had
asked me to be his girlfriend, my grampa was in an ATV accident. Broke his back
and bruised his spinal cord. He wore a halo for six months, neck brace for
another six months. Dmitri kept me grounded during that time right after the accident.
Grampa is the closest thing I have to a father.”

I paused and gathered my thoughts. He
took it as an opportunity to ask, “So how did you and Dmitri reconnect?”

”After I left Mike, Dmitri found my
email address on a dumb chain letter Lorryn sent him. I never thought I'd hear
from him again. He and I got to talking. His timing was, as always, impeccable.
He signed up for the Marines two weeks before 9/11, ended up being in the first
wave sent to Iraq. Dmitri wanted to get a hold of me before he went overseas
again to apologize for his role in breaking up. He told me what happened and
asked my forgiveness. I was floored. We renewed our acquaintance over the phone
and internet for a year before I ended up flying down to New Mexico to see him.
We automatically clicked again, even though it was just a short visit. And the
kicker was? We didn't even have sex.” But we did make out on his couch and
floor for a solid four-plus hours.

Neilsinhaur chuckled. “That is
remarkable.“ He cleared his throat. “What was Mike to you? A boyfriend,
husband...?”

“I had the displeasure of being his
fiancée. Because of him, I promised myself I'd never settle for less than a
good man.”

“Why do you think you stayed with him so
long?” Neilsinhaur's hands made a pyramid shape, and he reminded me for a
moment of Smithers doing a Mr. Burns impression.

I had thought about that very question
long before this man asked me the same thing. “I was afraid to be alone. I went
from living with my mother to living in a roommate situation in college. I was
never on my own. I was depressed when I moved home and looked for a way out,
and grasped what seemed the first viable straw. I was desperate. You've met my
mother. Try living with her and maintaining sanity sober. It's impossible, I
tried.”

“So you settled.”

“At the time, yes. But that mistake was
eventually corrected.”

“And you said that Mike paid you a
surprise visit recently?” Dr. Neilsinhaur looked at me with concern in his
eyes.

“Yes.”

“How did you feel when you saw him?”
That pen was poised over the notebook, awaiting my answer.

“Scared. Panicked. Couldn't think
straight. I didn't get a hold of myself until Dmitri came home and convinced
Mike to leave. Mike was there only a few minutes, but it seemed like days.”

“That's understandable, and I am glad
for you that Dmitri protected you from him. Have you ever been treated for
depression or any anxiety disorder?”

Gulp.

“Yes, depression. A few years back.”

“What was prescribed?”

“First it was Wellbutrin. It wasn't
a.... a good match.”

“Why?”

“Apparently, Wellbutrin and undiagnosed
anxiety don't make for good bedfellows. This was after the drunken thing, about
three weeks before I had the molar pregnancy. Mike told me couples therapy
wasn't an option. I wasn't worth it. So I scratched myself.” Well, etched words
into my thigh with a safety pin, really.

He killed you inside!

He hates you.

Die.

“I quit taking that poison after the
third time I got the urge to disfigure myself. I figured the comedown couldn't
be worse than having to feel physical pain to cope with the emotional pain.” I
had carved
He Wants you to DIE
into my upper thigh after Mike had seen
the previous scabbed-over words. It looked like something a cat had done, and
Mike told me I should 'have cut it deeper on my wrist and fucking finish
something for once.'

Neilsinhaur wore a sympathetic
expression and asked, “How did Mike handle you acting out?”

“Not well. It was pretty much the
catalyst for me to get away from him for good.”

Mike wanted me to die.

That bastard wanted me to die. I spent
two days in a tizzy before anger kicked in. Fuck him, his noise and the bloody
fucking horse he rode in on. No one should ever be told to kill themselves. Who
the hell did he think he was? I wasn't the lowlife piece of shit who did fucked
up things to others.

Depression makes people do things they
normally wouldn't ever think of doing. Anyone who aims for the nuts of someone
in a major depression is an automatic piece of shit. Even in that medicated
fog, I knew the Wellbutrin was the reason I mutilated myself – never before in
my life had I ever reacted to emotional turmoil with violence. I'd usually
crawl into my head and plot a story or write something to escape.

I'll be honest. I feared for myself...
only a few nights before, he and I watched Sin City. The scene with the tar
pits invoked an 'If I ever wanted to make you disappear, I know where I'd hide
your body,' comment that sent ice careening down my spine, helping to incite
the aforementioned tizzy.

My biting reply of “I wouldn't need a hiding
place, just a deep-freeze, wood chipper and the Sacramento river,” made his
mouth snap shut and got his undivided attention back on the movie. I felt
audacious for saying such a thing, but I couldn't blow off his comment as a
ha-ha funny because it wasn't amusing in the least. In fact, all the resentment
I bottled up in my delusion of being in love with such a cretin began a slow
eruption like a Hawaiian volcano deep in the depths of my mind.

I had enough. The medication that was
supposed to help me made me want to off myself, and with the comments towards
my death... well, I knew something horrible would happen if I stayed with Mike.
He didn't care. I could have OD'd on Draino, and he'd probably step over my
corpse to get to the pint of Chunky Monkey waiting for him in the freezer.

He didn't want a wife.

He wanted a housekeeper and occasional
cringing bedwarmer.

“I figured I had endured enough bullshit
at his expense. I was done with him. I wanted my mother. While Mike was out at
the bar with his work buddies, I packed my backpack, a suitcase and my laptop.
Taped the engagement ring to the TV remote. Fled one-hundred-sixty-three miles
north to my spawning ground. I moved back in with my mother, prescribed
Lexapro, got my textile business off the ground and a place of my own. Dmitri
and I rekindled the magic and here we are today.”

“Here we are today, indeed.” He sat up
straight and looked deep into my eyes. “You've had quite the roller coaster
ride with Mike. Why did you stick it out for so long, aside from fear of being
alone? Surely you realized that there are some things a person shouldn't
tolerate.”

“Because 'working on your relationship'
generally means nose to grindstone and trying to make things work. I nursed
hopes that he'd go back to being the guy I fell for, but that didn't happen. In
a somewhat perfect world, I should have walked out long before he told me I
wasn't worth it.” I gave a short-lived frown. “That's hindsight bias for you.”

“Do you think Mike's reappearance in
your life could be him wanting to start up with you again?”

“Without a doubt. He asked for my
number.” I wrinkled my nose in distaste of the thought.