Holding Her in Madness (23 page)

And she fucking always knew that it would.

Over the following week, Annalise and I don’t talk about what happened. We keep to neutral conversation and base most of our interaction on day-to-day topics. It makes the entire situation seem surreal, almost as if the Christmas light festival never even happened.

However, it did happen and we both know that our lives are on the brink of intense change because of it. I know I’ll be the one to jump first, and it kills me to think she’ll hold on after I’m gone. I love Annalise. Hell how could I not? She’s been the only vital part of my life for years.

I know that months before I overdosed I’d planned to marry her. I know that in my sick and pill-dependant mind, I’d somehow talked myself into believing that ‘Lise was the one for me if I couldn’t have Lil. But, fuck… I was so damn high all the time that I thought ‘Lise was Lil.

When you’re where I was mentally and emotionally, you don’t need to be trying to talk yourself into loving someone enough to spend your life with them.

Annalise was perfect. Shit, she still is. Goddamn, look at her. She’s even more beautiful than the day she knocked on my apartment door asking for water.

She has a heart of pure gold. She’s smart as a whip, funny, and fuck, she’s so damn hot. Even now, after five years of marriage, when I’m buried in her, she is still fucking sexy and hot as hell.

However, I know now that, after all the therapy and meetings
AND
knowing the truth, Annalise was also an enabler to both my alcohol and narcotic addiction. And during our entire marriage, she’s continued to enable me by letting me go through my life thinking I was married to the woman who was my one and only, that there had never been anyone but her.

I know that, had I not overdosed and had a seizure that wiped my memory of Lil, I wouldn’t have ended up marrying ‘Lise.

I would have ended up dead at twenty-two years old.

All I’ve done this entire week is run every different scenario through my mind watching them play out over and over.

It looks like I’m paying attention in the morning board meetings. It looks like I’m watching the Saints beat Tampa Bay’s ass. But I haven’t a fucking clue what’s going on around me because I’m too busy stuck inside my own head.

I’m trying to find a way to sever myself from the only friend, the only lover—hell, the only person—I’ve had at my side for years. I’m not trying to find a way to do this so it’s easy on me though. Don’t think that shit for one second.

Yeah, I’m a fucking asshole, but I’m not a selfish asshole.

I’m trying to do this in a way that won’t leave ‘Lise completely devastated. I fucking love her. I don’t want to hurt her. But I know I can’t stay married to her…because she isn’t Lil.

Yes, I might have only had Lil for three months the summer I was eighteen years old. However, what you’re not fucking grasping here if it hasn’t clicked yet is that Lil has had me, every goddamn part of me, from the moment I first laid eyes on her, and even to this fucking day, she still does.

So I’m sorry if you don’t like it, if you think I should stay with Annalise because of everything that she has done for me. But this ain’t your life and it ain’t your fucking story being told.

I can’t and I won’t stay married to someone who isn’t my soul mate. We only get one life, and I refuse to live mine married to the wrong woman or keeping Annalise stuck living her life with a man she thinks is the one.

She deserves better than that. Shit, she fucking deserves better than me.

Even though it hurt like hell for us both, three months later, I filed for divorce. Annalise fought me tooth and nail over it until Shelton called a month after we finalized the divorce.

His wife had been in and out of chemo for breast cancer for almost two years. Six months ago, she stopped all treatment, deciding she wanted to live out the rest of her life enjoying Adam and watching him play in the sand on the beach from their back porch in the Hamptons.

Shelton called Annalise the month after our divorce, begging her to come back to New York, to take care of Adam, saying that he couldn’t do it any longer without Pamela.

I took the first flight out with ‘Lise that I could find, and for the first time, I got to meet Mr. Adam Daniel Parker. I know Annalise always carried the guilt and pain of leaving her only son with the man she’d had an affair with and his wife. I listened to her cry herself to sleep after every phone call with Adam ended. A part of me has always wondered if that pain and guilt had more to do with her desperately trying to have another child.

Either way, Adam Daniel Parker is the best fucking kid I’ve met in my life. He is so much like Annalise. He has all of her good qualities—smart as hell, kindest little heart, always quick to try and lighten the subject, and constantly willing to put himself out there even if it ends up getting him hurt.

I love the little guy and I’ve only been in town helping him and ‘Lise get settled for a little over a week. It’s insane how much his mannerisms are a carbon copy of ‘Lise’s. Even though he only spent a handful of days with her when he was just a baby, there is no denying that he is Annalise’s son.

The last of our furniture is being delivered to Annalise’s new apartment today. I told her to take everything in the house. She has a son to take care of and she’d need it. I knew I wouldn’t need any of it.

“Well, that was the delivery company. The truck just left so they’ll be here pretty soon.” She sighs before collapsing onto the couch beside me, and out of habit, I wrap my arm around her and pull her close to me.

“What did Shelton say about Adam’s school? I know he doesn’t want to leave his friends,” I ask with my lips against the crown of ‘Lise’s head before kissing her hair.

“Adam said he doesn’t care, but with all this change he’s going through, I think anything we—I—can keep the same for him will be best. Shelton hasn’t really said shit to me.”

“MOM! You’re not supposed to say the s-h-i-t word! It’s illegal.”

I nudge ‘Lise in the ribs and laugh. “Yeah, Mom, gahh… Don’t you know it’s illegal?”

“Adam, it’s just as illegal to spell it out like you’re participating in the dirty word spelling bee.” She wrinkles her nose and looks up at me. “Is it sad or cool that my kid can spell shit?” she whispers.

“I’d say it’s pretty bad a-s-s, but that’s coming from a guy who just met the kid for the first time almost two weeks ago.” I shrug.

“Yeah, that’s true. But we’ll still say it’s bad a-s-s though.”

The buzzer goes off and I stand up, pulling ‘Lise with me. “Come on, slave driver. Just a little bit more of moving furniture and you two will be all settled.”

Istantly she has her arms around my neck and her face buried against it. “Thank you. For everything, Leo… Thank you so much.”

I pull away from her and cup her face. Staring into her navy blue eyes, I tell her, “Not now, ‘Lise. ‘Kay, babe? It’s not time for goodbyes yet.”

“Okay.” She wipes her tears away quickly before walking to the front door.

Her hand is on the knob, and she gathers a deep breath before opening it. We walk downstairs to the delivery truck and start getting everything unloaded onto the service elevator.

It’s past one in the morning when we finish and it’s time to say goodbye.

“‘Lise, let me know if you need help, and if Shelton doesn’t want to talk about Adam’s school, don’t push him. I can afford it. Hell, I’d be honored to invest a little bit into that genius’s future.” I’m trying to joke around, keep this goodbye as light as I can, but I’m failing.

My throat and chest are squeezing so tight that pain lances through me. I realize that my heart isn’t in this like I thought it was, that my pain is a side effect of what we’re doing—ending things. My eyes flood with tears and I try to blink them away.

“I’ll never be sorry for what I did, Leo. It was selfish and childish, but if I were given a chance to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a single thing. I know you think it led you further away from her, led to more time being wasted, and I can’t say for certain if it did or didn’t. Truthfully, Leo, I don’t fucking care either way, because it did give me what I wanted. It gave me everything I’ll ever want out of life. It gave me five beautiful years of being your wife and having you love me and me alone. And I’ll never be sorry for that. I can’t—” Annalise’s sobs cut off her words.

I hold her shaking frame against me as tight as I can, kissing her hair over and over as the tears fall down my face like rain.

I hold her until she stops shaking and our tears dry. Then the fear that I’m royally fucking up has me holding her for an hour more.

“Annalise.” I cough, clearing my throat. “Baby, I don’t want you to be sorry for anything. You fell in love with me at the lowest point in my life, and even after all the hell I put you through, you continued to love me, continued to do everything in your power to drag me from the hell my life was.”

Her slender arms slide up around my neck and pull my mouth down to her swollen lips. I kiss her like I did the first time we kissed. I kiss her like I kissed her as soon I could get my hands on her at the altar. I kiss her like I did after we said our vows.

I kiss her like I kissed her when I thought she was the only woman I’d ever loved, and I don’t stop kissing her until we are both out of breath.

“I love you, Annalise. I always will.”

A painful moan rips from her throat, and she keeps shaking her head no.

“I would have died at the lowest point of my entire life without your love, ‘Lise. Please, always know that your love is what saved my life. Not hers, Annalise. Yours. Only yours did, baby.”

“It doesn’t matter though. No matter how much I loved you, it would never be enough. I’ll never be enough.”

“Hey, don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I’m not enough, Annalise. You just haven’t met the one to know it yet. But I swear to God, I am the one who isn’t enough.”

“I love you, Leo. Please tell me you’ll stay. If I beg you, you’ll stay.” ‘Lise’s entire frame is shuddering through her sobs.

My arms tighten around her waist, and I’m kissing her head when tears heat the backs of my eyes again. “‘Lise, baby, I can’t stay. I gotta go.” I pull her arms from around my waist and bring them to my lips, kissing each palm before lowering her arms to her side. “Goodbye.” I clear my throat so I can finish what I need to say. “Take care of yourself, Annalise. Go be a badass mom to that awesome boy of yours. I’ll check in on you from time to time. You know I will.”

Annalise smiles up at me through her tears. “I know you will. Bye, Leo.”

“Bye, babe.”

The next night, when I walk into the house Annalise and I called home, I look around at the emptiness of it. It’s kinda funny how much this house and I have in common, and for a second, I actually laugh.

When I hear my laugh bounce and echo off the bare walls, it sobers that kinda funny shit up—real fucking quick.

The entire time it takes me to shower and make a pallet, the only thing that keeps running through my mind is a continuous prayer. I’m not sure how I know it or where I’ve heard it, but it falls from my lips in a whisper like I’ve spoken it perfectly every day of my life:

Our Father who art in Heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For yours is the kingdom, the power, glory forever.

Amen.