If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (46 page)

I think back to the days in the house alone, when I returned after finding out I was pregnant. Even then I was trying to run away from the memory of him, hating him with every fiber of my being. Yet each day, my stomach grew larger as a part of him grew inside of me. Love and hate crashed together in a never-ending battle that I fought within myself. I wanted to erase his existence from my mind, but each and every day, I walked through the door, returning home from some mundane task, and still secretly hoped he’d be there.

I know how ridiculous an idea it was to try and keep my hope a secret—even from myself. The thought of wanting a man back who had walked out on his pregnant wife was too pathetic for my own subconscious to comprehend. Well, he didn’t know about the pregnancy, but still… I held on to some quixotic 
hope
. It was unwarranted, almost incomprehensible. But I did; I still had hope for Cal and me.

Now there is no hope. It’s the first time that I know for a fact he won’t be there. That the man I’ve loved and loathed all of these years is a mere figment of the imagination of a man named Chris… or not—my mind is too exhausted to cope with the logistics of this entire situation.

On my drive back from Madison, I imagined this all going differently. After all of my convincing words that this is an opportunity for me to start anew and leave the past where it is, making myself see this as a freeing experience, I pictured myself walking through the door, taking a deep breath, and a weight being lifted. All of the days which went before, when I was left not knowing if he was alive or not, if he was hurt, who was he with, if he thought about me, if he knew about Caylen… the burden of all that was gone—liberated from me.

But now, as I 
actually
 walk through this door, the feeling is overwhelming, almost as overwhelming as the day he left. I thought I had convinced myself on the long drive back home that I could exorcise him from my life, from my mind, and from my thoughts. I convinced myself that I could deal with this and that the reality I have now has given me the closure I need to move on. But walking through this door now, in real time, I feel as if I’ve been punched in the chest, the wind gone from my body, and I can’t breathe.

The true reality of this situation hits me like a ton of bricks, and I can’t help but make my way to the floor to keep from falling. I’m trying to stop myself from crying, but the more I try, the more I can’t breathe. I reach back to try to push the door closed and rest my head on it. I promised myself I would cry my last tear over him back in Madison and that I would walk through this door stronger, not weaker, and would be ready to close this chapter of my life, ready to begin afresh.

Now I realize I was an idiot for thinking I could just will myself to be prepared for this. I’m not. I’m so tired of feeling like this. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. To fall in love and wrap my life around a man who doesn’t even exist, and now I’m sharing a child with someone who doesn’t even know who I am. How do I explain this to anyone? I’m barely coming to terms with this myself. And now I’m supposed to pretend this all didn’t happen, while staring at the face of the man I’ve felt bound to?

“Lauren, Lauren, honey, what’s wrong?”

I see, through my cloud of tears, a fuzzy vision of Raven and Angela. I try to get a hold of myself, but their touch seems to make my emotions pour out even more. Raven kneels down and wraps her arms around me, rubbing my back. I know I have to pull myself together; her seeing me like this is going to make her think the worst. What could be worse than this though?

“Lauren, what happened? Did you find him? Lauren, talk to me,” she says, her tone calm but growing more frantic.

I try to catch my breath, feeling that I might as well get it over with, when I see Hillary hurry to my other side, near Angela. I make another attempt. This is not how I wanted things to go. Nothing is going how I wanted it to.

“Where’s Caylen?” I say, bewildered but knowing that one of the only things that can calm me down is holding her.

“Caylen’s fine, honey, she’s sleeping,” Raven assures me.

“Lauren, it’s eleven at night. You haven’t answered your phone in two days. We’ve been so worried about you! What’s wrong? What happened? Did you find him?” Angela asks frantically.

“I-I want to see her,” I whimper.

“Lauren, no, not like this. You’ll upset her terribly,” Raven scolds me.

I realize waking up to her mom crying hysterically isn’t the best idea for my daughter at all, and I relent. “H-he’s not real.” I pathetically try to calm down, but I think all of this hugging and coddling they are doing is making it worse.

“What? Who’s not real, honey? Cal? He was really Chris?” Hillary tries to infer.

She’s partly right, at least. How do I even begin to explain this to them?

“That fucking son of a bitch bastard! I knew it, I knew it all along!” she continues. Her voice grows from uncertain to angry in a matter of nanoseconds.

“No-no, it’s not what you think. It’s worse,” I say in between sniffles.

“Come on, honey, let’s get you up and cooled down with a glass of water so you can tell us all about it,” Raven says authoritatively.

They help me get off the floor. We head toward the kitchen, where Hillary and I sit down. Angela paces nervously. Raven grabs a pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge and pours a glass for me, herself, and Hillary. I quickly take a few sips and try to think of how I can explain it. They both look at me, full of anxious curiosity.

“I don’t really know where to start. It’s… it’s all so… so surreal is the only way I can explain it,” I say, staring into the cold glass of lemonade.

“Take your time, L,” Hillary says reassuringly.

Raven nods in agreement.

For the next hour, I give them a play-by-play of the events that transpired over the past two days. I tell them everything from discovering “Chris” on the porch with another woman, who is actually his fiancée, and him having no clue who I am, to his parents revealing his mental illness to me, then to Chris and me coming to an agreement for him to be in Caylen’s life, and finally me basically giving him a pardon on the obligation Cal had to me. Not once during the entire story do any of them interrupt. They’ve all been silent since I finished, and the silence is frightening.

“Please say something,” I urge nervously, trying to cut the thick tension in the room. I’m sitting between three of the most opinionated women I’ve ever met, and I think for once, they’re all speechless.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” Raven says. She looks unsure.

Then I look at Hillary, who looks angry. I was sure she’d have a mouthful to say.

“Hillary?” I ask, almost afraid to hear her opinion, but today can’t get any worse.

“I don’t know what to say either. I-I mean, what can I say to something like this? I mean, basically…” She stops and clasps her hands together as if she’s actually pondering the right words to say.

I’ve never known Hillary to edit her words before speaking them, and I’m touched by the fact she’s trying to be thoughtful, but at this moment, whatever she has for me, I’d rather her dump it on me now so that after today, I can try to leave this feeling behind. “Hillary, whatever you have to say, just say it.”

Out the corner of my eye, I see Angela shoot her warning glare.

“The last time I did that, you ended up fainting.” She chuckles dryly.

“It wasn’t what you said; it’s what you didn’t say,” I assure her.

Words hurt, but she didn’t have to use any. She wasn’t spouting knowledge I had been hiding from; she had just pulled out a newspaper with my husband’s picture under a different name.

“Well, I think this is a load of bullshit,” she says brashly.

For the first time in days, I laugh. It starts out as a small giggle and grows. Raven looks at me strangely then begins to laugh too. Hillary folds her arms and joins in. Angela looks at us as if we’ve all lost our minds, but I can’t explain what a wonderful feeling it is to laugh—truly laugh and not cry.

“I mean, I don’t have a degree in psychology or anything, so I could just be misinformed but… multiple personality disorder? Give me a break! Do you know how many guys will be using this excuse if you let this slide, L? It’ll catch on like wildfire. ‘
Honey, it wasn’t me fucking that other chick. It was my alter ego,
’” she explains between her laughter.

Then it subsides, and the seriousness of the situation creeps back into the room.

“What do you think of this, Raven? You’re the old—most mature of us all?” Hillary jokes lightly.

Raven lets out what seems to be a much needed sigh and nods. “Well, I know this may be telling my age, but I remember seeing an episode on
Oprah
about this psychologist who interviewed this woman who said she had fifteen… umm… I forgot what she called them… not personalities. It was another word. Oh gosh, it’s slipped my mind.” Her brow furrows as she seems in deep thought.

“Alters?” Hillary offers.

“Yes, that’s it!” Raven says excitedly, as if she’s won a prize on a game show.

I turn surprised eyes to Hillary.

“I watch a lot of soap operas.” She shrugs. “Well, Ang, you’re the one who’s spending all of your daddy’s money on that degree of yours. You took a couple of psych courses, right? Let’s see how much they were worth.”

“Well, I admit I know a little. In a course I took, this was one of the disorders that we went over, and from what my professor said, it’s a diagnosis that’s still highly debatable in the mental health community. There are doctors who swear that it’s real and others who think it’s something that’s ‘therapist induced.’ A misdiagnosis of what could be several other disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder—”

“Okay, so is it real or not?” Hillary interrupts.

“Like I said, there isn’t a general consensus yet. There was one study, however, that recorded neurological changes when the alleged ‘alters’ or ‘changes’ were said to take place. However, it could have been due to a number of factors…”

“Well, regardless of whether this ‘condition’ exists or not, the question is, does he have it? Let’s face it, the chances of him having this are, what?” Hillary exclaims.

“Hillary, I don’t know. I’m not his psychiatrist,” Angela says. “But some of the behaviors Cal exhibited, from what Lauren has shared with me… I wouldn’t completely rule it out as a possibility,”

“Give me a break,” Hillary mumbles.

“Hey, you asked for my opinion and this is how you respond?” Angela retorts sharply.

I rub my fingers in soothing circles on my temples. This conversation is starting to be overwhelming.

“Ladies!” Raven interrupts the two of them, and they immediately become silent, having obviously sensed my stress level rising. “I don’t think any of us here are qualified to agree or disagree with Angela’s comment on the validity of this diagnosis.” She eyes Hillary, who looks away. Raven’s attention focuses back on Angela. “And I think Angela would agree, without knowing the specifics of Cal’s or… Chris’s condition, she can’t be certain whether he does in fact have this condition.”

Angela nods.

“The most important thing right now is to support Lauren in what she believes and in how she decides to move forward from this point.”

I glance up and notice that all of their gazes are on me. Raven reaches for my hand, and I hold it. She squeezes it, giving me a bit of encouragement. The gesture lets me know whatever my answer is, she’s behind me, which means so much at this point.

“I didn’t want to believe them. I didn’t want to believe any of this, but when it was him and me alone, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Cal.”

“Well, honey, if that is your decision, I stand behind you one hundred percent, and I will be there to support you on it.” Raven smiles and squeezes my hand reassuringly.

“We all will, Lauren,” says Angela, hugging me from behind.

We all look at Hillary, and she takes a deep breath. For a moment, it looks as though she’s contemplating.

“You and Caylen mean the world to me, and I’m sure this is hard enough for you without me bitching about the situation. If you can deal with all of this, I’m not going to be the one to make this harder on you,” Hillary says.

She comes over and wraps her arms around me. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Just knowing that I have the support of the people around me makes things not seem as bad. Certainly not as bad as when I walked through the door an hour ago, but I’m so afraid. I’ve held on to the past for so long. Not knowing what happened to Cal was like having a crutch to lean on, and now it’s been taken away.

“How do I pretend the last few years of my life didn’t happen?” I say frantically.

Angela gently grabs my face and lifts it so that I’m looking directly at her. “You don’t. You don’t pretend that the past didn’t happen, but you don’t dwell on it. You accept the past, but you don’t live there anymore.” She speaks in an affectionate tone, but her words are stern. “You’ve chosen to look forward, and to let go, and you can do it. You’ve been through so much, and you’ve bent a few times but never broken. We won’t let you now!” She squeezes me a little tighter. The authority disappears from her face and the warm smile I know returns. “Okay?”