Lost (26 page)

  “Look, whether the circumstances around our relationship seem strange or not doesn't change the relationship we had.  I'm in love with him, and I know he loves me.  We share something very special between us and I don't know how to live without it.  I know I'll never find it again, and I don't even want to.  I want Peter,” I cried out again. 
  “Where does he work?” Steven asked without emotion.
  “Um...” Jesus Christ.  I remember sounding so stupid suddenly. “In a steel company that recycles steel.”
  “A steel company, in a steel town? 
Fuck
, Sophie.  Did he tell you absolutely anything about himself?” Steven asked while standing over me.
  “Yes... I know everything about him.”
  “You know
nothing
about him,” he replied angrily.
  “I know
everything
about him!  I know who he is and how he loves and who he loved before me and why he loves me the most in his life.  I know all I need to know!”
  “Sophie...
Please
.  Think for a second.  He came across way too strong in the beginning, even a little desperate, then you're madly in love with him within weeks.  You've spent only 3 and a half months with the guy, you're left devastated, and you know absolutely nothing about him.  He may be a good lay, but-” I died with Steven’s words.
  Bursting into tears, I sobbed as the pain lashed at me.  I was shaken to my core with the knowledge that it was more than just sex between us. 
 

  Moaning on the couch, shaking all over, I tried to explain what was real. 

  “No one tries as hard as he did to just screw someone,” I begged him to understand.  “Peter was all about
me
.  Never once did he hurt me or take me, or just screw me.  It wasn't like that, Steven.  I know it wasn't.  Peter and I were special- like mom and dad special.  And I'm not wrong about that.  I'm not.” I again wished I could explain us. “You just don't understand the way we were.  It wasn't about being a good lay, or just screwing me. It was about our connection, and our emotions, and a tenderness and a love between us that was so rare and unique and special, and just amazing.  Peter is everything to me,” I cried as I stopped talking.
  I really didn't think Steven was capable of understanding what I was saying.  And I would never go into graphic detail with him about our sex-life, but I needed him to understand something very important.
  “Steven, please don't gag and just listen to me.  Peter brought me out of my sexual, like, denial or something.  He brought me to orgasm because he needed me to have one with him.  He tried and learned and did everything right so that he and I could experience that kind of love and intimacy between us.  It wasn't about getting laid, I swear.  It was so much more.  And NOT because I'm a woman and I need to see it that way.  But because it
was
that way, because Peter made it that way.  I was totally free with him sexually and with a love that was so deep I didn't even know anything like that existed between 2 people.  All the speeches mom and dad gave us growing up about intimacy and love and the connection between 2 people was nothing compared to what it actually felt like between us.”
  “But you don't know-”
  “I know everything I need to know.  He is the absolute love of my life, and I have to have him back.  I have to be with him, because I don't think I can live without him,” I confessed to a sudden silence in my living room.
  “Sophie, what are you saying?” Steven asked dropping back onto the couch beside me.
  “I'm not saying I'm suicidal or anything like that, but I just know I can't live without him because I won't be living.  I'm just going to walk through life without a part of me.  Like those identical twins who say they died when their twin died, or like the old couple who dies hours apart because they couldn't live without their partner.  I don't know how to do it.  And 3 months or 30 years with Peter wouldn't have changed my answer.  I love him, Steven, and I've changed totally in my heart because of him.  I just can't do this without him, which is ironic I know.  I can't live without him helping me live through living without him.  But that's what he means to me,” I exhaled my sadness and pain.
  “But you have mom and dad, and me and your friends, and your job, and-”
  “I know all that.  But I hurt too much to be without him.  I need you to understand,” I begged.
  Shaking his head, and exhaling a long breath, Steven tried again. 

  “I understand that you're suffering your first heartbreak at 25 and you don't know how to deal with it.  Most people experience it as a teenager, but you didn't, so now you're fucked up.  But that's all this is, Soph.  It's a heartbreak.  And you will get better and it’ll hurt less, I promise. Remember when Melissa and I broke up- well, when she dumped me?  I was fucked.  I felt like I was gonna throw up, but I got hammered instead with my friends, and eventually I felt better.  I still think about her, and I hated hearing she's engaged to some perfect asshole, but I don't feel heartbroken anymore, just sad now.  I loved her but she dumped me and it hurt.  But I'm fine-”
  Looking at Steven my mouth dropped open at the lame comparison he tried to make and I absolutely hated Steven in that moment.
  “What you had with Melissa was NOTHING!  It was a 6 month nothing.  You guys were nothing compared to me and Peter, so don't even try to compare that little bullshit relationship you had to mine!  You don't get it and you never will, obviously, so I don't want to talk to you-”
  “Because I'm right?”
  “No!  Because you're an idiot.  Get out of my home!”
  “Nope!” Steven yelled standing over me again. “I’m not leaving.  Be a bitch.  Be pissed.  I don't really care.  You're totally fucked up and you need me, so I'm going to eat my Chinese and let you be a complete bitch to me if you want, but I'm not leaving, so fuck off, Sophie.  Seriously.” Steven finished his rant by walking to the front door, grabbing the paper bag of food and storming to my kitchen.
  Slamming cupboards and ripping the cutlery drawer right off its track as everything spilled to the floor, I could hear Steven swearing up a blue streak.  He was pissed and I deserved it.  So I cried a little more as I walked to him.
  “I'm sorry,” I said looking at Steven on the floor.  Leaning against the door jamb, I apologized again. “I know you're trying to help, but nothing helps.  I just hurt so bad, I don't know how to handle it.  I'm okay at work because I have to be strong and professional, but at home or in the car, I'm a mess.  I miss him so much, I can't believe it's only been 4 days without him.  I can't even imagine 4 weeks, or months, or whatever.  I'm just so sad, Steven,” I said as he nodded. “This is like an unbearable pain in my chest that makes my heart beat erratically and my head spin with the pain.  I don't really know how to get through this, when all I want to do is find him and hit him and love him and beg him to be with me again,” I cried to my brother my absolute truth.  “I love him so much, I need him with me.”
  “You just have to get through one day at a time.  Honestly, I'm not good with all this emotional shit but-”
  “You're doing really well,” I smiled.
  “Anyway, that's all you can do.  Wake up each day until it hurts a little less and then move on eventually.  Do what a guy does.  Get drunk.  Get laid.  Buy new shoes like a chick or something.”
  “I bought a hat today,” I laughed.
  “O
-kay
... whatever works.  But you have to just try to be strong every day until you notice it doesn't hurt as bad anymore, until it actually
doesn't
hurt as bad anymore.  You have to, ‘cause what else can you do?”
  Looking at my brother as he stood desperately in front of me, I was so sad again.  I was sad at his wisdom, and sad from missing Peter.  I was just so sad, nothing felt right inside me, and everything hurt me.
  “I can't believe how much this hurts.  This agony is all I’ll ever know, and it consumes me,” I whispered.
  “Ohhh, Soph.  It won't always.  And I won't say anything bad about him, but I think there's more to Peter than you know, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to leave like he did.  That's what I think anyway,” he said until he took me into his arms again.
  Crying softly, I released all the tension and pain from my body, and let it take me.  Pulling away from Steven, he pulled me back to him and whispered, “Just let it get out, girlie,” which naturally let it out.
  Sobbing, I let it go.  As the pain lashed through my chest, and my head pounded from the ferocity of my sobs, I let out the pain with Steven- the only true constant in my life.
  “Thank-you,” I hiccupped through my tears.
  But he didn't reply.  Steven walked me to the couch, sat down with me, and snuggled up so I could get it all out.
  Later Wednesday night after Steven left, I showered and decided to go to bed early.  I was exhausted from faking being well at work, and from falling apart at home.  I was beyond exhausted from lack of sleep, and from the pain inside me that wouldn't lessen.
  My world was a constant carousel of pain and exhaustion, sadness and shock, and I still couldn't believe Peter had left me.  I just couldn't believe it.  It was too unbelievable to remember the love and passion we had shared Sunday, compared to the pain and absence of love hours later.
  As I lay thinking in my bed while I slowly began to relax, I realized the love hadn't left me with Peter. 

  Peter was my forever, I knew in my soul.  I knew that reality was my forever, so my love didn't die, it just changed to a love without a purpose- a love I would always know and always suffer in his absence.

  The love I felt was still there, and probably always would be.  The love I had remained, just unrequited and lost.

CHAPTER 22

  On Thursday I went back to work, still devastated but determined not to let it show.  I walked in, greeted everyone and gave a private smile to Madeline as I tipped my cute hat to her, making her laugh.
  My day was an easy one, with no month end rush, or payroll looming over my head.  It was easy in that I just had endless paperwork to complete alone in my office without a deadline or fellow employees threatening my sanity.
  And Friday passed pretty much the same way, with the exception that Madeline, or Maddie, as she called herself to friends invited me out for drinks, which I gently declined.  I let her down easy feigning a family engagement and then I got the hell out of there.   

  I had forced such a professional, together face all week, by Friday afternoon I was beyond exhausted, slipping into a near psychosis from sleep deprivation and heartache.
  Driving home, I remember thinking about my week with an almost proud view of it.  I knew I was devastated, but I was impressed with my ability to function when I thought of the depth of the pain eating me alive from the inside out.
  And when I finally returned home, after I let the pain and agony take me with a good, long cry, I crawled into bed by 7:30 and I slept.  Hard.
  Those were my long days and weeks.  And that was my time away from Peter.  I was robotic and impressive, and I behaved as expected failing no one.  I was good, happy on the surface, and professional. 
  Inside, of course, was different.  I was still dying inside.  I was absolutely DYING, but I just wouldn't die.  Not that one actually dies from a broken heart, but if it was in fact possible, I was ready for it.  I didn't want to die, but I was prepared for the inevitability of it happening because my heart simply stopped beating from all the pressure inside and the weight it had to carry alone.
   I didn't know how I survived day after day and I really couldn't understand how I functioned, but somehow time passed and I continued to live. 

  The pain was always with me though, sometimes as a dull ache, and sometimes as an acute agony.  Sometimes I expected it, and at other times I was blindsided by it.  However it came to me didn’t really matter though because it was always pain.

  I spent my time alone after work listening to Green Eyes to relive our beautiful life, and I spent my time listening to Black to relive Peter’s horrible goodbye.

  I lived in a continuously pain-filled replay, day after day, like my 2 favorite songs.
 

                                                *****

  4 weeks after Peter left I had only lost a little bit of weight, not even enough to really show, so I looked the same on the outside, with the exception of the dark circles under my eyes.  I still had my nails done once a month, and I still put a lighter blonde rinse in my slightly darker winter hair once a month.  I dressed the same, and I acted the same, mostly.  Well, in front of everyone else I acted the same.
  In reality, I was a bit of a stalker, without the object to stalk.  I drove around on weekends looking for Peter.  I drove all over my neighborhood and slightly beyond looking for a bright pink car.  I went to our cafe in search of him, and I walked the full street of the village from the Chocolatier to Pandora’s searching for any glimpse of Peter.  But I never found him.
  Finally, on the 4th weekend without him I thought to try Sunshine and Life.