Things have been bad.


Last night was the summit, I suppose, of a proverbial mountain of hardship. Last night, things were said that it will take a lifetime to get over. Last night, I almost lost more than I thought it possible to lose. I experienced a full range of emotion when faced with the reality that the little corner of the world I have carved out and made my own might no longer be mine, might never really have been: anger, hysterical sadness, and more than anything, denial.

I guess I can tell myself that since it seems to have turned out I was right, that he is still in love with me, that it wasn't really denial when I told myself it couldn't be true, it couldn't be true, it couldn't be true. But I'll never really know as well as I thought I knew a day or so ago, anymore.

Last night ended with a drunken man telling me he was sorry, baffled with my enduring, though shaken, love for him; with sitting in the wal*mart parking lot in the car with my mother, who came at 5AM to pick me up, confessing to her that I believe the root of my vaginismus was a childhood molestation; with two messages left via telephone for two of my oldest friends: one, for Jeff, frantic, teary and hysterical, the other, for Jeremey, marked by the eery calm that only comes with the sedate realization that no matter how bad your problems get, there is always one rather ultimate solution.


I won't be the same after last night. I won't take so much for granted, I won't make the same fledgling mistakes. And I won't be able to hear the slightest weakness of conviction in Zack's voice when he assures me that he still loves me without it breaking my heart, all over again.

But I won't let him see it break, either.

Last night, I laid alone in a room, waiting for him to make up his mind, and something occured to me. While I've drawn, evidently, one too many parallels between my intellectual compatibility with Casey and what I have with Zack-- I hesitate before using the word "love", for fear it might be inadequate, for lack of the cocky confidence I once had that surely, it was true-- one more came to mind that I couldn't escape: I lost Casey because there were all these parts to me that he couldn't love or even accept, and I couldn't keep them to my damn self. It seemed, last night, that that may have turned out to be true with Zack, as well.


So I will keep my mouth shut, I will try. And he will have to work long and hard to convince me to open up again, because he is not Casey: Zack is not someone, whom without, I could write long entries about missing to help me deal with the pain. Zack is someone, whom without, it seems I could not write, I could not breathe. It seems to me, that after last night, Zack is someone, whom without, I could not go on.


I feel detached from those words write now: ashamed to write them, and questioning whether or not they are true. Surely, I tell myself, I am a strong and independent person. Surely, I tell myself, I could get over the pain.


But I think back to last night, and watch it like a movie in my mind: not feeling the emotions, because it was only be sheer luck that they didn't kill me the first time...if they didn't. I think back, and I see myself begging, begging for him to assure me that he was still in love with me. Pleading with him, going into denial, assuring myself that as soon as my mother took me out the door, he'd realize the error of his ways. Through tears, I told him, "I'll have my cell phone on the whole time. I want you to realize it's not true, realize you still love me, and when you do, you just call me. I'll be waiting for you to call." I told him, "You married me. You promised me you'd always love me-- that day, and over and over again, and just two weeks ago-- you told me you'd always love me, no matter what. This isn't fair, this isn't possible. You love me, you love me, you love me. It's not possible that you don't love me-- how could you not love me? How could you not love me? How could you not love me? We're supposed to be trees together."

And I kissed his neck as he cried, for seeing what he was doing to me, for seeing how not myself he was. "I'll be waiting for you to call. You just need some time to think-- when you try to go to sleep without me, you'll realize you need me. You'll realize you still want to be trees. You can come get me-- I'll be waiting for you."


I don't feel what I felt last night-- I will not be capable of feeling that again for a long time. I don't feel, right now, that I would be willing to beg him if he was willing to leave me-- but I still have the evidence, sharply focused in the back of my mind. I was not me, for fear we would not be us. I was not me, for fear that he was not him.

I would beg again. I do not like to admit it, but I would.


I am so uneasy. I am so unsure. The things I said to him, the argument that I made. The tears that I cried, and the way that I kissed him, and waited for him, and forced him to look at me-- the things he must of seen in my eyes.

I'll never get over the possibility that he is lying, so that he does not have to see me go through pain. Because of the evidence. Because of what he said last night:

"I care about you, and I don't want to see you get hurt, but..."






on with it.