Under the Cornerstone

by Sasha Marshall

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I sleep for most of the next two days. My favorite four men stay close by, and even Alex stops by frequently to check on me. I hear the murmurs between my bouts of sleep about Carrie. Apparently she was not only arrested but forced into a psychiatric hospital for three days, because she exhibited signs of a psychotic break.

  Imagine that.

  When I am lucid, it’s quiet around me. No one says much. Johnny speaks the least of them all. He only speaks to ask for my food requests and to ensure I’m comfortable. He’s lost in thought most of the time, or at least when I’m awake.

  I dream each time I sleep. Maybe it’s the narcotics, but the dreams that fill my head are of Johnny and myself dancing in the rain. They are of me telling him I’m ready, that I want to be with him. I confess the things my heart is so full of. I tell him all my fears, hopes, and dreams, and then I ask him to protect them. He promises to make my dreams his own and to help me fulfill my bucket list. He tells me he wants to be there for every single one I cross off.

  But, when I wake he doesn’t say anything at all. Not really anyways. Beyond the questions regarding my care and comfort, he’s far away. He’s lost somewhere in his own head doing only God knows what. I want to pull him out of there and find out what’s inside. I want to protect his fears, hopes, and dreams too, but he’s not ready.

  At times I pretend to be asleep and listen to his sighs. I peep through my lids to watch his blue eyes fill with so many emotions and I watch him fight a war against each one.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I finally tell him again after four days.

  “It was,” he counters.

  “Did you ask her to harm me?”

  “You know I didn’t.”

  “Did you speak ill of me in front of her? Give her any indication that you wanted to harm me?”

  “I know what you’re doing, and you can’t absolve me of this,” he looks away, breaking our eye contact.

  “Did you?” I repeat.

  “Of course not!” he yells and stands from his chair.

  “Were you happy she hurt me?” I ask.

  “What the fuck do you want, Noely? Of course I wasn’t fucking happy she hurt you. I wanted to kill her. I was literally homicidal, but my need to protect you took precedence and it’s the only reason she’s still alive. The same need to protect you I’ve had for fucking years! I can’t protect you anymore, Noe! You were right! You were right all along! You are always fucking right! You’re so rational and insightful! You were fucking right,” his voice cracks at the end.

  “So everything before that? Everything we did, everything you asked of me, it doesn’t matter anymore?” I ask with tears in my eyes.

  “I’ve never said a word to you that I didn’t mean, Noe,” he looks at me with heartache in his eyes.

  I throw the covers back and stand from the bed, “Then what’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “I… you… you were right. There will always be someone else. There will always be another woman waiting to remind you she was there first. There will always be some bitch trying to claw her way inside and rip us apart. You didn’t think it was fair for me to ask you to live like that, and it wasn’t. My selfishness made me do everything in my power to make you see that you could live that way as long as you trusted and loved me. I should’ve never asked that of you. I was greedy. I want you so fucking much it hurts. I love you so much it hurts, but all I’ll ever do is get you hurt and eventually I’ll destroy you. I can’t live with that.”

  “So what are you saying?” I ask confused.

  “We gotta stop, Noe. It hurts like hell, but I have to let you go. I can’t be selfish anymore,” he says, but won’t look me in the eyes.

  “You can’t even look me in the eyes when you spout this bullshit, so you don’t really believe it. You don’t really feel this way. Who told you to say this? Who got in your head?”

  “Nobody, Noles. I got in my head. I remembered every word you ever said, and I finally realized I can’t always get what I want because sometimes that destroys people. I won’t destroy you,” he finally raises his eyes to mine. “I won’t destroy you.”

  “You didn’t hear the words I still have left to say,” I tell him as the tears spill down my face.

  “Don’t. Please don’t. This isn’t easy for me.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Go back to Brooklyn, Noely baby. Live your life. Be you. Keep finding yourself. One day, you’ll see I put you first. You’ll thank me when you have an amazing husband, kids, and life. You’ll be so thankful you weren’t tied down to me.”

  “Go back to Brooklyn?!! Live my life?!! No!!!” I scream at him.

  Ryan and Jimmy walk into the bedroom concerned over our raised voices. They walk in to find two people they love tearing each other apart. They walk in to see tears and looks of despair. It looks like someone fucking died in here.

  “Noe?” Ryan asks but I don’t take my eyes off Johnny.

  He ignores them and walks to me. Johnny takes my hands in both of his, holds them tightly, and raises them to his mouth where he places several kisses on them.

  “I’m sorry. I wish it was different. I wish I could be who you need me to be,” he whispers.

  “You are who I need you to be,” I sob.

  “Go back to Brooklyn,” he says and drops my hands.

  He looks up my face, tenderly wipes away my tears, and then turns and walks away from me. I launch myself after him.

  “No!” I scream and grab him by the shoulders.

  He spins around, “Don’t do this, Noe.”

  “I love you. I’m in love with you. When I was in that hospital I realized I didn’t want to die alone. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about the unknown, so much that I forget to fucking live. Don’t make me do that without you. You said you wanted this. You begged me. I’m begging you now,” I wail like a child.

  His eyes leak a steady stream of tears, “I’m the reason you were in that hospital.”

  “No! You didn’t do that. You didn’t do it. Don’t do this Johnny. Please don’t do this.”

  He places his hands on my shoulders and gently moves me back a few steps, and then he walks away from me again.

  “Are you punishing me because I left Brooklyn? You win. I feel like shit. I know what it feels like and you haven’t even walked out the door, Johnny. You win. You fucking win,” I bawl.

  He yells at me, “Fuck! I’m not trying to hurt you! I’m trying to save you! I’m trying to give you the life you deserve! One without me! I don’t want this, Noely! I don’t want this! But I have to fucking do it. I’m doing it because I fucking love you! Don’t you get that?”

  I launch myself at him again and wrap my arms around his neck, “I don’t get it. I don’t get it, Johnny. You’re hurting me. Please stop hurting me.”

  “I’m doing this for you,” he whispers.

  “No. You’re doing this because you’re scared like I was, and it’s okay. We’ll work through it,” I assure him.

  “I’m not afraid to love you, Noely. I’ve never been afraid of the way I feel about you. This isn’t about that. This is about giving you a beautiful life. One without me in it to fuck it up. You said it yourself, there will always be someone else. I can’t do that to you. Not ever again. It almost got you killed, and I’d rather live in a world where I know you’re happy and healthy without me than a world where you don’t exist at all. I want to live knowing you exist and that you’re okay even if that means that you aren’t in my life. Even if that means I have to figure out how to live without you… if it means you’re okay then that’s what I have to do.”

  “But I’m not okay,” I argue. “I’m not asking you to live without me. That’s not what I want.”

  He pulls my hands from around his neck and holds them for a moment before he drops them, “Let me go, Noe.”

  “No!”

  “You have
to,” he says and tries to walk away again.

  I fall to pieces as I drop to my knees, “Please don’t leave me.”

  He comes back to me and drops to his own knees in front of me, “This isn’t you. Look at yourself. Look at what I do to you. How fucked up is this love? I do everything in my power to get you to love me and then I tear you apart. You fight me every inch of the way when I try to make you mine and now you’re falling apart. Nothing good is ever going to come from this shit between us. Is that what you want? Because we’ll end up hating each other.”

  “I couldn’t hate you.”

  “Let me go, Noely.”

  I grab his shirt as he pushes up from his knees and stands.

  Ryan drops to his knees behind me.

  “Noles,” Ryan whispers in my ear and holds me from behind.

  “Don’t leave me!” I howl.

  “I have to,” Johnny says.

  “I love you,” I tell him. “I love you so fucking much.”

  “I love you, Noely. It’s why I’m leaving.”

  Jimmy tells Johnny, “Just fucking go.”

  “Don’t tell him to go. Please don’t go.”

  Ryan holds me to his chest and tries to soothe me. My tears blur my vision, but I can see him walk away for good. I can see him leave me, and then the door closes behind him. The hysteria reaches its pinnacle when the sound of a wood door echoes in finality.

  I scream. I cry. I lose my shit. He didn’t even try to stay in my life as my friend. He just left me. His reasons are bullshit. He’s not fucking noble. He’s scared and he’s running just like I did. This is my fault. If I had just kept my mouth shut until the heaviness of my love for him hit me, I’d be in his arms right now. He wouldn’t have left me for good. He wouldn’t be a ghost in my life.

  Ryan and Jimmy hold me for hours while I cry. They try to tell me it will all work out, but it won’t. Life won’t work out and it won’t be okay.

  The next day, Jimmy arranges our trip back to Brooklyn. Alex asks to stop by and see me before I leave, but I decline his company with a shake of my head. Sabrina and Roxy offer to meet us at the airport, but I decline their offer as well.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  For three months, I merely exist. I don’t work. I barely eat. I either sleep too much or can’t sleep for days at a time. I don’t open my apartment door for anyone. I don’t answer texts or calls from anyone either. Sabrina and Roxy have made many attempts to beat my door down, but I just crawl into the shower to drown them out along with my screams and tears. Their presence is a reminder of why I hurt so fucking much.

  I dream of him. I dream of dancing in the rain and him holding me tightly while he whispers his love to me. Visions of us tangled in sheets haunt my reveries in both the night and day. When I’m not sleeping, I usually lay in bed and stare into the distance. I can’t find the energy or will to do much else.

  I watch television sometimes and sob like a child when characters like Elijah and Hayley or Olivia and Fitz are torn apart. But the worst times are when they willingly walk away from each other in some grand gesture of nobility or altruism. I scream at the characters to stop doing that to each other.

  I scream because they found the person they can’t live without and they’re making the wrong decision to walk away. It’s always the wrong decision, because that burning passion and flame of love doesn’t just go away. It doesn’t evaporate into thin air or grow less intense with time. It gnaws at the insides and just when you think you’ve concealed the immense pain for a few moments, that love finds a way to burst from the marrow of your bones to remind you that you’ve lost part of yourself.

  Part of you is gone. You are not whole without the other person. The entire planet should stop rotating on its axis because everything is fucked. Everything isn’t aligned anymore. I ask myself on a daily basis how the world keeps spinning. I stare out of my window sometimes and wonder how these people can continue on with their lives when I’m up here like this. How do they get up each morning, go to work, and continue on with their daily tasks while I’m up here so broken?

  I wait for an eviction notice and for the lights to go out for months, but they never do. I haven’t paid rent since I returned to New York. I haven’t paid any bills since then. Maybe I’m hoping my landlord will call my emergency contact and he’ll come back to me. If he saw what this separation was doing to me, he’d come back and put the pieces back together. He could put my heart back together.

  Jimmy flies to New York twice and attempts to break my door down. He shows on my twenty-seventh birthday. I spent the day alone, but it made me feel a little better to know Jimmy was on the other side of the door. I even hear him argue with my landlord in the hallway both times. I remain silent on my side of the door. He isn’t the one I need to rescue me. He isn’t the one who needs to see me like this. He can’t put me back together. On both visits, Jimmy spends hours out in my hallways, telling me how worried he is about me. I sit with my back against the front door while he resorts to retelling funny stories from the road, but I can’t even muster the energy to laugh. Normally, I’d be in stitches, but I can’t find the spark inside me. He also retells some of my favorite stories from our childhood. Those only make me even more sorrowful. Before he leaves, he tells me how much he and the guys love me, and that they’re waiting for my phone call. I touch the door and whisper back that I love them too.

  Sabrina and Roxy stop by both separately and together now, but they’ve long since stopped being dramatic. They knock lightly as they hang around for an hour or so, and then they leave. I open the door to bring in the food and other items they leave for me. I haven’t eaten much since half the time I want to vomit, but I do eat enough to stay alive.

  In the middle of month four, Johnny comes. I look out of my peephole as he runs a hand through his hair. I almost open the door a million times, but I can’t seem to put my hand on the door knob. I reach for it, but never wrap my hand around the knob.

  “Noely, open the door,” he requests.

  I never reply to him. I don’t say a word as the tears stream down my face. A month before, weeks before, maybe even days before, I would’ve opened the door and thrown myself into his arms. Instead, my body shakes as I silently sob on the other side of the door from the one person I wanted to come rescue me because it took him four and a half months to do it. It took over four months to give a fuck about me. I was like a ball of yarn rapidly unwinding into an unrecognizable and jumbled wreck. While I was here crumbling from what was once a human being, he was out playing rock star. He didn’t find the time to come save me. He didn’t find the time to come tell me he loved me.

  “Noely, please open the door,” his voice is laced with concern.

  I stare at the door and the urge to scream bubbles below the surface.

  “Noe, nobody has seen you in four months. Let me in. I need to make sure you’re okay.”

  It’s been over four months, Johnny.

  “Um… uh… Sabrina said she’s been leaving food. Have you been eating?”

  My face twists in disgust at his delayed concern. Delayed might be an understatement.

  “This isn’t what I wanted, Noe. You weren’t supposed to fall apart.”

  But I did.

  “You were supposed to come back to New York and live your life.”

  But I didn’t.

  “You’re supposed to be happy,” his voice breaks on the last word.

  But I’m not.

  “I was saving you from me.”

  But you didn’t.

  “Noe, let me see your face. I’m begging you.”

  Like I begged you not to leave me in L.A.?

  “I just need to see that you’re okay.”

  I’m not.

  “I’ll leave you alone once I see your face if you want me to.”

  You already did that.

  “Noe, please.”

  Please don’t leave me.


  “Let me help you, Noely.”

  Let me go, Noe

  “You know I’ve always been here to help you.”

  I wish I could be who you need me to be.

  I tune him out as my mind goes back to L.A. all those months ago. I remember every single second of me begging him to stay with me. I remember every single tear as I pleaded with him not to leave me, but he pulled away from me repeatedly. I remember every single scream that scratched my throat raw while I screamed for the man I loved to love me back. I remember the arms of my friends that encircled me when he walked out of that door, leaving me as though I was a cat and would land on my feet.

  I’m not a cat and I didn’t land on my feet. I shattered into a million tiny pieces when I hit the ground. The shards lie all around me, but I’m not sure which pieces fit where. They cut and dig into my skin each time I try to pick them up, and so they fall to the ground once again.

  I leave him at that door and turn on the television as loud as it will go. I watch two episodes of Elijah and Hayley before I check the door again.

  Through the peephole, I see him leaning against the wall across from my door. One leg is bent with a foot propped onto the wall. He looks up at the ceiling. I wonder what he’s looking for.

  I watch another two episodes before I check the door again, and I’m surprised that he’s still there. This time he’s staring at my door as though he’ll will me to appear.

  I turn the television off and turn The Doors on. I let it blast through my speakers as I sort through the disarray in my apartment. Failing to clean for over four months is gross. I realize that now. I clean and look through the peephole to find he’s still there. I clean some more and every single fucking time I look through the door he’s still fucking there. It pisses me off.

  Did he think he could show up for a few hours after four months and I’d be miraculously fixed? I’d be okay now? I’d be kissing his fucking feet?

  Fuck that.

  I let The Doors play until the apartment is clean and I’ve had my own shower. I look out at him one last time before I turn in at two in the morning. He’ll be gone in the morning, and then I’m getting myself out of this funk. I’m taking control back over my life. The best thing he ever did for me was waiting four and a half months to show up. It showed me how much I really mean to him. Fuck his love. It was never real. I wish I could say that my love wasn’t either, but you don’t fall apart for four months over lust.