by Jordan Marie
Panic attack. I’m having a fucking panic attack in broad daylight. Each person that comes up to me is hidden by unseen arms, unseen hands reaching out to grab me. Reaching out to grab me and pull me down into the darkness. My hands shake, a cold sweat breaks out over my skin. I’m dizzy. I’m going to fucking lose it in front of my brothers. NO! I CAN’T!! I throw the parts down on the work bench and stomp out of the garage.
I want to fucking run. I want to run so fucking far that I can feel nothing but the burn of the air in my lungs. I can’t do that either. If I run they will all know, they will know and it will all crumble around me and I’ll lose Carrie. I make it to the back of the garage and lean against the block wall, slowly falling to my ass. I bring my knees up and put my head down and breathe deep.
This one might have been the worse yet. My hands are trembling. Hell, my whole body is shaking. I have been doing so well. I cope so much better when Carrie is with me. I’m a grown ass man, and I need a woman around to hold my hand. It pisses me off. I do not want to be weak. A weak man can’t take care of himself. He can’t defend himself. I do not want to be this person. I need to be different for Carrie. I just don’t know if that is possible.
I get a little control and decide on a couple of drinks before going to my old room to nap. I need Carrie. I need her so bad, it’s all I can do not to jump on my bike and head back to the house. Instead I pull myself up and go into the bar.
I down one shot after another. I’m on the fifth when Tash, a club Twinkie, comes over and slides on my lap. She feels wrong. She smells wrong.
“Dancer baby, I thought being in the joint might have changed you.”
My heart stalls. Is there talk? Does she know something? Did Dragon tell the men?
“What do you mean?” I ask my voice gruff. My hand grabs her leg tight. She doesn’t seem to notice. Hell, she probably thinks I want her there. Really I’m trying to keep the room from spinning and fighting back the traces of the panic attack that is still in my system.
“I was starting to think we had lost you to the land of soccer dads and minivans. Figured we wouldn’t see you around here until you had a ring through your nose and a couple of kids screaming for attention,” Tash laughs her fingers moving along the side of my face and moving close to my lip.
My emotions are all over the place. An image of Carrie with babies at her feet… but not just any babies, my babies flash in my head. Then I feel the sweat still popped out on my neck and the pounding beat of my heart from the earlier panic attack and immediately get jerked back into reality. I am not father material. I can’t even protect myself, how can I protect kids? Hell, I almost got Carrie killed if you get down to it.
“Fuck, if there is one thing I’m not cut out for girl, it’s being a dad. You won’t ever catch me with my balls cut off for some woman. You know me better than that shit. The only van you might catch me in, is one rockin’ if you get my meaning,” I say, giving a half-hearted attempt to laugh it all off.
She laughs and the noise is shrill and annoying. She bends down like she’s going to kiss me. Fuck, I don’t want that. I don’t want her anywhere near me. Her perfume is about to make me gag. I’m about to pull away when my world stops turning.
“You dildo, juggling, thunder cunt! What the hell Tash? Did you NOT learn to stay away from a brother who is spoken for?” Freak’s woman, Nikki demands. That isn’t what destroys me though. No, what does that is Carrie’s quiet gasp.
Fuck! I stand up, not caring one fucking bit that Tash falls to the ground. In the background Nikki and Tash start yelling, but it is Carrie standing in front of me that I concentrate on. I have to fix this. I need to fix this. I can’t lose Carrie.
“Carrie sweetheart, I can…it’s not what you think, Care Bear.”
She flinches like I hit her.
“Don’t. Oh, God Jacob, please don’t. Don’t you dare use that name on me, not now.”
She turns around and pushes through the front door before I can tell my fucking feet to move. I catch up with her seconds later outside.
“Carrie, I swear, nothing was happening. It wouldn’t. I have you, I don’t…”
“That’s just it, Jacob,” she says turning around, facing me and the sight of her tears is so hard to take, I almost wish she had kept her back to me. How many tears have I caused her? Why do I always hurt her? “You don’t have me. You’ve been pretending with me. I’m not what you want, not at all.”
“Bullshit. I’ve been showing you for months that you’re what I want.”
“Really, Jacob?”
“Damn it, you’ve been there in our house. You know! You get more of me than I’ve ever willingly given anyone.”
“Why do you refuse to sleep with me?”
“We fuck like bu….”
“I’m not talking sex Jacob, I mean sleep. Why can’t you sleep with me?”
“Now you’re talking crazy, Carrie. We sleep beside each other every night. C’mon baby, let’s go home,” I counter, her face looking even more shaken with my answer. I know I’m lying, but there’s no way she can. I need to get her home, calm her down. I can’t lose her. I start walking her towards her car.
32
Carrie
Sometimes I think if you lie to someone enough you can break them. It’s like you’re delicate hand-blown glass and all the lies you’ve swallowed bends you until you shatter, completely shatter. When Jacob stands in front of me and says he sleeps beside me every night, I shatter. At that moment I am a walking corpse. The hurt is too big to measure, the pain is too substantial and the fear, the fear of life without Jacob, without having a half of me, is too consuming.
Oddly enough, I believe him about Tash. I don’t know that probably makes me a fool. What we’ve been sharing is too beautiful. I can’t see him giving that to anyone else. Is that what every woman says though who gets cheated on? I have no idea, but I feel in my heart he’s telling the truth. He looks me in the eye when he talks about her. He couldn’t when he vowed he slept by me every night. Even in my current state, I can see that.
So I’m weak. I let him take me back to the vehicle. I let him usher me into the passenger seat. I let him drive me home. I let all this happen and don’t say one word. I watch as he grabs the basket of food and carries it inside with us when we get home. I watch all of it, like it’s not really happening to me. It happens in slow motion in my brain, and I can’t bring myself to say one word.
Jacob leads me into the bathroom and sits me on the toilet. I watch as he runs water, adding my favorite bubble bath. I’ve still not spoken. He keeps talking and it sounds like it’s coming at me from far off in the distance.
I’m like a marionette and he’s controlling the strings. I say nothing when he begins to undress me, just lifting my hands and doing as he says. I don’t even understand it. I should be mad, I should be screaming at him. I can’t. Something is broken inside of me. With his final lie to me, something severed. I don’t know how he hasn’t noticed.
He helps me get into the tub and the hot water does feel good. I close my eyes and let the heat invade my body and ignore the one lone tear that falls down my face. I feel Jacob get in behind me. His legs come around each side of mine and he wraps his arm around my waist and brings me back into him so my back is against his front. He urges my head to fall back against his chest and despite the heat of the water bringing me somewhat back to life, I go. I lay my head there and wait for his heat and that of the water to work magic and heal me. I’m so deadly cold. Yet, it is so deep inside I know nothing will penetrate it.
I lie against him, listening to his heartbeat and notice that he has stopped talking. He has turned the water off. Now there is just silence. How long has there been silence?
“Carrie, you have to believe me, baby. I wasn’t going to let her touch me. I wouldn’t do that to you. I just… my head is fucked up, Care Bea…”
I stiffen when he starts to use my nickname and he must have felt it. It seems I’m not so rob
otic after all.
“My head is fucked up Princess, it is just things… there’s things you don’t know Carrie, things I can’t share—not yet. Things that sneak up on me without me even realizing it. She said shit…and it’s not an excuse, sweetheart. It’s not, but I promise you I wasn’t doing what it looked like. You would have seen that a few minutes later, I promise.”
“You haven’t been going to therapy.”
“Carrie, I…”
“They called Jacob,” I stop him before he lies again, because that is what is wrong. When we talk about what is really wrong with him? When we talk about what is causing all the trouble? That is when he lies.
“I can’t talk about it, Carrie. Especially with some college idiot, with some initials after his name, who has no idea what I am feeling or what I am going through. There are things Princess that if you haven’t lived it, there is no way you can help someone else.
“Then find a support group, there are those around, Jacob.”
“I can’t Carrie, I can’t talk to strangers about…I can’t, not even for you.”
“Then talk to me, give it to me.”
“Damn it Carrie, I can’t tell you! I can’t go there, not right now—hell maybe not ever, you don’t know, Carrie. You can’t know…”
“I do know. I know it all, Jacob.”
He stops and his body goes hard like stone behind me.
“The night I came into your room, before you…before… You were dreaming. I heard, Jacob. I know,” I say quietly, praying I’m not doing this wrong.
I have been attending a Kentucky Rape Crisis Outreach support group with Nicole. We hadn’t told anyone, though I figure Dragon knows—I didn’t ask. I’ve only been to four meetings though and we’re mostly dealing with the effects rape has on friends and family members. What if I’m handling this all wrong? I don’t want to make things worse. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.
“I can’t talk about this with you, Carrie. Don’t ask me to.”
My heart sinks. “I know you blame me Jacob, I blame myself too. I understand and that’s the reason I should probably leave. How can you want to be with someone who is responsible for…?”
He stops me and his hand caresses my face and turns it towards him.
“Stop that, Carrie. I don’t blame you. I was angry sweetheart, so angry when I got out and I focused that anger on you, but what happened is not your fault. It is not your fault at all and I don’t want you blaming yourself.”
“Jacob…”
“Let’s go to bed, Carrie. Let’s just hold each other for a while. Then we’ll get up and eat and spend the night holding each other. I’ll sleep with you tonight. Let’s ignore the world around us and concentrate just on the two of us.”
“Jacob, I don’t…”
“We’ll start small, let’s take a nap. Let me hold you in our bed. We both need that. Okay?”
I don’t remember agreeing, but he must have taken my silence for doing so. He lifts me out of the bathtub. Standing me on the rug, he takes a towel and wraps it around me, after first securing one on his hip. He lifts me again, taking me into the bedroom. He proceeds to take the towel from me and dries me off. He kisses my forehead, my eyes, my lips, and then my shoulders, before finally placing me in the bed and pulling me close. We lie there in the dark, as if we’re both afraid to say anything that might destroy the tenuous truce we have in this moment.
“Don’t leave me, Carrie. I need you,” he says into the quiet, a good fifteen minutes or more later.
At one time those words would have been more than enough to get me to stay. They totally would have worked. I didn’t realize he thought I was leaving, but I can’t deny I am thinking hard on it. I love Jacob. I love him with all my heart, but how can you be with someone who refuses to help himself? Still I might try it, just because the past month and a half have been so wonderful I might try it…just….
“Do you really not want kids, Jacob?”
His body tenses up again and his arm that he has wrapped around my chest tightens until the point of pain, but I say nothing.
“I can’t be a father, Carrie. I’m not…capable…I’m just not cut out for it. I could make you happy though, sweetheart. I know I can, if you give me another chance. We’ll be happy together, just the two of us, for the rest of our lives, just the two of us.”
His words are like a physical blow, even if the last sentence is a sweet temptation. Can I do that? Can I trade the life growing inside of me for a shot of forever with Jacob? I don’t think I can, which means letting go of the one man who has always had my heart.
It’s over.
Those words echo in my soul.
33
Dancer
She didn’t say she loved me. I have come to count on those three words over the last month and a half we have been together. Those words work to give me strength to make it through the day. Carrie is my lifeline. Yet, I think I’ve fucked up so much this time that I’m losing her. I hold her so close it’s almost like my body is absorbing hers, but there is this wall between us now, separating us. I did that. I put that wall there with my stupid weakness. I should have protected and cherished what Carrie gave me and I fucked it up.
I live with fear every damn hour, of every damn day. I live with it. I beat down the urge to run and crawl in a fucking hole and hide constantly. This is my life. Panic attacks and my heart beating in fear? This is my life. Feeling dirty and ashamed and weak…feeling so fucking weak and useless? This is my life.
It’s always there. ALWAYS! Yet, with Carrie it is smaller, it is less apparent, it’s like I have whole blocks of the day when I can be almost normal. She is my light, and I didn’t protect it. I didn’t fully appreciate it. If I lose her I’ll be completely lost.
Which means right now fear is near to suffocating me and is more intense, bigger than anything I’ve ever felt before in my life—including the night I was attacked. The fear I have now, is a fear that goes bone deep. The fear of losing someone I love. I love Carrie. I. Love. Her. Yes, I realize the irony of acknowledging I love her, just when I have pushed her so far away she’s not giving it back to me. I need to fix it, I’m not sure how.
I had Carrie drop me off at the club this morning, since my bike was here. I’ve been here for three hours, and I can’t concentrate on anything. I need to be with her. I have to fight for her and show her she matters more than anything else. I may not be great, but I know with her I can be okay. I can make her happy.
With that in mind, I throw my tools down and get to my bike. It’s time I prove to Carrie that I can be better for her. Her vehicle is not at the house. I will not panic. She probably is just doing errands in town. I can catch her there and we can have lunch together and maybe go home for dessert. I didn’t make love to her last night and I need her. Over the past month we haven’t missed a night of making love, most of the time two and three times a night. I hunger for her and the way it feels when I’m that close to her.
This could be a bad idea though. I have no idea where she is. London might still give a small town feel, but there are elements of a bigger city in it, with too many places she could be. I start with her favorite. The Curl up and Dye hair salon she gets her hair fixed at is a bust, the local grocery she prefers, the bank, the library, the bookstore—all a bust. I’m about to give up when I decide to drive downtown to the local diner she likes.
Downtown London is probably my favorite area besides the marina and lake. It’s a busy place with shopping, offices, diners, schools and clinics all put together to give someone everything they need without having to really visit the outer areas, which are overcrowded with large shopping outlets. The buildings are kept up nicely and all have an architectural feel of the past. It is modern, but also a step back in time. It doesn’t stress me out like most crowded areas do.
I’m approaching Weaver’s which is a London, Kentucky classic and Carrie’s favorite place to eat downtown when I see her vehicle parked outside the
Wellness Center and Clinic. I remember she told me she had made an appointment. Why didn’t I ask when it was? I would have gone with her. I know she has been sick for a while maybe she was worse this morning?
I park and walk inside scanning the lobby for her. I’m about to give up and wait for her outside, when a door opens across from reception and Carrie walks out with a nurse. She hasn’t spotted me, but I can tell she is upset. I walk over to her afraid this might be something more than a cold.
“Ms. Grace here’s your prescription for prenatal vitamins and the pamphlets you should look at. The clerk out front will schedule your follow-up appointment.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” Carrie says.
“We’ll see you next visit. Please call if you need anything before then.”
“Prenatal…?” I ask, not even realizing I spoke out loud. The room fades away with the exception of the nurse’s words and Carrie’s face as she turns around and sees me standing in front of her.
“Jacob? What…what are you doing here?” She asks once the nurse goes back through the door.
“Prenatal? Did she say Prenatal Vitamins? Carrie, are you pregnant?” I ask and even I can hear the panic in my voice.
Carrie’s face drains of what little color she had. I watch as her eyes water, but she takes a breath and composes herself.
“Jacob, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be working? How did you find me?”
She asks all those questions, but she doesn’t look at me. She instead starts walking to the door. I turn her back around to me instead.
