Four Week Fiance 2

by J. S. Cooper

  “I’m not that guy, Mila,” I said, my throat dry. “I don’t want to lose myself in you.”

  “I don’t think that could ever happen,” she said, rolling her eyes as she continued to gaze at me. “You’re frigging TJ Walker.”

  “TJ Walker, yup that’s me,” I said with a wry smile. “I’m King of the World.”

  “You have everything you could want: money, women, looks.” She shrugged. “You’ve got the perfect life.”

  “My life is far from perfect and I don’t think I’ve got it all.”

  “So what are you, then?” She sighed. “Are you broken?”

  “You have to have been whole to be broken,” I said, and Mila’s eyes softened, gazing at me in compassion and, for a few seconds, understanding, as if she finally comprehended where I was coming from.

  “Your parents really messed you up, huh?” She reached out and grabbed my hand.

  “I guess.” I shrugged. “I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I guess a psychiatrist would have been able to tell me what was wrong. Where my fears of love and commitment came from. Maybe they could tell me why as much as my heart beat for Mila, she was the last thing I wanted in my life. I couldn’t even tell her how I really felt. I couldn’t tell her that I loved her as much as I hated her. I couldn’t tell her that with every waking minute that I wanted to be with her, I wanted to forget her. I wanted to vanquish her from my life. How could I tell her that with every moment I loved her, I hated her. I hated her for making me feel like I wasn’t in control. I hated her for being the sunshine in my life on a warm day and the storms in the clouds on a bad one.

  I couldn’t tell her because it would kill her. I knew it would kill her because it killed me. It killed me to know that I couldn’t just express the feelings in my heart. I couldn’t just go with the love. Oh how I wished I could go with the love. How I wished the other feelings of insecurity wouldn’t pop up. How different would everything be if I could express the feelings in my soul? How different would it be if I understood the feelings in my soul? My jaw clenched as I realized that that was only one part of the equation, and there was so much more to our relationship now. We were digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole. A hole I wasn’t sure we’d ever get out of. A hole that might lead to her never talking to me again. Oh, the pain of thinking that she’d never talk to me again. The pain of not having her in my life. It would kill me. It would turn me into a zombie. A dead person living on the earth, but with no real reason for living.

  I couldn’t change our path now, though. Everything was so complicated and fucked up. How could I start telling her the truth, after having told her so many lies? Would it even matter if I could tell her how much I loved her? What was my love, after all? What was the promise of a million dollars from a beggar? Or the promise of a fortnight of hot sun from an Eskimo? I had nothing to give that would make me worthy of her. Nothing to change our path of mutual destruction. I knew we were both going to be devastated at the end of everything. And it scared me more than I was willing to admit.

  “Why are you like this, TJ?” She sighed. “I don’t understand. Why does it have to be like this?”

  “I don’t know.” I sighed too, squeezing her hands. I’d asked myself that question a million times and I didn’t know. “Maybe this is just who I’ve always been.”

  “So we’re just going to fool around for four weeks, while we stage a fake engagement, and then that’s it?” she asked, questioning me, trying to withdraw her hands, but I wouldn’t let her.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I answered, not really sure what to say. She had no idea that the bomb that was coming was going to be much, much worse than that.

  “It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” She sighed. “Just jump in and out of bed with all the women you want and then just move on.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not easy at all.” She had no idea how unique she was, how special. How I couldn’t even think of another woman in any way other than platonic. I’d lost all attraction to them. Which was ironic, as I’d always appreciated a nice ass and rack.

  “So you were just born this way? Unfeeling? Uncaring?” she asked again, prodding. I didn’t know what she was hoping to accomplish, and while I didn’t want to see her hurting, I didn’t know how to end the conversation to prevent that.

  “I suppose so.” I shrugged.

  “Okay, then.” She licked her lips and I could see the light in her eyes fading. “I understand.” She nodded. “It’s fine, really. We’ll just have fun and then when it’s done, we can just go back to being friends again.” She looked into my eyes and gave me a big smile. “I’m an adult, I can handle it.”

  My heart broke then. The look in her eyes so proud, so determined, so heartbroken.

  “I wish I could be the man you need me to be,” I said, my voice lower than a whisper.

  “What?” she asked me, leaning in closer.

  “I’m glad you can be so mature about it,” I said louder and her face froze as she nodded. My heart broke for her and it broke for me. I knew in that moment that both of our spirits were somehow fading, both of us forever connected to this moment. That hope and love had died slightly. That we were both victims to something we didn’t understand. In that moment, I felt a piece of my soul being torn out of my body. I felt like ice was piling into my heart and stomach and I didn’t know how to breathe.

  It shouldn’t feel this way. Yet, it did. I was doing this for her. I was doing this because I knew I couldn’t give her what she needed. Not really. I didn’t know how. And what was worse, I didn’t know that all of me wanted to know how. As much as I loved being with her, I hated it. I hated how she made me feel. I hated the insecurity. I hated the jealousy. I hated the powerlessness. I hated that sometimes when I was alone and looking at the sky, her face would pop into my mind and I would find myself spending minutes and hours just thinking of her smile. I hated that I felt like she was made for me. She was my other half, my soul mate. She made me believe in God and that was a laugh because I hadn’t believed in a long time.

  “So, what do you want to do today?” I asked her finally, pretending that we hadn’t just had the most life-altering conversation of our lives. I grinned at her, willing her to grin back. Willing her to go along with the façade that we were both cool with whatever this game was.

  “I think I’m going to go and see Nonno,” she said, attempting a smile. “Maybe go to the beach or something.”

  “Oh, that will be fun.” I was annoyed that a part of me wanted her to ask me to go to the beach with them. I didn’t really want to go to the beach; I just wanted to be with her.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “It will be fun. Nonno will likely tell me more stories of him and Nonna when they were back in Italy.” She laughed. “Shoot, he’ll most probably tell the same stories to my kids and grandkids.” She laughed and I just nodded, not wanting to go there. “I should get up and shower,” she said feebly. I could tell that she wanted to be away from me, wanted to figure out her feelings, see what she was left with inside. I hoped I hadn’t hurt her too badly. I didn’t want to do that. I hadn’t expected her to get so deep in conversation.

  “Okay, that sounds good.” I nodded and watched as she jumped out of bed. My body missed her as soon as she was gone. It was the first morning since she’d been here that we hadn’t made love. I wanted to reach up and grab her and pull her back down onto the bed, but I didn’t. She gave me a self-conscious smile as she walked away, her eyes looking small and sad, and I just grinned as she walked into the bathroom, pretending that I didn’t notice her downtrodden spirit.

  This was for the best. It was smart for me to get her to start hating me from now on. This way she wouldn’t be so heartbroken and downtrodden when everything came out.

  I heard the sound of the water in the shower and I felt tears coming to my eyes for the first time in years. I was a man who didn’t cry. I was a man who didn’t shed a tear, but in that moment I couldn’t stop myself. I felt like I
’d just lost a part of myself. I wasn’t even sure how or why, but as the tears flowed, I knew that I needed the release. A part of me wondered if I was crying because she was crying in the shower. It wouldn’t have surprised me. We were so connected. Our bodies attuned with each other’s every action and feeling. I’d never experienced something so extrasensory before. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Mila was my soul mate.

  We were connected in ways I’d never have believed possible, but we were never going to get to be together for two reasons. One reason was the fact that she would hate me once she realized what I was hiding from her, and the second reason was because it confounded me to believe that she could love me and stay with me forever. I wasn’t good enough for her. I wasn’t the man she thought I was and I knew that it would kill me once she found that out and stopped loving me. I could lose everything in the world and not have it hurt as much as loving Mila and losing her when she realized who I really was.

  Chapter Eight

  Mila

  The goat and the fish. That was us. He was the goat: frisky, moody, intelligent, questioning, hard to read. I was the fish swimming toward him, following him, wanting him, waiting for him. Always waiting for him. Every day I woke up and thought about how I wanted to kick that goat, though some days I didn’t want to kick so hard. You don’t kick hard when you love someone.

  Every day felt different now. Some days, I could almost pretend that I felt happy, as if I were riding the bull of life and charging down the streets of Pamplona like some bad-ass Spaniard with no fear. Those were the days I loved, feeling high on life, excited to just be me and to experience everything that I could. I craved all of the feelings that went through me: pain, happiness, joy, jealousy, love. All of them made me feel alive, like I had a purpose. And then there were the days that I didn’t want to wake up. Even sitting up in bed was an effort. Thinking of him was a burden. A heartache. A depression. A memory I didn’t want to relive.

  Those days were always the same. The thoughts were always the same. The moment etched in my mind was always the same. We're at the lake. It's mid-September. It was a couple of years ago, when I was in college. I’d been so excited to go to the lake house that summer. Some part of me had thought that that was going to be the summer that TJ and I would finally get together. It was late that night, about 11 p.m. I remember the time exactly because he'd told me we had to be there by 9 p.m and I'd been late. We were scared we wouldn't see the constellation, but we still had hope. We were tired, but alert. He wanted to show me Capricornus, the sea-goat. I'd laughed. I'd never heard of a sea-goat constellation. He'd held my hand and told me to just wait. That there were several things I'd never heard of before. And so we lay back and waited. He told me how Capricornus was represented by an image of a hybrid goat and a fish. I joked that he was moody like a goat and he said I was antsy like a fish. I told him that I was on break from college, so didn’t need him acting like a bossy professor. He said I’d be so lucky. I’d just looked at him, confused, and asked him lucky for him to be bossy? And he’d just laughed.

  His shoulder had rubbed next to mine gently as we lay looking up at the stars, waiting. The distant stars and moon provided the only light and as I looked over at his shadowed face, I had felt my heart swelling. He looked over at me, gave me a small smile and told me to look back at the sky and to wait patiently. I remember I rolled my eyes at his bossy tone, but I didn't say anything. I liked it when he took charge. And then, just when I thought we were waiting in vain, we saw a shooting star and I felt his hand finding mine and squeezing. We just lay there, staring at the sky, hand-in-hand, and as the cool breeze ran across my face, I thought that this was perhaps one of the happiest moments I'd ever had in my life. I never wanted it to end.

  "Do you believe in soulmates?" I had asked him softly, not able to stop myself.

  "Soulmates?"

  "You know, your one true love?"

  "One true love?" He laughed, his eyes looking at me for a few seconds and then away from me. "I think there are many loves for everyone."

  "I see." My heart dropped and I gave him my best fake smile and looked back at the sky.

  "Why? Do you believe in soulmates?"

  "I do," I said earnestly. "I believe that there's one perfect person made for everyone."

  "Made by whom?" He laughed again.

  "By God," I said stiffly, feeling awkward.

  "Oh, okay." His voice trailed off. "Sure thing."

  "Or, if you prefer, the universe. I think that there is one perfect person out there for everyone and when you meet them you just know."

  "You just know what?"

  "That they're the one, of course." I was starting to get annoyed. "You know that they are your true love. The one you've waited your whole life for. The one that just gets you. The one that your heart was made to love. In fact, they're already in your heart. And when you meet them, when you realize that they are the one, then you feel whole, as if everything in life makes sense."

  "That's a nice fairy tale." he said with a laugh.

  "I don't think it's a fairy tale."

  "Well, good luck to you then, Mila. I hope you meet this perfect man, your soulmate, or whatever." His voice had been stiff and the air had gone silent.

  That was the moment that I started to question everything. That was the moment I knew I loved him as more than a crush. That was the moment I knew that my fairy tale might never come true.

  ***

  There’s a numbness in pain that I welcome. It’s a welcome change from gut-wrenching pain and emptiness that you feel when you love someone who doesn’t love you. There is nothing worse than the feeling of rejection. There is nothing worse than not being good enough. There is nothing worse than the feeling in your heart when you realize that the man that you love doesn’t love you back; even if you would have bet your soul on it that he did. I didn’t trust my heart anymore, or my brain. They both lied to me. They told me that TJ loved me. I knew he didn’t want to love me. I knew that he’d never told me he loved me, but something in me had still believed it to be true. Something in the way that he smiled, in the way that he looked at me, his possessiveness, that way he held me close, the way he talked to me. All of those things had told me he was the one. But it was all in my head. It was all a dream. A fantasy. I’d gone and made a fool of myself and I was embarrassed and ashamed and devastated. And my heart—well, I was surprised my heart was still functioning.

  I’d left TJ’s house that morning, anxious to get away from him and to see Nonno. Though a part of me had hoped that he would say, “Don’t go. Spend the day with me, Mila,” but of course he hadn’t said those words. He hadn’t said anything and I’d left and told him I’d see him later and he’d told me to enjoy my day with Nonno and to make it special. I’d smiled, but I hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes. I hadn’t wanted him to see the heartbreak in my irises.

  I resisted the urge to check my phone again once I hit a stoplight. I knew that there wouldn’t be any texts from TJ. I hadn’t heard my phone beeping. He didn’t care. He wasn’t thinking of me as much as I was thinking of him. That didn’t matter to me though. As soon as I was stopped, I grabbed my phone and quickly punched in my code to check my messages. My heart fell as I saw no new messages. It wasn’t a shock, but just another confirmation that I was a sad case. This was the fifth time since I’d left TJ’s home that I was checking my messages, praying and hoping for a sign that maybe—just maybe—he could love me back. But there was nothing. I continued driving to Nonno’s house and I allowed myself five more minutes to cry before I was going to have to stop. I didn’t want to show up to Nonno’s house with a red nose and swollen eyes from all my tears.

  I turned on the radio to see if I could cheer myself up with some new music, when Adele’s new single, “Hello”, started playing. I sang along and felt the tears streaming once again. I wasn’t sure why I allowed myself to listen to sad songs, when I was suffering from heartache. I knew it wasn’t smar
t, but somehow it made me feel better. It made me remember that other people had gone through heartache as well and still ended up okay on the other side. My stomach felt empty as I sang along and drove. I wasn’t sure that I was going to feel better once this was all over. I wasn’t sure it was smart to even stay in this relationship with TJ. How could I keep giving myself to him? Sleeping with him? Loving him? Knowing that every moment with him made me love him more and made him feel like I was still nothing.

  I turned onto the interstate and switched the radio off. I needed to dry my eyes and pretend to be happy for my meeting with Nonno. It always made him upset to see me hurting.

  ***

  Nonno opened the front door and pulled me into his arms. “Mila, so good to see you, mi cara.”

  “You too, Nonno.” I kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry I haven’t called or seen you in a while. I’ve just been preoccupied with TJ and the engagement.”

  “I understand.” He smiled at me graciously as we walked into his home. I smiled as I saw that he had an old photo album out on the couch, and I walked over to it.

  “Looking at photos of Nonna?” I asked him, smiling at how nostalgic he was.

  “Every single day.” He nodded and walked over to me and we sat down together on the couch and looked at the photos.

  “She was so beautiful,” I said as I picked up a photo of Nonna that must have been taken when she was 18. She was scowling at the camera, her long black hair flying behind her as she stood there with a basket in her hands. I laughed at the photo and Nonno took it from me and held it close to his eyes.

  “This day, your Nonna, she was mad at me.” He chuckled. “She was mad because she’d seen me talking to another girl. So when I came up to the camera, she told me to get away from her.”