The Life List (The List Trilogy)

by Chrissy Anderson

  “I know and I was wrong.”

  “You’re going freaking crazy, you know that!?”

  “I’m not crazy. Don’t you see? It wasn’t what you or I did or didn’t do for each other that caused all of our problems; it’s that everything we do for each other is a compromise. We’re too different! We’ve been a ‘if you do this for me, then I’ll do that for you’ couple since the beginning and it’s exhausting. I’m sorry Kurt, but I’m not gonna compromise my happiness for yours anymore.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “If I sleep with you now, I’ll be making a huge compromise, and I can’t go there anymore.”

  “So we’re gonna be a sexless married couple then? That’s priceless, Chrissy! What other brilliant ideas do you have that will make the rest of our lives together more enjoyable?”

  As I sat in the chair by the side of the bed crying about what had become of us, Kurt continued to rant and rave about sex. He actually thought my refusal to sleep with him was negotiable, like if we continued to discuss the matter, the end result would be furniture-breaking sex. It wasn’t. The end result was an early departure from the B&B and a very quiet ride home. And when we got there, I packed my bags and went to my parent’s house.

  Now that my head is completely removed from my ass and I made my stance with Kurt, I cannot let anything distract me from finishing what I started. Right now everything has to be about me, him, a separation, and therapy. I can’t be running off in the middle of the night to jump in the sack with Leo. Like Dr. Maria said, I have to feel it and be okay with it so it doesn’t come back to haunt me later.

  I’m totally incapable of feeling sorrow when the drug is in my life so I have to end it with Leo. Yeah, it sounds so logical when I say it, but actions speak louder than words. I have to keep reminding myself that being alone is better than being in an unsatisfying marriage and that’s why I want out of it. And I have to keep reminding myself that being alone is better than telling Leo I’m married…and that’s why I’m making a trip to Monterey, to tell him we’re through. I suppose I could do it over the phone, but he deserves to be told in person. Ahhh, who am I kidding? I’m going to Monterey to shoot up one last time before I quit cold turkey.

  Leo’s been in Monterey for about three weeks and during that time I’ve been acting like a jealous girlfriend by hacking into his voicemail. He’s given me no reason to think he’s disingenuous, yet I still find it incredibly hard to believe he could adore me as much as he does. Is it my own lying that’s made me distrustful, or is it that Kurt’s made me feel so unlovable that it’s impossible to believe Leo could feel the way he does about me? I have no idea, but the only thing that convinces me of Leo’s sincerity is his voicemail account, his only messages continue to be from friends and they’re all completely innocent. Even at the eleventh hour of our relationship, I’m still waiting for him to do something horribly wrong to justify breaking up with him.

  Now that I’m out of my house and splitting time between my parent’s house and Slutty Co-workers apartment, it’s hard for Kurt to keep track of me and easier to go missing for a few days at a time. So after work on Friday, I pack my prettiest lingerie and all of the courage I have and head to Monterey to end it with Leo. Twenty minutes after I arrive at The Plaza Hotel, he shows up with flowers and a box from Victoria’s Secret. We have two nights together before I have to tell him the news, and I want to enjoy every minute of it. And I do.

  I’ve never visited Monterey without furiously biking my way through it or waiting in stupid lines to get into the stupid aquarium. I imagine it’s torture enough to have to take your kids to an aquarium but why on earth would anyone go who doesn’t even have children? It’s that very subject that sends Leo and me into drunken tears of laughter as we sit in the outdoor patio of a French restaurant.

  Yes, this Monterey trip is way different than any of my others. We stay up late, order in-room movies, and kiss the entire way through them. We sleep until noon, eat greasy bar food overlooking the Monterey Bay, and drink Bloody Mary’s until it’s time to drink real drinks. I watch Leo whenever he’s preoccupied doing something else, and I’m mesmerized by every move he makes. Everything he does is intense and deliberate and it’s electrifying that he has the same degree of passion when he speaks to me.

  Last night in the middle of dinner when a very pretty pregnant woman sat at the table next to us, he reached his hands across the table to hold mine and said, “I can’t wait until you look like that.” It took my breath away. There were a million other wonderful things he said to me over the weekend, and when he wasn’t looking, I wiped away the tears that formed in the corners of my eyes. I didn’t set out on this farewell trip to tell Leo I was married, but after spending the best forty-eight hours of my life with him, I knew I had to give him exactly what’s he’s given me- intense and deliberate honesty. By the time Sunday rolled around, I decided it was time to do the honorable thing and tell him I was married.

  “Good morning.”

  “Hey, baby, wow you look pretty. How long have you been up?”

  “Couple of hours. I’ve been watching you sleep.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.”

  He rolls his feet onto the floor, rests his elbows on his knees and apprehensively stares up at me.

  “I have to tell you something.”

  Two little words is all it’ll take to set me free of this lie… I’m married. Just say the words, Chrissy, and you can leave here knowing you did the honorable thing.

  “Leo I…uh, I…”

  What if, after everything we did and said to each other for the past six months, he told me he was married? How would I react to find out that after every sexcapade and tender moment shared with me, he went home to another woman? I would die. And I wouldn’t believe him if he told me he never had sex with his wife. I wouldn’t believe him if he told me it was over with her. I would feel like second fiddle, and every beautiful moment we shared together I would now consider immoral and gross. I would hate him. Mission honorable is now aborted.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and…I need some time to myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Things are complicated.”

  “Like what?”

  “Settling twelve years of business with K…him, selling the house, the stress of my job and JUST EVERYTHING! I’m overwhelmed and I’m freaking out that I’m not giving myself enough time between that relationship and this one. I have to clean up my messes.”

  “How many times are you gonna do this? Here’s a better question, what if I’m not available when you want to come back next time?”

  With the proper detox program, there shouldn’t be a next time.

  “I’m sorry…I have to be alone for a while.”

  It sounds believable, but it’s not how I feel! I want to spend every waking minute of the rest of my life with him, but I can’t. I have to finish what I started with Kurt. The part of option #1 where I break up with Leo cold turkey is coming to life, and I can already feel the cold sweat and shakes coming on.

  “How does being with me get in the way of all the stuff you have to take care of? We already go days without talking, and since I’m living down here, we hardly see each other anyway.” Shaking his head like all of this is something he can talk me out, of he says, “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s an obligation I don’t have the capacity to make room for right now.”

  I’m a monster! I’m making him out to be a pain in my ass when he’s really the only thing in the world that makes me feel good. I have to get out of here. Now.

  “Take this.”

  I hand him the pewter ring he bought me in Mill Valley. The only time I took it off was the night of my class reunion. Which right now, I regret doing.

  “Maybe, if I ever get my act together, you can give it back to me.”

  Leo takes the ring, stares at the cheap and beautiful symbol of our relationship, and then
gently kneels down in front of me. I can barely hold myself together.

  “It’s not the ring I want you to have for the rest of your life, but I’m asking you now. Marry me, Chrissy.”

  “Leo…I can’t say yes.”

  “But I know you want to.”

  “Please don’t do this.”

  “Baby, I don’t have to date a hundred girls to know you’re the one. Look, take however much time you need for yourself but just say yes to me so I know you’re coming back.”

  If I don’t walk out of here immediately, I fear I’ll say yes and then I’ll be engaged. Next step, The Jerry Springer Show.

  I pull his arms up so that he’s standing in front of me and then I reach up to cup his face. With tears streaming down mine, we kiss for an eternity. It’s almost impossible for me to let him go. He tries to pull me back into bed but using all of my self-control, I pull away and stare into the eyes that if all goes according to plan I’ll never see again.

  “Baby… baby. Please don’t do this. I need you in my life, and I know you need me. Why are you gonna walk away from that?”

  Finally, through breaths that are borderline hyperventilation I try to talk.

  “Please don’t call me. Every time I see or hear from you it makes what I have to deal with that much harder. I don’t expect you to understand, I just need you to honor my request.”

  “No.”

  “Dammit, Leo, you have to!”

  “God, why are you doing this?!”

  Because I have to go home and settle things with my husband, that’s why! What if I just blurt it out!? Maybe he could forgive me…maybe we could work. His eyes are telling me it’s possible! But don’t be a selfish fool, Chrissy! He’s finally just one year away from finishing six years of college. He’s so close to starting a career. He’s on the precipice of living a very fulfilling life, and telling him you’re married will only spoil all the happiness he deserves right now. But what if it’s selfish not to tell him? What if he wants me any way he can get me and by abandoning him I’m making all those great things in his life less great? Dammit, I don’t know! The only thing I do know is that I can’t chance him hating me. It always comes down to that, and that’s why I have to stick to the plan and leave.

  “Leo, you have to let me go.”

  “No, I don’t. I won’t.”

  “If you care for me as much as you say you do, you have to let me do this.”

  “You’re really doing this to take care of selling your house and to focus on work stuff, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told me it was over with him, and I believed you. You’re not gonna do anything stupid are you? “

  “Actually, quite the opposite.”

  And just like that, I walk out the door and down the hall to the elevator without pausing to look back. If I turn, I’ll run back to him. And if I run back to him, I’ll have to tell him I’m married because I’ll never get the courage to do what I just did to him ever again. The elevator takes too long to arrive, and just as the urge to sprint back to him hits me like a tidal wave, I burst into the stairwell and race down four flights of stairs to my car.

  I just quit the best thing to ever happen to me. Only a drug addict could possibly understand the pain I’m going through.

  What the?

  July, 1998

  Leaving Leo behind in Monterey was torture. I barely made it to my car before the tears started pouring down my face, and when I looked at the room that he and I had shared for the last forty-eight hours, I saw him staring down at me with tears of his own. He mouthed the words “Come back to me,” and even though it was another lie, I said, “I will. I promise.”

  On the drive home from Monterey, I had grand visions of contacting a divorce attorney, of telling Kurt I want to sell the house, and getting on with my life…alone. But instead, I drove straight to Slutty Co-workers apartment, collapsed on her couch and cried myself silly. And I’ve been crying for two weeks straight. Whenever she asks me why I can’t just end it with Kurt, I tell her that I need more time to prepare him for it, that I don’t have the heart to hurt him quite yet. She just shakes her head and says, “Yeah…right…I guess it makes more sense that you and Leo should be the ones to suffer and not him.” I know her sarcastic heart is in the right place.

  I thought I was a wreck before I put my foot down in Napa and ripped my heart out in Monterey but nothing compares to the fucking mess I am now. Without my drug, I definitely look like I’m coming off of something. My clothes don’t match, and I don’t care to put on makeup most mornings. I haven’t laughed or seemed interested in anything going on around me for weeks. My door is always closed at work, and my window coverings are always down at my parent’s house and at Slutty Co-workers apartment, wherever I decide to spend the night. Hiding from the world has become my new obsession. Well, that and calling into Leo’s messages. Yes, to make everything a zillion times worse than it already is, I can’t stop frolicking with masochism! Fortunately for me, there are no girls calling yet, just one really supportive best friend.

  “Dude! Fuck her anyway. You’ll find someone better.”

  And then…

  “Dude! She has too much baggage, and she’s not the only 5’6, blond girl out there you know.”

  And my favorite…

  “Dude! She’ll be like forty when you’re only thirty-four. Who wants that?”

  With messages like that from Taddeo, it’s only a matter of time before Leo moves on. The thought makes me want to gain seventy-five pounds and become a librarian, but there’s no time, as I too have my own abundance of messages to contend with these days. My friends have been calling me off the hook and their messages have gone from worry to full on rage that I haven’t called them back.

  “Chrissy, this is Nic. I’m so fucking pissed that you’re ignoring us. I went out on a limb to protect your ass at that bowling alley and this is how you repay me? I swear I’m gonna call Kurt and tell him about you and your little--BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP”

  “It’s me again. Your freaking voicemail cut me off. Okay, so I was kidding about telling Kurt, but call me TODAY! I want to know what the hell is going on with you.”

  “Hey, it’s Court. We missed you at dinner last week and the week before that. You know I don’t get mad at much, but I’m frustrated that you dumped all of that Kurt dirt on us and won’t give us a chance to help you. I keep calling the house, but it seems like Kurt’s making up reasons why you can’t come to the phone. Please call me. I won’t let you hide forever.”

  “Hey Chrissy, It’s Kel. Courtney and Nicole are making me call you to tell you to get off your skinny little ass and meet us Thursday night. We’ll be at Chili’s at 7pm.”

  I just love how Kelly said she called because Courtney and Nicole made her, not because she wanted to. But not as much as I’m lovin’ Kelly’s restaurant choice. What self-respecting, almost twenty-nine year old with a decent disposable income wants to get caught dead at a Chili’s? It’s like the aquarium to me, why go if you don’t have kids with you? There’s no cool scene there, just fat people who want to eat cheap food and get fatter. Regardless of hating the thought of driving all the way to Freakmont to eat at Chili’s, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen my friends, and I should tell them I semi-moved out of my house in Danville. So I go.

  “Well, well, well, look who decided to show her disgraceful face…and disgraceful outfit!”

  “Yeah, what’s this look all about Chrissy? You look like homeless Barbie!”

  “Hey, back off, Nic! We all look disgraceful here!”

  “C’mon, what’s wrong with Chili’s?!”

  “Ahhhh gee, nothing, Kelly if you’re celebrating a five-year-old’s birthday party or have a hankering for an awesome blossom.”

  “Nice to see that the attitude matches the outfit, doesn’t it girls?” Kelly looks annoyed, so I do what I know will annoy her even more and give her a big ol’ hug and kiss on the cheek.

  “
I love Chili’s because you love Chili’s, Kel.”

  “I don’t loooooooove Chili’s. It’s just close to my house! I’m sick of driving to all those fancy shmancy places in Danville. It’s my pick tonight and I pick economical!”

  “Fine with me. The med school payments, the house payment, the car payment…it’s all killing Kyle and me these days. What about you, Courtney, making a dent in your student loans?”

  “Not even a spec. They’ll always be there!”

  Then it gets quiet. So quiet, you can actually hear the people at the table next to us getting fatter. I can tell my friends have a million questions for me but no one wants to be the first to dive in for fear of getting their ass handed to them. Watching them squirm is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.

  “So, do they have hard alcohol here or just the wimpy stuff like beer and wine?”

  “Yeah, they have all the gross stuff you like, Chrissy. Just remember you have a long drive home, so take it easy.”

  “Not that long, Kel. I’m staying in Pleasanton.” There! It’s out. Have at it girls.

  All three of them tilt their heads and do the, “I feel so sorry for you” pouty face. As usual, Courtney takes the lead in all serious conversations. She gives Nicole and Kelly the “I’ve got this” look.

  “Staying with your folks?”

  “Yep, it was only a matter of time.”

  “Is there any hope for you guys?”

  “I don’t think so…but then again, maybe. But not maybe because we’re gonna magically turn into super happy married couple; it’s because I don’t have the guts to do anything other than spend the night at my parent’s house or my co-workers house in the city. It’s weird, guys. Every week I go home to pick up more clothes and it’s like Kurt’s totally oblivious to what’s happening right in front of his face.”