My Winter

by Nikki Young

  “When did you find out?” I ask confused by her reaction. Cari is always so self-assured, confident in every decision she makes regardless of whether they are totally poor. At this moment, she’s lost. Not something totally new, but this doesn’t seem like something that would throw her for a loop.

  “I don’t know,” she says looking down at the garbage can. “A few hours ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You had your own drama,” she says dismissively.

  “Cari, it doesn’t matter. You know that. Have you told Jimmy?”

  “I haven’t, but I need to.”

  Cari sits down on the edge of the toilet and runs her hands over her face. I can tell the situation is bothering her, but I have no words that can possibly make her feel any better. She stands and begins to walk out of the bathroom. Stopping her, I wrap my arms around her and the two of us stand like this for a while. I need this as much as she does.

  Cari and I have always been affectionate with each other, which is rare for her. She chalks it up to her parents failed marriage and their lack of nurturing. Some psychological bullshit. I’ve always thought it was because she never felt comfortable enough with the person to be that open. Even after all the years she and Jimmy have been together, she still runs hot and cold. Not with me though. I can hug her and kiss her, hold her hand and pet her arm without either of us giving it a second thought.

  When Cari pulls away, she stops for a second and tells me she loves me and I know she means it. I tell her the same thing back, knowing that’s all she needs to hear.

  After an hour-long conversation and far too much coaxing, Cari picks up her phone. She sets it back down and catches a glimpse of a picture of her and Jimmy that sits on her end table.

  “He loves me, right?” she asks softly.

  “Of course, Cari,” I answer with more certainty than I have ever had about anything. Taking her arm into my lap, I slowly run my fingers over her forearm and watch a small smile form on her lips.

  Cari finally gains the courage to call him and when he answers, she tells him she has something to tell him, but he obviously begins speaking because she sits silently. She says nothing and her stoic expression gives nothing away. When she inhales hard, the words that leave her mouth shock me far more than finding out she’s pregnant.

  “We’re done,” she says with an icy coldness to her voice. “And, by the way, I’m pregnant.” She chucks the phone onto the couch without hanging up and storms out of the apartment with just her car keys in hand.

  I sit stunned, not sure if I should chase her or pick up her phone. After knowing Cari as long as I have, I know following her will only cause her to retreat more. She internalizes everything and although she appears confident, I’ve seen her breakdown, vulnerable and self-conscious. I have no idea what just occurred, but it obviously was far more than she bargained for when she placed that phone call.

  I reach over and hit end on Cari’s phone. I don’t want to get involved in this before I have a chance to talk to Cari.

  The phone rings instantly, lighting up with Jimmy’s name. Within in seconds it rings again. I lose track of the number of times he calls, not only Cari’s phone but mine too. The only thing I begin to recognize, the one thing that begins to wear me down, is the number of times Adam calls. Zero.

  I’m anxious and unnerved. I can’t sleep. I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling for what seems like hours. After tossing and turning, worrying about Cari and stressing over Jimmy and hating myself for what happened with Adam, I wander the floors of the apartment. It’s small and it only takes me seconds to go from one end to the next. Stopping in the kitchen, I open the refrigerator door, even though I’m not hungry. It gives me something to do. I eventually make another trek through the apartment and find myself standing in front of the refrigerator again. Opening and closing the door, a distraction, but never enough.

  On my third round of opening the door I grab a half full bottle of white wine. Closing the door, I slide to the floor and drink straight from the bottle. I need something to stop the constant buzz that won’t allow my body or my mind to settle.

  I finish the last of the wine and crawl into bed. Exhausted and defeated, I need to sleep, but I know it won’t be that easy. My thoughts are consumed with just how much I screwed up. This is my fault and at this point I’m not even sure I can fix it. I deserve what I get, I tell myself, because I could have solved this all by just being honest with Adam. But instead I destroyed everything with one little lie. I’m not even sure I didn’t do it on purpose. Things were good, too good maybe. Instead of allowing it to be ruined by an outside factor, I did it to myself to spare the pain. But in the end, I hurt regardless.

  Cari returns some time after two a.m. And when she slides into bed next to me, I’m not surprised. The soft cries that escape her mouth are hard to take. She rolls over and snuggles against me and that’s when I cry, too.

  In the quiet darkness of the room, the only sound coming from the hum of cars on the highway, she whispers, “He slept with someone else.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I don’t even know what to say to Cari the next morning. I’ve always been sympathetic to her situation, the one who understood why she kept Jimmy away, but now it all seems ridiculous. Her inability to commit, her lack of interest in calling Jimmy her boyfriend, her attitude toward it all. I can’t say I’m surprised it all came back to bite her in the ass.

  I’m being self-righteous. How dare I lecture her on what she’s done in the past when I know I’m in the same situation. I screwed up my relationship with Adam just as easily as Cari sabotaged hers with Jimmy.

  I know she wants to blame him. She wants all of this to rest on his shoulders while she cuts ties as if they haven’t been together for the last four years. She wants to walk away and look like he’s the one who hurt her. I hate every minute of it.

  I haven’t spoken to Jimmy out of respect for Cari, but it’s wearing thin. I’m sure he’s devastated and judging by the number of times he’s called, he’s hoping she’ll come around.

  We both know Cari better than that. She’s a one shot deal, a grudge holder, someone who’s been scarred by her past.

  She watched her father cheat on her mother, destroying their marriage and destroying Cari’s family. It was ugly and bitter, and Cari swore she would never get married. She told me once that it only hurts if you let it. She would never let anyone get that close. “Cheating destroys your view on love. It destroys the calm you have within yourself. It ruins everything around it.” Cari once said and I totally understand, but I also feel for Jimmy.

  I turn and look at her as we sit drinking coffee the morning after everything went down.

  I don’t think my heart could ache any more. It hurts for what happened to Cari. I ache for Jimmy and the sadness he must feel. And I feel every single piece of my heart shatter when I think about what I did to Adam.

  Tears well up in my eyes.

  “Stop,” Cari says firmly. “I don’t want to cry over this. He fucked up.”

  “Cari, come on. He loves you. It was a mistake. An accident.” What I really want to tell her is that she drove him to this in a way. The same way I drove Adam away when I lied to him. It’s hard to admit when you’re the one who fucked up. Cari set herself up for failure in the end. We both did. She wouldn’t give their relationship a title. Is it really cheating when the girl won’t admit she’s your girlfriend? I know Cari sees this differently. It’s as if she were waiting for a moment like this. Self sabotage.

  “An accident. I can’t even fucking believe you just said that.” She’s pissed and the look on her face says it all. Her lips pursed, her hands clutching her coffee. “An accident,” she chuckles slightly. “An accident is falling off a bike. Did he fall into her fucking vagina?”

  “No. I get what you’re saying, but seriously, Care, you strung him along.” When the words leave my mouth I regret them immediately.

  “I c
an’t have this conversation with you right now,” she says standing up and shoving the chair against the kitchen table. “But I should’ve known you’d take his side. You’re both liars.”

  I close my eyes because the hurt in her voice stings and so do her words. A few seconds later her phone begins to ring and I hear Cari curse out loud from inside her bedroom. Not a moment passes before I hear a loud thud and can only assume it’s her phone hitting the floor.

  I feel terrible. She’s my best friend and she’s hurting and I only added to it. I make my way to her bedroom and open her door. She’s sitting on the bed, her legs folded underneath her and her eyes on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I know. I am too.”

  I sit down next to her and she leans her head against my shoulder. We sit like this for what seems like forever. Neither one of us saying anything. I can’t find the words that will make this better. I tried with Adam and his lack of response shows I failed. Right now I need to make things right with Cari.

  “I didn’t mean what I said,” I say after a while.

  “Neither did I,” Cari responds. She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “I’m sorry that things went so wrong with Adam and I’m sorry I called you a liar. I know you never meant to hurt him. Has he called?” she asks.

  “Thanks, Cari. That means a lot to me.” I can feel myself begin to get choked up. Just thinking about Adam makes me want to sob without caring who sees me. “And no, he hasn’t called. He won’t,” I add quietly.

  If he were going to call it would have already happened. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. I’ve done the worst possible thing I could have. I lied to him, regardless if it was an omission of the truth or if I just failed to mention it, I still lied. It’s the one thing I knew would fuck everything up and I still did it.

  Cari’s phone begins to light up where it lies on the floor. Both of us drawn to it.

  “Why won’t he stop calling?” she asks with shakiness in her voice.

  “Because he loves you, Cari. Just hear him out.”

  “I can’t, Leah. I just can’t. Not right now. I’m angry and I’m hurt and I feel stupid. I know I’m partially to blame for this mess, but I just can’t deal with it right now.” Cari starts crying as her phone lights up for the second time, this time with a text that just says, “I love you. Please call me.”

  “See,” I say. “He’s doing this because he loves you, Cari. Don’t lose him over this.”

  She stops and contemplates my words before picking up her phone. Just when I think she’s going to call him, she turns her phone off.

  “Cari, what happened anyway? One minute you’re calling to tell him you’re pregnant and the next thing you’re telling me he slept with someone else.”

  Cari crawls under the covers on her bed, pulling the blanket up under her chin. She wipes at her eyes with the corner of the sheet. I lay down next to her and she sighs.

  “It’s so stupid now that I look back on it,” she says. “About two years ago, I was out in Denver visiting Jimmy and he asked me to move in with him. For some reason I got pissed. I told him he was trying to make me do something I didn’t want to do. I yelled at him and told him that we’d never be what he wanted us to be. That I would never move in with him, let alone marry him.” Cari sniffs and wipes her eyes again. “I don’t know why I was so angry. I guess because it meant I would have to admit I needed him, that I loved him.”

  Cari starts crying hard. Sucking in a deep breath after each sob. “Leah, I fucked up bad. So bad. I left after that argument. He got drunk and slept with some girl he picked up at a bar.”

  She presses her face into her pillow and cries. “I don’t know what hurts worse,” she says, her words muffled by the pillow. “The fact that I forced him to do something that is totally out of his character or that he hid it from me for two years.”

  I run my hand over her hair and she begins to settle down. She rolls over looking up at the ceiling as she wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  Even though I know it will hurt her, she needs to hear it. “Cari, it was two years ago. You and I both know it meant nothing. You’re really going to lose Jimmy over something this stupid?”

  Cari lets out a breathy huff and rolls away from me. “Whatever, Leah,” she hisses before sitting up. “You’re not exactly trying your damnedest to get Adam back. I suggest you don’t give advice because right now you suck.”

  I’ve known Cari a long time and the worst part about that is we can say a lot of shit to each other, even when it hurts. This is one of those times that we’re both hurting and the mistakes we made are getting in the way of us being there for each other.

  I want to hold back, but I can’t. “He doesn’t want me, Cari. I tried. But you, you have Jimmy. He wants you. Stop acting like a selfish child and get over yourself. It was two fucking years ago. You said it yourself, you’re partially to blame.”

  By now we are practically shouting and both of us are standing. My fists are clenched at my side; my heart is pounding as my body tenses. Cari’s arms are crossed over her chest and her jaw is clenched. I shouldn’t be angry with Cari, but she’s the one who’s here. The one who feels the brunt of my hurt, my sadness, my guilt and my anger and in the end when all is said and done, she’ll still be here. Just like I will for her.

  Cari takes a step closer, which makes me want to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze until she realizes how stupid she’s being.

  “What if I don’t want him?” she replies back coldly.

  “Bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit, Cari and you know it.”

  We stand staring at each other, neither one of us ready to back down; yet knowing we’re both right. I’m not trying to get Adam back. I don’t want to put myself out there anymore and risk getting hurt again.

  “Why are we doing this?” I say quietly.

  “I don’t know,” she answers back. “I don’t want to keep fighting over this with you. I know I fucked up, but I’m not ready to make it right. Can you just be okay with that?”

  “You know I’m here for you no matter what.”

  My phone rings in the living room and I look over at her. Cari smirks. “Go answer it,” she says.

  I half jog into the living room with every part of my being hoping that it’s Adam. I grab for my phone only to find Jimmy’s name on the screen. I carry the still ringing phone into Cari’s bedroom and hold it up for her to see. She just shakes her head.

  Stretching out next to her on the bed, I lay the phone between us as it rings a second time and again a third before I eventually turn it off.

  “Just because he isn’t calling doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you,” she says without elaborating.

  All I can say is, “Yeah.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Getting out of bed is like carrying bricks up the side of a mountain. The only thing that is forcing my ass up every day is the fact that I have to go to work. I’m exhausted and defeated. I sleep too much, but I can’t sleep, it’s all broken and full of dreams and nightmares and panic attacks. Watching Adam walk away from me killed me. No closure, no understanding or explanation, the guilt is unreal.

  The scream that leaves my mouth in the dead of night causes Cari to come tearing into my bedroom. Sweat pouring off of my body, my heart racing and for a moment I can’t breathe. I crawl out of bed, on my knees, I press my face into the side of the mattress and pull in a hard, ragged breath before the sobbing begins. My hands lock in my hair around the top of my head as each cry echoes through the room.

  I feel Cari’s hand on my shoulder as I begin to shake, coming down from the adrenaline rush that courses through my body. She kneels next to me, her knees touching the side of my thigh and I feel the warmth from her body when she rests her head against my back and wraps her arms around me. I’m freezing.

  “Leah,” she whispers and her voice is full of pity. It shouldn’t be this way. I want to be there for her. She
’s struggling too, but she’s reserved, internalizing her pain. Cari has always coped better with stress if she finds something to consume her. Right now, I exhaust her, keeping her mind off Jimmy. “It’s been so long,” she says stroking my hair. She’s right. My panic attacks and nightmares faded a while ago, but with a broken heart, it all returns. “Was it your dad again?”

  I can’t answer with words, so I just shake my head. I begin to sob harder.

  “What happened?” Cari presses.

  “It was Adam.” Just saying his name causes my stomach to clench and the feeling of vomit to rise in my throat.

  “Oh, Leah,” she says as I turn to look at her, wiping the tears from my eyes. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll get through this, because eventually he’s going to forgive you. He loves you.”

  “I don’t know, Cari. He won’t even take my calls.” I shake my head. This all could have been avoided if I’d just told him the truth the day I met him. I had no idea it would get this ugly.

  “He’s hurt, Leah. I know what that feels like. Give him some time.”

  I nod my head in response feeling like I should ask her about Jimmy, but I know just his name will cause her to retreat. “Are you okay?” I ask, avoiding his name.

  “Yep. I’ll be okay. Just like you will, just like Adam will and Jimmy too.” She forces a smile to form on her lips, but it’s all for show. She kisses my cheek and tells me she’s going back to bed.

  “Hey, Cari? Can I sleep with you?” I ask and she giggles at my question.

  “Are you propositioning me? Because the answer is yes.” This time she smiles and it’s real, making me think she’s right. Maybe we will be okay.

  “You always know the right things to say,” I say following her to her room and climbing into bed next to her.

  “It’s weird having you here,” Cari says after we’re both settled in her bed.

  “In your bed?”

  “No. Here at the apartment.”

  “It’s weird not having Jimmy here,” I respond back.