Crazy Love

by Michelle Pace

  My anger dissipated as mercurially as it had appeared and shame took its place. I had been trained to recognize and understand my behavior. This scenario was far from new. I was “acting out sexually” as my therapist often called it. It was bad enough when I pulled crap like this with some unsuspecting schmuck at a bar, but Trip? It was so uncool of me. He was trying to get better. The last thing he needed was me to drop my matching baggage on him.

  That’s you, Ugly Mutt. You could fuck up a wet dream.

  I was failing spectacularly, letting my body get ahead of my brain. Zero to 100 miles per hour, gone in 60 seconds. Messing with him was such a bad, bad idea.

  “I can’t start a new relationship—not at this point in my recovery.” An expression of exasperated grief was etched on his handsome face, and he raked through his near-black hair with one hand. “And…and I still love Violet. Dammit, I wish to God I didn’t. But it’s out of my control.”

  This was his huge revelation? My gaze met his, and he seemed to be waiting for me to punch him or claw out his eyes. He may as well have told me the sky was blue, or water was wet. “I know, Trip.”

  Wide eyed, he seemed confused by my reaction, but pressed on. “She’s my soul’s better half. I think you deserve to have that. I’m not anywhere near ready for a fraction of that. Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s not a future possibility. That kind of thing only comes around once.” He looked ill, and it was obvious that his frankness was harder on him than it was on me. Overwhelmed with pity for him, it was hard not to admire his seemingly limitless courage.

  Reality seeped back into my cloudy brain. I had a zen-like moment of clarity as I calmly considered the facts. None of this was meant to be, and for once I had the opportunity to make the healthy call. I surprised myself when I proceeded to do just that.

  “You’re right. I do deserve more. So do you.” I awkwardly pulled away from him and returned my gown to its rightful position. Feeling uncomfortable with my state of exposure on more than just a physical level, I shielded myself, crossing my arms in front of me. Suddenly sheepish, I turned away from him with my face on fire.

  So this is a normal response to a virtual stranger seeing you half dressed. How about that?

  Way to go, ‘Ho.

  “I’m sorry,” Trip offered, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I noticed his eyes closed. He shook his head, wearing a look of remorse that wasn’t warranted.

  “Trip, I’m not some school girl with a crush. I’m not going to cry and beg you to love me.” He looked relieved at my reply and placed his palms on his eyes with a frustrated groan.

  “This whole thing sucks, Annie. You’re so beautiful…and I really like hanging out with you. ” He removed his hands, but kept his eyes locked on my face, studiously ignoring me from the neck down. His contrite expression really seemed over the top, and I had to roll my eyes. Our current predicament struck me as preposterous, and I couldn’t suppress a giggle.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, we can still be friends, Trip. In fact, I insist on it. Now zip up this damn dress. I’m starving.” I turned away and felt his shaking hands fumble with the zipper. I brushed past him and left the dressing room to look at myself in the tri-fold mirrors. I tried not to look as impressed as I felt at my own appearance, which reminded me of a Greek goddess in old picture books from when I was a kid. Trip’s eyes met mine in the mirror.

  “That’s the dress, alright,” he concurred, as if reading my mind.

  “Great. Buy it, already. I’m craving a cheeseburger.”

  Trip smirked at me and pulled out his cigarettes in anticipation of leaving the confines of the retail world. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Twenty minutes later we were kicked back in a booth at B&D’s. It was my kind of restaurant-- casual with unpretentious, yet supremely delectable, food. On my way in the door, I’d spotted Jayse’s boyfriend, Dale, seated on the opposite side of the restaurant. He was eating in a booth with his parents. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to notice us; I was in no mood to explain my fledgling relationship—or lack thereof – with anyone.

  We ordered mozzarella sticks and guzzled sweet tea. Finally, I broke what was rapidly becoming an awkward silence.

  “How did you get that scar on your back?” The question didn’t appear to offend him, which was a relief after our recent emotional upheaval.

  He paused in chewing, and then recovered, washing down the bite of cheese with a swig of tea. “I stumbled into a bonfire.”

  I blinked in surprise. Another image of Trip’s drunken adventures flashed before me. Wincing at the violence of my mental picture, I wondered if this was “the Tybee incident” Sam told me about the day we met.

  “Sam saved my life. If he hadn’t been right there beside me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. He got some minor burns on his hands trying to put the fire out.”

  “Jesus,” I blurted, and my eyes felt like they were ready to fall out of my head. It was beginning to sound like Sam had spent a lot of time babysitting an adult-sized toddler without the luxury of an oversized baby gate.

  “I was in the hospital for several months. They stapled skin grafts into me, the whole nine yards. The burn baths were the worst. Sheer torture. Nothing like how Penthouse portrays a sponge bath from a nurse, I can assure you. My little stint in the Burn Unit was one hell of a detox. You’d think with all that pain and all those weeks without alcohol that I would have quit drinking for good.”

  “You mean to tell me that that wasn’t your rock bottom?” Our waitress arrived just then, dropping off our burgers and quickly moving on. He seemed to consider my question carefully before he replied. Then he nodded.

  “It was the beginning of the end. I never really got drunk again, but I did have a few drinks. I started playing little games with myself. Like, ‘I’ll just have a couple tonight’ or ‘I’ll have one an hour.’ I knew I was headed back in that direction, and I knew I couldn’t stop – at least not on my own. That’s when I found myself in a church basement at an A.A. meeting.”

  “Good for you.” I nodded and took a huge bite of my burger. B&D’s made possibly the best food I’d eaten since being in Savannah, and I was overjoyed at the basic pleasure after our excruciating day. For a few minutes we ate in silence. I saw Dale leaving with his parents. He winked at me and gave me a ‘thumbs up.’ I rolled my eyes. Trip noticed and glanced over his shoulder in time to see nothing but the door closing behind Dale. He turned back to his food.

  “I have a lot of apologies to make. But trying to make amends to Vi…it’s virtually hopeless. It was hard on her. I was hard on her.” He frowned, and I couldn’t shake the thought that he looked like a tragic hero plucked from an epic movie and tossed into a bar and grill. “Now she’s shut me out completely; go figure. I totally deserve it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to face. I’d give anything for her to give me a second chance, but she’s made it clear there’s no fixing us. Some things you just can’t undo.”

  It’s a little known fact that deep down I’m a hopeless romantic. Don’t get me wrong, I am a glass-half-empty girl. Not a pessimist, per se. I like to think of it as being pragmatic. A realist, reasonable. So it seems like a giant contradiction for me to bawl when I watch Braveheart or even The Little Mermaid, but the idea of true love gets me every time.

  Maybe it’s all the years of obsessive reading, but I totally believe in soul-mates. I feel, down deep in my marrow, that when something is right, it’s unstoppable. There is no fighting the heart when it wants what it wants. Though I had never found anything remotely like it in my own life, I have the ability to sense connections between others. I kind of suspect that’s why my gay-dar is so damned accurate. All that said, from the moment I set eyes on Violet, I knew that she and Trip were far from over.

  “Does she still love you?” I needed to gauge his thoughts on the matter. That question seemed to jolt him. He practically snickered.

  “Of course not. She divorced me.” His expression told me he really beli
eved the thought was preposterous.

  “Because of your drinking and all the bullshit that went along with it.” I remembered Violet’s body language at Black Keys and her wide eyes when she heard him call me Angel. “Trip, I saw you two together. And I think you’re wrong.”

  “She was the love of my life. And I drove her away.” He looked positively grim at his own declaration.

  “So get her back.” My words sounded harsh, but I’d only meant them to be firm.

  His eyes shot toward the ceiling and then settled on mine. “She’s engaged, Annie. She’s moved on.”

  “She’s trying to move on. But it’s not over yet. All’s fair until they actually say ‘I do’. ”

  “You don’t know Vi. When she settles a subject, she dots the i’s and crosses the t’s in permanent marker.” Trip dropped his burger onto his plate as if he’d lost his appetite.

  “You mean like when she married you?” I knew I sounded sassy, but he needed a reality check; I happened to be there, so what the hell? “Trip, what if she still loves you and you let her go off and marry someone else without fighting for her? Is that a possibility you’re prepared to live with?”

  I watched my words take root and start to germinate. I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the Trip who must have existed before booze destroyed so many of his relationships and brain cells. It was as if my notion lit a pilot light somewhere in his chest, and for a brief instant I prayed I wasn’t wildly off base about Violet and that I hadn’t overstepped my bounds.

  “Hell no.” His eyes were downright fierce and his posture declared he was ready for war.

  “Well, then,” I replied, as I felt a self-satisfied smile overtake me. “I have an idea.”

  The coffee here is shit.

  Everything else about the meeting room charmed me, from its musty smell and tattered American flag to the warped hardwood floors. There was even a fantastically kitschy painting of black Jesus on the far wall. I tilted my head to the side and really scrutinized the aggressive brush strokes. Whoever the artist was, he or she wasn’t half bad.

  My need to romanticize the details of the room probably wouldn’t have surprised my shrink one bit. After all, this was where I took the first step toward saving my own life – what little there was left to save. But the coffee tasted like motor oil with a side of ass. I made up my mind to anonymously donate a high quality coffee machine and a few cases of the good stuff. Just because we were a bunch of drunks didn’t mean our taste buds deserved punishment.

  I watched as several of the usual suspects filed in and each began to claim folding chairs scattered randomly throughout the room. There were a couple of new faces, but for the most part it was the regular diehard contingent of warriors fighting for sobriety. I felt like I knew most of these people better than I knew my own family. And these people most assuredly knew me much better than my family did.

  As the meeting chairman shuffled papers around at the podium, I decided that I would not share that day. My mood was all over the place, and my attitude completely sucked. Now that I’d had time to consider Annie’s proposal, I thought the odds of her plan succeeding were less than one percent.

  Annie’s entrance into my life had been well timed. I’d just attended my first few meetings and was looking for a reason to swim, not sink. Her exceptional looks captured my attention-I’m a red blooded man, after all-but her exuberant nature helped to lift me from my shadowy prison back into the sun. Annie reminded me a lot of Vi. More accurately, her aura reminded me of Vi’s aura. They shared a ferocious lust for life and meeting Annie was an inspiration when I needed it the most. When I first spotted her in the cemetery that day, I’d been toiling with whether sobriety was worth fighting for, or whether I should just go buy out a liquor store and let the intoxicating undertow drown me. Then she smiled in that playful way that she does, and it was like I’d been sent a guardian angel. Every encounter I had with her made me feel good about me, and that had been an addiction that matched alcoholism shot for shot. Even now that I’d come to my senses about taking up with her, her enthusiasm in regards to me fighting for my family had been virulently infectious. Now with only myself as a cheering section, deep down in my heart I was sure I’d nuked that bridge when I’d crossed it.

  I pulled out my wallet and slid out the picture of Vi holding Maisie when she was a newborn. Violet looked so serene that it took my breath away, but the fact was, Maisie’s birth was the beginning of our end. My drinking severely escalated after she arrived. Not because I regretted having her: I wanted that child more than anything, and I adore her. Hell, I’m the one who took Vi’s birth control pills and threw them out the window on our honeymoon. The memory of her hysterical laughter when I’d done it caused a crushing pain in my chest, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to leave the meeting before it even began.

  Simply put, becoming a father really punctuated the absence of my own. And his death was a subject I dealt with poorly. It triggered depression on a level I’d never experienced before, and rather than see it for what it was, I buried my head in the sand and self-medicated with liquor. One might even say I overdosed more often than not.

  But these days I was getting professional help. My A.A. sponsor, Vanessa, had suggested (some might say she demanded) I start seeing a shrink a couple of months back. A seasoned nurse, Vanessa had a way of delivering orders that made me agree to them before I knew what I was doing. Vanessa was the perfect sponsor for me. Too young to be a mother figure, she was like the bossy older sister I never had.

  Now that I was going to therapy, the good doctor and I were making some real progress in our sessions. My diagnosis of clinical depression came as no surprise, but the secondary diagnosis of PTSD shocked the hell out of me. I looked it up on the internet, ready to prove him wrong. I scrolled through the signs and symptoms, astonished at how much of a textbook case I was.

  He put me on some medication and had me coming to talk therapy twice a week. So when Sam wandered back into town, I had the tools to be able to take it on the chin when he lashed out at me with well-deserved hostility. Instead of turning it into a huge fight or reaching for a nearby bottle, I just shut my mouth and listened. But when I’d seen Sebastian Wakefield’s sorry ass at the club I ran outside and hid like a coward. Then I puked in the bushes, smoked three cigarettes down to the butt, and called my sponsor. Vanessa’s advice was to take a deep breath and to get to a damn meeting.

  I’m such a fucking loser. I’m not going to beat this thing. Violet deserves someone a hell of a lot better than me.

  But her new fiancé, Dashul Stein, wasn’t any better than me. He and I had crossed paths on more than one occasion. Though he lived in Charleston now, he was originally from Savannah and I knew him from sports back in high school. He’d been a pompous, skirt-chaser back then, and he came from a family that would eventually drive Violet nuts with their avid civil war re-enactments and their antiquated beliefs that the fairer sex should stay at home and keep the hearth burning. The thought of Maisie being brought up around that sorry lot of throwbacks made me grit my teeth.

  As everyone in the room stood to say the serenity prayer, I tucked the picture of my absent family back into my wallet.

  When Violet told me she’d started dating Stein, I’d hired a private detective to follow him. It was shitty, I know. But I don’t regret it in the slightest. All I regret is that he hadn’t found a damn thing that was useful.

  “He likes to drink. “ The P.I. revealed, handing me pictures of Stein in various bars.

  Wow. Really?

  He proceeded to run down the highlights of Dash’s life in a nutshell. He worked forty hours a week and attended the Methodist church on Sundays. He liked to blow a lot of money getting manscaped and having massages at the spa. When he wasn’t getting metero-sexualized, he spent the rest of his free time sailing, playing racket ball, and going to the occasional strip club with his friends.

  Scandalous.

  Alright, fine.
Maybe he was a better human being than I was, but he wasn’t better for Violet. Violet was the kind of girl who’s born once a millennium, and she’d be nothing more than a trophy wife to him, like some damaged can of peas marked down at a supermarket. I could almost hear his smug voice as he told his buddy over cigars how she came with baggage, but that baggage was Gucci, so they’d manage somehow.

  No. I simply wouldn’t allow it.

  But if I wanted to win Violet back, it looked like it wouldn’t be by incriminating her fiancé.

  The loud sniffling sound from Slutty Lara pulled me back to the meeting. I hadn’t heard a word anyone had said so far, and Vanessa shot me an irritated look from across the room. I sat up and attempted to focus on Lara’s gripping tale about a one night stand she’d just woken up from. I wasn’t trying to judge her, but based on the way she was always hanging all over me after meetings, I kind of thought she was a whore whether she was drinking or not.

  Unable to listen to another of her “did I or didn’t I use protection” tale, I allowed my mind to wander once more. Annie’s idea to pretend that we were a couple had merit. Meeting her seemed to set Violet off that night at Black Keys. Vi could definitely be the jealous type. One time during my drinking days, she’d physically dragged me out of the bar when some girl kissed me on the mouth for buying a round. I hadn’t dated anyone else since we’d split, so exaggerating my relationship with Annie, and acting like we were getting all steamy and serious just might get her attention. It certainly couldn’t hurt. She was a hair’s breadth away from marrying Stein and taking my daughter to a neighboring state, making me an “every other weekend” dad. What the hell did I have to lose by fighting fire with fire?

  My nerves were frayed, and I wanted a drink in a way I hadn’t in a very long time. So when the chairman asked if anyone else wanted to share, I stood and walked purposefully to the front of the room. It was times like this, when I wanted to find the nearest bar and close the place down, that I needed to jump in with both feet. Or in my case, to just belly flop.