The Complete If I Break Series

by Portia Moore

  “My parents say that he’s… they describe him like…” He trails off as if he’s trying to find the right words, afraid of offending me.

  “Oh, I know. Your father didn’t hesitate to tell me what he thought of Cal,” I say with a sigh.

  “Is he—was he…?”

  “The person your parents describe isn’t who Cal was to me,” I tell him, busy looking at my hands. “Don’t get me wrong. He could be arrogant, mean, and snide… a lot. But that isn’t all there was to him. He’s so much more than that. He could be kind… caring… protective.”

  I smile as I reminisce on the earlier part of our relationship, how infatuated I was with him, like I was in high school with a crush on a teacher. He had me wrapped around his finger, for God’s sake. I laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

  “He’s extremely intelligent, confident, and persuasive; he could talk anyone into doing what he wanted. He’s handsome, incredibly sexy…” I say with a laugh before I realize what I just said… oh God, I did not just say that out loud!

  I glance over and see that his cheeks are bright red. He’s blushing! I realize that in my entire life, I’ve never seen him blush. I’m staring; staring isn’t good, not good at all… Say something!

  Thankfully, his phone rings and breaks this embarrassing silence. He takes it out and looks at it. “Excuse me.” I nod, and he walks a few feet away and answers it. “Hello? Yeah, I know, something came up.” I can tell by his tone of voice it’s her. “I’m on my way right now… I’ll see you then… I love you too.”

  I can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Well, more than a twinge—a lot more. More like someone just kicked me in the stomach and is standing on my chest. The man I love—well, this man who resembles the man I love—in the exact same voice, is professing his love to another woman. Knowing it’s her he holds, her lips he kisses… oh God, I have to stop thinking like this.

  “About the other day… I-I’m not usually like that.” I rub the back of my neck.

  “No, it’s forgotten,” he says sincerely.

  “Does she know about all of this?” I ask, but my focus is on the ceiling fan.

  “About some things,” he says, letting out a deep sigh.

  I nod. I don’t know what kind of answer that is, but I decide not to push any further.

  “I-I have to—” he begins to explain.

  I smile weakly, letting him know it isn’t needed. I walk with him to the door.

  “My mom says you’re from Chicago. How long are you going to stay here?” he asks hesitantly.

  “Well, I’m from Saginaw, but I live in Chicago,” I correct him as we walk the small distance to the door. I scratch my head and realize I only have enough money with me to pay for another day at the Inn, and I left my credit cards. “I have to get back to Caylen, most likely tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh.” He frowns slightly, as if he thought I would be staying longer.

  “I have some things to take care of back home. It’ll take me a couple days, but I can come back, and… let you see her. We can start to work something out,” I say, almost incoherently due this unwanted situation we are in.

  “That would be good. I’d like that since we have a lot to work out,” he says.

  I’m not sure if he’s joking or not.

  “Um, let me give you my cell phone number,” he says.

  I turn to get my phone and hand it to him. After a few seconds, he puts it in. He hands me his, and I do the same.

  “You have my home number too,” he says after I’m done.

  We exchange phones awkwardly, almost as if we’re trying to avoid touching one another. He opens the door and steps outside. It’s an awkward moment, and we both laugh at our obvious discomfort.

  “I just realized we never got a chance to really… uh…” I look at him, confused, as he extends his hand.

  “I’m Chris,” he says with a soft smile.

  I let out a small laugh, realizing we never really did get a chance to properly introduce ourselves. I take his hand. “I’m Lauren.”

  Chapter 17

  March 10th, 2013

  It’s funny how one day can change the whole course of your life. Not even a day really—just a few seconds. The moment you find out you’re having a child or the day you receive a bad medical report. Those life-altering moments when you know your life will never again be how it was before those few seconds happened.

  I’ve walked through the door to the penthouse over a thousand times, each time secretly hoping he’d be there, sitting on the couch, his eyes giving away so much and so little. And then time would freeze, and in that moment, it wouldn’t matter where he’d been, or who he’d been with—just that he was home and that he loved me and couldn’t stay away. I hoped, of course, that there would be a reasonable explanation, circumstances beyond his control that kept him from me, from us, our family.

  Each scenario I imagined played out differently and vaguely. Deep down, I never cared what the explanation was, just that he was home and that my family would be complete again. That longing feeling of missing him so much that I felt a part of me was missing, gone. That part of me would be returned in pieces, but not quite broken.

  I think back to the days in the house alone, when I returned after finding out I was pregnant. Even then I was trying to run away from the memory of him, hating him with every fiber of my being. Yet each day, my stomach grew larger as a part of him grew inside of me. Love and hate crashed together in a never-ending battle that I fought within myself. I wanted to erase his existence from my mind, but each and every day, I walked through the door, returning home from some mundane task, and still secretly hoped he’d be there.

  I know how ridiculous an idea it was to try and keep my hope a secret—even from myself. The thought of wanting a man back who had walked out on his pregnant wife was too pathetic for my own subconscious to comprehend. Well, he didn’t know about the pregnancy, but still… I held on to some quixotic hope. It was unwarranted, almost incomprehensible. But I did; I still had hope for Cal and me.

  Now there is no hope. It’s the first time that I know for a fact he won’t be there. That the man I’ve loved and loathed all of these years is a mere figment of the imagination of a man named Chris… or not—my mind is too exhausted to cope with the logistics of this entire situation.

  On my drive back from Madison, I imagined this all going differently. After all of my convincing words that this is an opportunity for me to start anew and leave the past where it is, making myself see this as a freeing experience, I pictured myself walking through the door, taking a deep breath, and a weight being lifted. All of the days which went before, when I was left not knowing if he was alive or not, if he was hurt, who was he with, if he thought about me, if he knew about Caylen… the burden of all that was gone—liberated from me.

  But now, as I actually walk through this door, the feeling is overwhelming, almost as overwhelming as the day he left. I thought I had convinced myself on the long drive back home that I could exorcise him from my life, from my mind, and from my thoughts. I convinced myself that I could deal with this and that the reality I have now has given me the closure I need to move on. But walking through this door now, in real time, I feel as if I’ve been punched in the chest, the wind gone from my body, and I can’t breathe.

  The true reality of this situation hits me like a ton of bricks, and I can’t help but make my way to the floor to keep from falling. I’m trying to stop myself from crying, but the more I try, the more I can’t breathe. I reach back to try to push the door closed and rest my head on it. I promised myself I would cry my last tear over him back in Madison and that I would walk through this door stronger, not weaker, and would be ready to close this chapter of my life, ready to begin afresh.

  Now I realize I was an idiot for thinking I could just will myself to be prepared for this. I’m not. I’m so tired of feeling like this. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. To fall in love and wrap my life arou
nd a man who doesn’t even exist, and now I’m sharing a child with someone who doesn’t even know who I am. How do I explain this to anyone? I’m barely coming to terms with this myself. And now I’m supposed to pretend this all didn’t happen, while staring at the face of the man I’ve felt bound to?

  “Lauren, Lauren, honey, what’s wrong?”

  I see, through my cloud of tears, a fuzzy vision of Raven and Angela. I try to get a hold of myself, but their touch seems to make my emotions pour out even more. Raven kneels down and wraps her arms around me, rubbing my back. I know I have to pull myself together; her seeing me like this is going to make her think the worst. What could be worse than this though?

  “Lauren, what happened? Did you find him? Lauren, talk to me,” she says, her tone calm but growing more frantic.

  I try to catch my breath, feeling that I might as well get it over with, when I see Hillary hurry to my other side, near Angela. I make another attempt. This is not how I wanted things to go. Nothing is going how I wanted it to.

  “Where’s Caylen?” I say, bewildered but knowing that one of the only things that can calm me down is holding her.

  “Caylen’s fine, honey, she’s sleeping,” Raven assures me.

  “Lauren, it’s eleven at night. You haven’t answered your phone in two days. We’ve been so worried about you! What’s wrong? What happened? Did you find him?” Angela asks frantically.

  “I-I want to see her,” I whimper.

  “Lauren, no, not like this. You’ll upset her terribly,” Raven scolds me.

  I realize waking up to her mom crying hysterically isn’t the best idea for my daughter at all, and I relent. “H-he’s not real.” I pathetically try to calm down, but I think all of this hugging and coddling they are doing is making it worse.

  “What? Who’s not real, honey? Cal? He was really Chris?” Hillary tries to infer.

  She’s partly right, at least. How do I even begin to explain this to them?

  “That fucking son of a bitch bastard! I knew it, I knew it all along!” she continues. Her voice grows from uncertain to angry in a matter of nanoseconds.

  “No-no, it’s not what you think. It’s worse,” I say in between sniffles.

  “Come on, honey, let’s get you up and cooled down with a glass of water so you can tell us all about it,” Raven says authoritatively.

  They help me get off the floor. We head toward the kitchen, where Hillary and I sit down. Angela paces nervously. Raven grabs a pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge and pours a glass for me, herself, and Hillary. I quickly take a few sips and try to think of how I can explain it. They both look at me, full of anxious curiosity.

  “I don’t really know where to start. It’s… it’s all so… so surreal is the only way I can explain it,” I say, staring into the cold glass of lemonade.

  “Take your time, L,” Hillary says reassuringly.

  Raven nods in agreement.

  For the next hour, I give them a play-by-play of the events that transpired over the past two days. I tell them everything from discovering “Chris” on the porch with another woman, who is actually his fiancée, and him having no clue who I am, to his parents revealing his mental illness to me, then to Chris and me coming to an agreement for him to be in Caylen’s life, and finally me basically giving him a pardon on the obligation Cal had to me. Not once during the entire story do any of them interrupt. They’ve all been silent since I finished, and the silence is frightening.

  “Please say something,” I urge nervously, trying to cut the thick tension in the room. I’m sitting between three of the most opinionated women I’ve ever met, and I think for once, they’re all speechless.

  “I-I don’t know what to say,” Raven says. She looks unsure.

  Then I look at Hillary, who looks angry. I was sure she’d have a mouthful to say.

  “Hillary?” I ask, almost afraid to hear her opinion, but today can’t get any worse.

  “I don’t know what to say either. I-I mean, what can I say to something like this? I mean, basically…” She stops and clasps her hands together as if she’s actually pondering the right words to say.

  I’ve never known Hillary to edit her words before speaking them, and I’m touched by the fact she’s trying to be thoughtful, but at this moment, whatever she has for me, I’d rather her dump it on me now so that after today, I can try to leave this feeling behind. “Hillary, whatever you have to say, just say it.”

  Out the corner of my eye, I see Angela shoot her warning glare.

  “The last time I did that, you ended up fainting.” She chuckles dryly.

  “It wasn’t what you said; it’s what you didn’t say,” I assure her.

  Words hurt, but she didn’t have to use any. She wasn’t spouting knowledge I had been hiding from; she had just pulled out a newspaper with my husband’s picture under a different name.

  “Well, I think this is a load of bullshit,” she says brashly.

  For the first time in days, I laugh. It starts out as a small giggle and grows. Raven looks at me strangely then begins to laugh too. Hillary folds her arms and joins in. Angela looks at us as if we’ve all lost our minds, but I can’t explain what a wonderful feeling it is to laugh—truly laugh and not cry.

  “I mean, I don’t have a degree in psychology or anything, so I could just be misinformed but… multiple personality disorder? Give me a break! Do you know how many guys will be using this excuse if you let this slide, L? It’ll catch on like wildfire. ‘Honey, it wasn’t me fucking that other chick. It was my alter ego,’” she explains between her laughter.

  Then it subsides, and the seriousness of the situation creeps back into the room.

  “What do you think of this, Raven? You’re the old—most mature of us all?” Hillary jokes lightly.

  Raven lets out what seems to be a much needed sigh and nods. “Well, I know this may be telling my age, but I remember seeing an episode on Oprah about this psychologist who interviewed this woman who said she had fifteen… umm… I forgot what she called them… not personalities. It was another word. Oh gosh, it’s slipped my mind.” Her brow furrows as she seems in deep thought.

  “Alters?” Hillary offers.

  “Yes, that’s it!” Raven says excitedly, as if she’s won a prize on a game show.

  I turn surprised eyes to Hillary.

  “I watch a lot of soap operas.” She shrugs. “Well, Ang, you’re the one who’s spending all of your daddy’s money on that degree of yours. You took a couple of psych courses, right? Let’s see how much they were worth.”

  “Well, I admit I know a little. In a course I took, this was one of the disorders that we went over, and from what my professor said, it’s a diagnosis that’s still highly debatable in the mental health community. There are doctors who swear that it’s real and others who think it’s something that’s ‘therapist induced.’ A misdiagnosis of what could be several other disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder—”

  “Okay, so is it real or not?” Hillary interrupts.

  “Like I said, there isn’t a general consensus yet. There was one study, however, that recorded neurological changes when the alleged ‘alters’ or ‘changes’ were said to take place. However, it could have been due to a number of factors…”

  “Well, regardless of whether this ‘condition’ exists or not, the question is, does he have it? Let’s face it, the chances of him having this are, what?” Hillary exclaims.

  “Hillary, I don’t know. I’m not his psychiatrist,” Angela says. “But some of the behaviors Cal exhibited, from what Lauren has shared with me… I wouldn’t completely rule it out as a possibility,”

  “Give me a break,” Hillary mumbles.

  “Hey, you asked for my opinion and this is how you respond?” Angela retorts sharply.

  I rub my fingers in soothing circles on my temples. This conversation is starting to be overwhelming.

  “Ladies!” Raven interrupts the two of them, and they immediately becom
e silent, having obviously sensed my stress level rising. “I don’t think any of us here are qualified to agree or disagree with Angela’s comment on the validity of this diagnosis.” She eyes Hillary, who looks away. Raven’s attention focuses back on Angela. “And I think Angela would agree, without knowing the specifics of Cal’s or… Chris’s condition, she can’t be certain whether he does in fact have this condition.”

  Angela nods.

  “The most important thing right now is to support Lauren in what she believes and in how she decides to move forward from this point.”

  I glance up and notice that all of their gazes are on me. Raven reaches for my hand, and I hold it. She squeezes it, giving me a bit of encouragement. The gesture lets me know whatever my answer is, she’s behind me, which means so much at this point.

  “I didn’t want to believe them. I didn’t want to believe any of this, but when it was him and me alone, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Cal.”

  “Well, honey, if that is your decision, I stand behind you one hundred percent, and I will be there to support you on it.” Raven smiles and squeezes my hand reassuringly.

  “We all will, Lauren,” says Angela, hugging me from behind.

  We all look at Hillary, and she takes a deep breath. For a moment, it looks as though she’s contemplating.

  “You and Caylen mean the world to me, and I’m sure this is hard enough for you without me bitching about the situation. If you can deal with all of this, I’m not going to be the one to make this harder on you,” Hillary says.

  She comes over and wraps her arms around me. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Just knowing that I have the support of the people around me makes things not seem as bad. Certainly not as bad as when I walked through the door an hour ago, but I’m so afraid. I’ve held on to the past for so long. Not knowing what happened to Cal was like having a crutch to lean on, and now it’s been taken away.