I curl into him when he’s beside me on his back. We’re silent at first, staring at the sky and hoping to see a shooting star or two. Some to make wishes on. A way to ask the cosmos to help fix the damage we’re living. Or maybe to settle my mind. I know myself, it’s only a matter of time before I destroy this..
Desperate to break that pattern, I move so I’m on top of Matthias and kiss him wildly. He jolts in surprise and then holds me to him as he allows my mouth to hopelessly connect with his.
Sensing my chaotic emotions, he stops me. “Navia.”
“What?” My eyes widen.
“Slow down. Let’s enjoy the night. We’ll have time for that.”
I move my body over his, feeling the bulge beneath me. “I need it.” My voice trembles.
“What’s going on?” He stills my hips, the valleys between his eyebrows deeper than the Grand Canyon.
“Do you ever think we met before we were supposed to?” I voice my concern.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Maybe we met before fate had planned. I’ve got so many emotions stirred, not done healing, that I think I saw you by accident. I don’t deserve you if I’m still holding on to the past. I was doing good before then.”
“Navia, slow down. If we weren’t meant to meet, one of us wouldn’t have been at that pub. We aren’t supposed to have it all figured out. If we did, we’d be living in a different dimension. We came together to grow and heal. We came to provide the mirror the other needs. Our essence is connected and our energy beats together. When I look at you, I see things I’m fighting in myself. Our union isn’t supposed to be easy. We reflect things in each other that will bring out pain, so we can finally let it go.”
What he says makes sense. I know the truth in it, but my mind is attempting to overpower it. My self-worth is trying to diminish the feeling of deserving all of this. Matthias, my new home, my healing. It’s an anchor that has rooted itself on the beaches of South Florida, giving just enough of its rope until I was happy. The instant tug surprised me, pulling me back, slowly dragging me into old ways and patterns, my hands not able to dig into the drowning water.
“I know,” I whisper. It’s half truth, half lie. I don’t know if I have enough will to cut the ropes of the anchor while still swimming forward toward a life with Matthias.
“Love, look at me.” I find his eyes in the night. He’s always a light in the dark. “We’re on track.”
“I get it, but I feel anxious energy intersecting that belief.”
“Let it go,” he murmurs into my lips before he breathes into me. I greedily take his kiss, swallow it to save for another day.
His hands rest on my lower back. “Look at the stars. They’re bright despite the distance. You and I knew each other once, long ago, amongst those stars. We met here because we were supposed to. If not, we’d still be living amongst those burning rocks.”
I remain silent, allowing his words to wrap around me in a blanket of false confidence.
I used to have an impenetrable exterior. Lacquer was protecting my skin, my aura, my heart. People in my life haven’t seen me cry in years. Whether because of a death, a new life, or simple human emotions. I used to take pride in it. I don’t anymore. My turtle shell has done more harm than good. For myself anyway, others have gotten used to it. My metaphorical shell has become a part of my outfit—a dual purpose for protection and hiding. I’m a runner, as I’ve mentioned. So, when I flee, I go inside of myself. I suck in my breath until I’m stuck in a hole so far deep, I forget there’s life outside of it. I lose my way back to the sunshine. It’s been most of my life, so I didn’t realize the negative effects until I began looking at myself. Really staring at my eyes in a mirror and seeing what was deeper. What caused the hiding, the running.
Something in my life must’ve fucked with my confidence in a confrontation. I can’t remember what it is, and that’s something I’ll still need to work on. It impacted me. Maybe it was not being able to speak up when I was a little girl. I hid within instead, hid so others’ hands couldn’t find me or touch me. Maybe it was when I lost my paternal grandfather, and I learned people you love leave. So I’ll leave before you do.
So many maybes are taken into account for this. And they can all add up to one response. Fractions of a whole that scarred me. When we’re young, we’re impressionable. We don’t have the understanding adults do. We don’t process the same.
It’s taken me a long fucking time to dig up that girl and remember glimpses of her. Not all fossils lie in the dirt. She was so happy and funny, and my god, was she strong, too. No one messed with her. Everyone wanted to follow her. My little girl was a leader, but at some point, I became a follower. I put dreams aside and I let fear guide me. I know what it’s like to not believe in God and what it’s like to hate the world. Betrayal runs deep, and trust issues are my foundation. But I got to a point where I’d had enough. The more I remembered the girl, the more I wanted the adult to be like her. I began to heal.
When I started working on my emotional health, my mental health, I realized things about myself I didn’t want to see, let alone admit to someone. I also learned that I’m more than anger and worthlessness.
It’s easy for me to fall into depression, get buried in a black hole found in that impenetrable shell. It’s scary how easily I can want to end my life—choose death over living because quitting hurts less.
It doesn’t though.
The pain of quitting is different. In its facility, we gain a complication in another part of ourselves. When we give up on ourselves, we hurt our soul. I’ve done that. I’ve turned my back on myself. I’ve damaged my body in unhealthy forms. Ruined my mind in what felt beyond repair.
But sometimes, the light seeps in even against the hardest exteriors. Sometimes, we find glimmers of hope and cling on to them, because although we’re broken, we want to believe in something greater than our broken pieces.
It took me years to get to the point where I wasn’t ashamed of showing my emotions. Years of sucking in my feelings when I was supposed to be vulnerable. When I was in a circle of trust.
But, I didn’t believe in trust back then.
I do now.
I understand vulnerability isn’t a weakness. Shells are supposed to have cracks. And living takes more courage than anything else we do.
But today, I’ve felt myself hiding. After the anxiety I felt with Matthias the other night, my mind has been spinning—convincing me that I can’t have a happy life with him if mine isn’t perfect.
I remind myself that there is no perfect. We’re humans, living and learning. We can become isolated and miss some of the lessons that come with living with a companion. I want to choose Matthias, I do. But something inside of me is buzzing, daring me to go in the opposite direction. Something is telling me I haven’t earned his affection yet. I need to fight harder to make myself worthy of his love. It’s all in my mind, the ego whispering I’m not good enough . . . yet.
The vibrations on the wooden table call to me like a tempting drug. Matthias’s name lights up my dark screen. I watch it, waiting for him to hang up. It’s the third time he calls me. I’ve yet to answer. Instead, I’m staring ahead, wondering if this relationship with him is real. How much of it is just part of the initial excitement of meeting? An illusion?
How long will it take for him to leave me?
Like my dad’s dad. My cousin. My first love. My second love. Like I did. Like I turned my back on my own self. How long before Matthias does the same?
This is why love is falsehood I refused to believe in.
You’ve worked hard to overcome that.
Internally, I know what is right for me and what isn’t. Deep in my core, I know that my mind is playing with me. On the surface, I’m too blind by fear to notice it. I can’t grasp my reality.
My body jumps when a hard knock echoes around my apartment. I remain still until a second one reverberates off the walls. I stand and look through the peephol
e, seeing Matthias running his hand through his hair. I open, a fake smile not even willing to appear.
“I’ve been calling your mobile.” He walks into my home.
“I know.”
“What’s wrong? Why didn’t you answer?” He tugs his hair as he brushes it with his fingers, pacing the living room.
“I don’t know. I was thinking.” Fleeing.
“What about?” He stops his incessant roaming and looks me dead in the eyes. Eyes I want to memorize. Color blue as a setting sky, a hint of dusk in them.
“My worth.” No sense in lying. He’ll just know.
His eyebrows scrunch as his eyes squint to look at me. I’m still in my pajamas, and I’m sure the mess of my hair is knotted in its bun. “What about it?”
“I’m not done working on myself,” I state.
“Okay? That’s life. We’ve got continuous lessons to learn and work through. It’s part of being alive.”
“I know,” I whisper.
“So then?”
I inhale. “I don’t deserve to be with you when I’m holding on to so much bullshit from the past. When I’m not allowing myself to find forgiveness in my heart. If I can’t let it go, then karma will just take you away from me. It’s as if my life isn’t ready to receive you. I didn’t even really believe in this kind of love until I saw you. Thought it was all in my head, a daydreamer’s made up reality based on romance novels she gets lost in because they’re easier than real life.”
He’s speechless as he looks at me.
“I know we both have things to work through. I know meeting has resurfaced a lot of pain,” I try to defend before he speaks. “But I need to get my things straightened out before I can give someone more of myself.”
Matthias walks toward me, stopping three inches in front of me. I calculate the actual distance, looking down at our feet, as his silence swirls me up in its blanket of uncertainty and hurt. When I dare look up at his face, my words are etched on his skin, marking its beauty with pain.
My doing.
His hurt is my doing.
Another person I push. Will he be willing to pull?
This isn’t normal. My reaction to intimate relationships isn’t healthy. I’m a lightning bolt to those that care about me. I strike when you least expect it. I draw you in only to burn you.
Matthias is still looking at me, wordless. He walks around me, my skin crawling with the lingering of his gaze and his silence seeping into my pores.
He grabs a book. The same one he’s been reading. He holds it in the air, facing me. “You’re acting like her, like Samantha. You’re using her mask to hide behind. Her cynicism. You’re stuck in fiction instead of living in reality. You think you need to be this strong character when in reality it’s your weakness shining through. You aren’t Samantha, but I can’t convince you of that. You’ve got to believe it for yourself. I don’t need to finish reading this book to know how it ends. But I’m not Max, either.” Tears drip from my eyes as I hear his words.
"You lie when you say you don't want love. Don't need it. When you say love in fiction is easier. I see it in you—the desire to be wanted, the desire to have a companion. You're quick to be honest with others, but you lie to yourself. You pretend your independence is all you need. You need more, I feel it in your pulse and in your breath when it hitches before I touch you. I feel it in your energy when you look away because the moment is too intense, too intimate.” He steps closer again.
“You want this. You want someone who can keep you safe while allowing you to run wild. You want someone to drive four hundred miles with you in the middle of the night because there is a meteor shower that won't occur again for another hundred years. Look at me. Being in love doesn't make you vulnerable, it makes you brave. Hiding behind these,” he holds the book in my face. “That makes you weak.” He slings the book on the couch.
“I’m not giving up on us. I’m not giving up on you. I’m giving you a chance to catch up and realize what I’m saying is true.” He kisses my cheek and walks around me. I turn around, watching his body move farther from me.
I stand, numb and cold. Is Matthias right? Of course, he is. I'm a walking contradiction of emotions and voids because I will not acknowledge all of my truths. I know most of them, but I hide behind that one lie to the extreme that it prevents me from fully experiencing life.
His words echo in my mind. You aren’t Samantha. So many times I counted her and me as the same person. She has so much of me, maybe pieces he’s yet to discover.
Impulsive.
That’s always been me. Jump the gun on anything because my body reacts faster than my mind can process. Except for when it counts. Like right now. When I should be acting instead of staying rooted like a heavy tree.
I watch him walk away, his shoulders tight with tension. My lack of reaction is maddening. I want to yell and tell him he’s wrong. I want to ask him to stop walking, but I can’t. I’ve never seen him angry, and that alone creates a whirl of fear storming inside my stomach, threatening to destroy the inner peace I’ve grown to carry within. A burst of truth thrown at me.
I jolt at the sound of a slamming door.
I lumber to the chair in the corner of my living room. Dazed, I stare at the void in this room which reflects that in my heart.
I came here for an adventure, my wanderlust soul seeking something more. I didn’t expect to find my him, though I secretly knew I would. I was too independent to admit it out loud, too stubborn, but somewhere deep I hoped he’d be here. I hoped he’d be the man I always imagined he was, and he exceeded that. And I let him walk away. With my heart. With my happiness.
I place my head in my hands and gasp for air. If he leaves forever, I lose my forever. I lose everything I aspired to become, my purpose. We were a team. Are a team.
I press the heel of my hand over my chest, pushing hard to ease the pain. A building pressure that threatens my sanity feeds my shadow and starves my light until I’m swirling uncontrollably in an unwinding spiral.
Can a love like ours reach a limit? Expire into an abyss? I thought when I found him, I’d be liberated of the traps that steer me away from love. I thought we’d dance flawlessly into the night, knowing we had an eternity to make up for. I thought when I was united with my twin flame, it’d all click.
Foolish.
Nothing is easy in love. A soulmate doesn’t facilitate the process, let alone a twin flame. I should’ve known this, but I was blinded by his eyes and smile. I was blinded by the reality of having him in front of me. It was exhilarating to be with him, moving forward on the same path. We had it all.
No amount of pressure will alleviate this pain from my chest. Again, my ego interfered with my heart. A lesson I can’t get behind because I don’t know where it starts and ends.
Where Matthias and I start and end.
I don’t know where to go from here.
The same mug, full of coffee, sits on the table from the night Matthias slammed the door on his exit. I’m not giving up on us.
I’ve replayed his words, nonstop, for the last week. I’ve had to reschedule my appointments. I can’t help others when my energy is a black cloak that wraps anyone who gets near me. It wouldn’t be fair to take money from my clients when I’m not giving them the best service I’m capable of. Makenna didn’t question me, but she knows this is all caused by heartbreak. I could tell by the way she told me to sort what was in my heart.
I scratch my head as I wander around the space in my apartment. I’ve barely slept the last two days, asking myself what the fuck happened. How did I push Matthias away? Better yet, why?
At one point in my life, I did express love. I would tell people how I felt. I stopped using the phrase, I love you. I shiver just having to think it. I’ve turned so cynical when it comes to love, not only with an intimate partner but with family and friends. The belief that if I love you, you’ll leave became so ingrained in me from a young age.
I’ve seen the artwork I did
in school as a little girl for my mom telling her I love her. I can’t tell her those words anymore. I don’t feel them. It’s as if when it comes to love, a void was scraped out of me. A hollow space where nothing grows.
And the older I get, and the more I see what people who are supposed to love you did, the void expands like a black hole threatening to swallow a galaxy.
I stalk to my room and open the armoire. I dig through a bag that holds my scrapbooks, sifting through each one until I find the page I’m looking for. I’d forgotten I made this page until I packed my things to move here. I almost threw it away when I found it.
The dark beige paper gives this scrapbook page a distressed look. The sepia photo adds to the vintage style. And the damn poem I wrote about The Saint in Red before I knew of his sins taunts me. I search for scotch tape and tear a piece. Then, I walk into my living room and tape the paper to the wall at eye level.
I stare at his photo. His buzz cut, the smirk on his profile, it all mocks me. I pace in circles, hands on my hips until I face him head-on. My palm makes contact with the photo. The sting ripples through my skin, but it doesn’t stop me from hitting his face again. I slap it over and over again until the picture begins to wrinkle.
When I can’t handle the pain in my hand anymore, I step back, my pained hand coming up to cover my mouth and sobs move through me. I stare at his face.
“You fucked this all up. You,” I point at him. “You created this pattern for all of us to steal, weaved it into our DNA. You ruined us all. You were the catalyst, you evil, evil man. They say that everyone acts on their own past. You weren’t supposed to bring the pain, though. You were supposed to protect us. You were the example we all lived by. What a fucking despicable example you gave us. Abuse. Torment. Disgust. You’re a disgust. That’s what you are.” Tears fall as the anger spins out of control.
All My Truths & One Lie Page 11
