Clandestine Confessions

An ex-boyfriend recently got married.

He did in three months what was discussed twice over the course of our two years together.

That is a blame I cannot put all on him, though. I take ownership over that fate for us.

•

I am generous to say this man had one romantic bone in his body.

How this notorious lover girl found her way to him, well that is a question everyone in my life asked.

We were opposites in every single way you could imagine. Culture, religion, temperament, personality, music tastes, lifestyle, language. To what extent you will see play out as these writings develop.

He will tell you I was the one to blame, for I gave him “the look”.

Any man who has been admired by me will know what this is referring to.

I never refute the claim there was more sparkle to my eyes that day. There was something in my soul drawn to him, and it was a pull I used as my evidence to stay, even when everything around me shouted to run.

It was my first time visiting Fairfax after accepting the job offer as project manager. I was sitting at a table with our boss going over our agenda for the week when he walked by.

His motorcycle helmet under his arm, his burgundy polo mostly covered up by his black leather jacket, one I would come to wear myself while riding through the streets of Washington D.C. with him.

The smell of cologne with an ever so slight lingering aroma of cigarette smoke that had not yet worn off.

Never one to be too fond of the smell, it would eventually grow on me (solely for him, though). Not because I would come to enjoy the scent itself but what it would represent – that peace was returning. A calmer version of him was present. I could let down my guard.

Slightly.

My gaze met his. He halted. Up until this point he had only known me by the sound of my voice from our weekly team calls.

“So nice to finally meet you,” I said with a smile.

“Yes, good…morning,” he said with an abrupt exit into his office. Only a few words spoken but the accent still prominent.

“Well, that was interesting,” my manager said with a laugh.

And with that, so would begin the story of us.

•

It was a Sunday morning in the spring a year and a half into our relationship.

Instead of returning to the apartment after our routine coffee outing, the one constant I leaned on heavily to stay grounded in his volatility, he took a detour.

The car turned left out of the parking lot.

“Home is right,” my brain screamed. The alarms started to go off.

It may seem like a strange response, especially for those who know only of spontaneous J, but there is more to the story.

The night prior was spent cleaning up the mess of another one of his angry outbursts.

Picking up the pieces of broken glass from the carpet, putting back all the furniture to its designated spot, discarding the monitor with the shattered screen.

Everything returned “almost” to how it was before he returned from his run. He took off right after the hurricane of fury took place.

The room looked the same, sans a monitor. My soul did not mimic that similar fate.

I was becoming increasingly scarred and scared.

He walked back in an hour and a half later, kissed me on the forehead, acted like nothing happened.

“What movie do you want to watch?” he would ask.

I let him decide in an effort to keep him in this state of calm. Whatever he wanted that night, I obediently said yes to. No matter what the cost was to me. I emptied my emotional and physical wallet at his feet and prayed it would be enough to pay for his peace.

“The Day After Tomorrow” would soon be playing in our living room. I cuddled up in his arms on the couch, facing the TV, holding back the tears.

Or at least valiantly attempting the feat.

One would inevitably escape, landing on his shirt. This would not be the first article of his clothing stained with a tear. How painfully I wished back for the days they were derived from joy.

“Please oh please do not notice,” I internally pleaded. I could not afford his response to the discovery of my despair. His tolerance for it had become nonexistent. The pain had to stay covert to prevent him from creating more.

Thankfully, for at least that moment, I avoided going into debt.

•

“Where….,” I was fighting hard to hide the trembling in my voice. Any authority and assurance I once had in my tone had been disappearing daily. It was the last part of my old identity to depart from me. “Where are we going?”

“Geeze, don’t sound so scared. Just somewhere familiar for us.”

There was only one place I could think that could be.

The spot of our first date.

Which I actually did not know at the time that is what it was. Upon discovering it was indeed a date, my oblivion parallel to that of my mom’s when my dad first asked her to dinner, I thought for sure this was not coincidental. I used the identical beginnings to mine and my parent’s relationship as a sign, once again, that this was right. Once again, I used it as evidence to endure each day because this was clearly meant to be.

With this act of “romanticism” so starkly out of character, I was most certain he was going to propose.

I panicked.

Not just a little flip in the stomach.

But a full blown anxiety attack; heart racing, palms sweating, body shaking, mind screaming to find any way to get this mission aborted.

You can see it in the photos from that day.

The pure fear and sadness in my eyes.

I was not safe.

•

I went quiet. I turned cold. Unprecedented behavior for my naturally loving, jovial, and tranquil self.

He grabbed my hand, which I permitted, but did not return the grasp. I needed him to feel the separation. I needed my body to speak what I was scared to audibly say and hope he understood its language.

He never has before, so why I thought he would in this isolated moment, beyond me.

I was desperate and petrified. I felt suffocatingly trapped. An emotional claustrophobia.

I knew if the question was asked, I would not have the strength to give the right answer.

If I said yes, it would make him happy but break my heart. If I said no, well, it would break his heart, release his wrath, and break my heart and body and mind.

So, yes, I had no way out…

I prayed fervently for God to halt whatever was about to happen.

“Hear me God. I beg of you. Hear me. Just once…”

It was a plea rooted in the terrifying truth I would not survive a lifetime of the reality I was living.

•

Bruises and wounds covered my body, some by my own hands and some by him.

The overflow of aggression had to go somewhere, or should I say to someone.

It was my heart, though, that took the brunt of it.

There were days he would accompany me to the grocery store to keep my anxiety at bay.

And then there would be the more frequent days of giving me the silent treatment when I was struggling.

There were days he would hand me the helmet to go on a ride to help clear my mind.

And then there would be the more frequent days of him intentionally ignoring my existence, to the extreme of turning off lights to rooms I was sitting in, because my emotions were too much to handle.

There were days he would take me out to dinner to help challenge my thoughts and move me out of complacency.

And then there would be the more frequent days of him mocking my brain’s response to the trauma of my life – past, present, and future.

Understandably, in a chaotic and unsafe environment, my mind would beg for relief. A broken heart is the catalyst for a broken mind.

The disorder got louder.

As did he.

“How could you do this to me? You do not even love me.”

“I can never trust you alone, can I? You are like a child.”

“You have a lot of work left to do to ever be wife material.”

“Your body has potential. There are ways I could like it more.”

“It has been years since your sister died. Get over it.”

“Go cry over another dead friend. Act like I don’t matter.”

•

“Why did you stay?”

I already hear people asking that.

Because I believed in the good in him.

I believed I could help him see the good in him.

I believed he could become the good in him.

And because I never wanted him to believe the good in him was something to give up on.

You can criticize me for falling in love with potential, but in a world that is so quick to discard people for still growing (and inevitably struggling along the journey), I wanted to be the one to show someone they are worth the wait as they work their way to better.

Every night I would go into my closet and pray for God to save him, to soften his heart, to impart in him peace.

I feared to leave the relationship would not just be giving up on the person but also surrendering my belief on God’s ability to perform miracles.

I had a stubborn faith that was ultimately destroying me.

I had to eventually accept that I could still believe while knowing I was no longer to be part of the miracle that would transpire.

But that lifesaving resolve would come far later than it needed to.

I should have walked away on day two. When he himself warned me of who he truly was…

•

To be continued…