Didn't sit, stood.
I sat up and knew in my gut something was bad. He hemmed and hawed and eventually came out with it.
"This isn't going to work, I don't love you."
I don't love you.
I kept trying to replay that in my head until it meant something else.
"You don't love me? What the fuck is that? What the hell do you mean?"
"I just... I just don't love you. This isn't going to work."
And then he walked out of the room and went back downstairs.
My sister was staying with us so I wasn't about to go down after him and create some nasty screaming match in the middle of the night. So, I laid there. I cried and tossed and turned. Then, I got up the next morning and went to work, sufficiently numb.
There were two or three days where he and I didn't speak to each other, didn't acknowledge the other's existence. He spent almost every hour I was at home at work and only came home to sleep. Ruthie was there helping with the girls so he wasn't really needed.
Exactly three days after he broke my heart, he called me at work. One of the chics I worked with came over and handed me the work phone and then took the girls I was supervising outside so I could talk.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Can we just talk? Can you meet me when you get off work? I just want to talk. You don't have to say yes now, just think about it and then meet me [address] if you can. Please Kate, I just want to talk to you."
I stood there just holding the receiver. Why did he want to talk? He said he didn't love me. What more is there to talk about?
I finished up at work with all the women there asking me what I was going to do.
"I don't know."
I didn't know.
He had gotten a hotel room a few miles from our place. I called Ruthie and asked if she would watch the girls so I could go talk to him. She said yes. I parked in the parking lot outside the hotel at 12:20am. And just sat in my car. At 12:45am I went inside and got the room number from the attendant. I took the elevator up and then found room 120. I was going to knock and then just sat down on the floor in front of the room and cried. I didn't know what I wanted from him so I am not sure that I knew why I was crying. But I sat there until 1:30am and just cried. Then I got up and went down the hall to the phone. I was going to call him and tell him I wasn't coming from the hallway.
He didn't answer.
I had considered two scenes playing out. Either (1.) he was going to apologize and we were going to try and work things out or (2.) he wanted to talk about how we were going to divvy everything up and one of us move. Suddenly a third option presented itself. Was he actually sick enough to do it? Would he set me up to walk in on him and someone else? Could he?
I went back downstairs and finagled a key out of the attendant saying that I had locked myself out of the room and he was asleep. She gave me one. Then back in the elevator and back to room 120. I stopped and briefly thought about just leaving. Better not to know. Then, I said fuck it and opened the door.
There was music. God, why was there music? My heart was beating so loudly that I could hear it. The room was lovely. There were two bedrooms. The bedroom on the left was open and there was a huge king sized bed in it, completely made up. I made my way to the bedroom on the right, where the door was pulled shut. That's where the music was coming from. I pushed the door open and saw NY passed out on one of the queen beds. The music was the alarm clock going off. Letting out the breath I had been holding, I went and sat on the bed next his and look at him.
I still loved him. I didn't understand it, but I guess we never do understand why we love who we love. I got up and went to wander the hotel room and calm down. That was when I saw them. The post it notes scattered through out the hotel room. I randomly walked from one to the next and saw the little four line poems written on each piece. There was a bottle of my favorite wine on the coffee table, lingerie hanging in the bathroom, candles, massage oil... the works.
I made a decision right then. You see, I could have left and spared my heart. He had backtracked to the seduction/infatuation place, he was Mr. Charming all over again and I had the ability to leave and not let him woo me again. Or, I could go in there and wake him up and try again. And since I loved him, I went with the latter of the two.
I went into the room and sat down on the bed and woke him up. He sat up and immediately looked at the alarm clock that was blaring and cursed. He was so pissed that he had slept. He asked if I had seen everything and I played dumb.
"Good!" he said. "Good, go outside."
No. No, I wasn't going outside. No. We needed to talk. And we did. We sat on opposite queen sized beds and talked. He said he was sorry. He didn't know what the hell was wrong with him. He did, does, love me. He can't lose me. Please, please accept my apology. Please? And since I already knew I would, I did.
He ushered me out the door and made me wait five minutes before he came and opened it. Then he went to the bedroom to wait for his Mr. Charming sex. Which he got.
We stuck a band-aid on our relationship and ignored the infection.
next...
Labels: History Lesson
