Damned Day

We planned to dress our dogs up for Halloween that year.  It was the first time we did, and, oddly enough it was his idea.  He walked by the costumes, and he picked them up.  I didn't have to beg or plead or bat my eyes and offer him a quickie when we got home.  He just magically wanted to.  See, that's what we had: magic....  We had it. 

Somehow I found it.  I never thought I would.  Through one failed relationship after another I had found that magic that only exists in movies.  The same kind of gushy too-good-to-be-true kitchy chick flicks I watched with doe eyes, that he sat by my side and made jokes through.  I would smack his leg and tell him to shut up so I could live in the moment of that first kiss.

I don't much feel like I live in those movies anymore.  Although maybe I do.  There is always tragedy in one way or another, and then the main star finds their love.  But, what if they already had their love?  I mean their true true love?  I'm sure you can find love twice, but it will never feel like what you had.  I know it's been said a million times, a thousand different ways, but that is a matter of fact. 

I was in the bathtub – where I spend a third of my life – soaping up and shaving my legs.  Claiming it was his fault I had to do it, but knowing full well I would shave them anyhow, because I enjoyed the feel of my smooth skin.  He was going to run out, and I felt like staying behind.  He was going to come pick me up when he was done.  I always get apprehensive when I change the story of what we are to do for the day.  I always think, “Butterfly Effect”.  Just that change could lead to tragedy.  That's just the fucked up way my mind works.  I remember something Courtney Love once said, in an interview, shortly after her husband was found dead.  “I'm not psychic, but my lyrics are.”  Haunting.  It always terrified me that I held that same power, or weakness, depending on how you look at it. 

He just never called.  There was no epiphany.  There was no heart stopping moment when I felt that there was something horribly horribly wrong.  There was nothing.  That really makes a person feel selfishly inadequate. 

I called his phone probably 20 times – which, looking back, seems very few calls for a worrier like me.  I just always thought if I didn't worry then bad things would happen, but if I kept a constant guard up maybe I could somehow stop it before it happened – or at least I'd be more prepared if it did.  I was wrong on both accounts.

I called his parents, but they weren't worried, because they weren't expecting him.  I assumed he told them he was coming.  I waited hours before I included them in my worry.  I figured I was “being ridiculous” as he always said to me.  I didn't want to cause unnecessary stress, but on the other hand I worried if there was a problem and I waited it could get worse.  So many times I almost picked up the keys to the other car to go down the route I was sure he'd taken and see if I saw him.  When he did finally call me I could say I got bored and went out to shop or some other lame excuse to cover my crazy escapade.

When I reached his parents and they hadn't seen him I kept my voice level.  I told them I was sure he was fine, and had decided to take a detour.  I knew when we hung up the phone I would explode.  I honestly felt like my insides would come right though my skin.  The panic was becoming unbearable.  I grabbed my keys & ran for the back door.  The moment my hand touched the doorknob there was a doorbell ring.  It came from the front door, of course.  I never felt so heavy or dreaded a sound so much.

I always hated the doorbell ringing, because our dogs would go beserk.  Screaming and barking, clawing the door.  If we ordered food for delivery I would usually tote them upstairs, and make him answer the door when it rang.  I knew, at this very moment,  he would never answer the door for me again. 

I couldn't hear the dogs barking.  I knew they were.  I could see the saliva spray on the wall and I could see the blood on my foot from one of their nails, but I felt and heard nothing.  I felt like I was swimming.  I made my way to the front door and somehow through the dogs to the policeman who stood on my front porch.

He didn't look saddened or sorry to be there.  Both of which I thought he should be.  The policeman told me he was gone.  Told me his little blue car – the same blue car we were going to sell to a dealership for less than it was worth that very day – had lost control.  It was raining, but it had been raining lightly for hours.  He always drove safely in the rain.  He was careful.  The policeman said it was an accident.  He was the only one involved.  I should have felt relief that no one else was hurt, but I suddenly felt rage.  I wanted someone else to be destroyed the way I was about to be.  I knew that was horrible, but I didn't care.  All of my good was left on the pavement.  It was wrapped around a broken bloody oak tree now.  It was running red and black into the muddy street.  It was on the fireman's hands as they lifted his lifeless body from the wreckage.  It was in the shards of windshield glass that were carved into his beautiful face.  It was left in his wide brown eyes with thick lashes any girl would pay for.  Those eyes now dull and greyed.  No life left in them.  My good slipped away with them.  All of me left that day, right w/him.  On that very day that he died so did I.