Chapter Twenty-Seven: 4 In The Morning
I close the door. Like so many times, so many times before. Filmed like a scene on the cutting room floor. I wanna let you walk away tonight without a word.
Nick drove aimlessly for three solid hours finally ending up in Malibu. He walked out over the beach laying down on it looking up at the darkened sky. He looked at all the stars he could see. Why did she have to cut? Why couldn’t she just let him in? He couldn’t understand it. And he didn’t really want to either. He breathed in the salty sea air and relaxed back against the lumpy sand. He felt the tears sting his eyes and began to flow as he surveyed the massive expanse of sky above him. And the only thing he could think of wasn’t how she betrayed him but the one thing that came to mind was wonder. Wondering what she was doing at the moment.
Was she crying her eyes out? Was she cutting still? He shook his head he certainly hoped to God that she wasn’t still cutting. It scared him to his very core that she was even contemplating cutting again not to mention that she actually would do it again. What if…? No he wasn’t going to let himself go there. There was too many if’s in that statement alone. He just needed ot sort out his thoughts before he went to her again so maybe they could salvage everything that had been destroyed just a few hours before.
I try to sleep, yeah. But the clock is stuck on thoughts of you and me. A thousand more regrets unraveling. OOoh, if you were here right now,. I swear I'd tell you this Baby I don't wanna waste another day. Keepin it inside, it's killing me. Cause all I ever wanted comes right down to you (to you). I wish that I could find the words to say. Baby I would tell you, every time you leave. I'm inconsolable…(**)
Alyssa had bandaged up her arm and changed her clothing in favor of one of Nick’s old Buccanneer’s jersey’s. She sat on their bed holding his pillow to her face as she cried smelling him over the fabric. She sobbed harder and harder in the darkness of the room until she could barely breathe. She moved back grabbing a box of tissues and blew her nose. She laid on the bed wishing he was there, just to hold her as she cried. But instead she clutched his pillow and cried to herself silently in the darkness.
She thought of him. Almost every second her mind kept replaying all their happy moments in her mind. God what she wouldn’t give for his smile, his hands on her skin again. Just to feel him next to her after such a distance for so long. Could they still reach each other? Or had the divide between them grown to canyon-esque size proportions? She hoped they could but after all it was all a matter of time and whether Nick was willing or not to work to
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Nick Narrating:
How could she do this?
I don’t understand it. I mean on some level I do understand her. But at the same time…How can I ever forgive her for breaking the one promise she swore she never would break? I know how much pain she’s in is ten times worse than what she went through with Collin, and losing her father over two years ago, and then our relationship woes and now Noah. It’s been building and escalating to a point where I don’t even know where to begin to try to fix it.
Even at therapy a week ago I spoke to Dr. Pinsky about how everything had happened. And he pretty much explained that she’s a classic case of trying to protect her loved ones from feeling terrible for her. That she doesn’t want pity or any sympathy and is trying to protect me in some odd way from her pain making mine even worse.
And really I do get that. But it’s just ugh…so fucking frustrating sometimes. I want to be there for her. I want to be the only one she can truly confide in. If she has a problem with me she should talk to me about it. And I know she needs her friends to go for an outside opinion about everything too and that’s fine, but I want to be the first person she talks to about anything, about everything. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen between a couple especially when they’re getting married?
I know, I broke up with her tonight, and I said some really harsh words but I just couldn’t keep them bottled up inside anymore. It’s not so much that I just want her to rely on me. I want us to rely on each other. The way we used to. When we were friends the only thing we didn’t know about each other was that we were actually secretly in love.
But that doesn’t matter anymore.
What matters is that we know we love each other. I know I love her. And though her pain is so strong right now I know she loves me. And we just need to get back to that. I think we’ll be okay if we do.
Which is why I think we need some outside professional help.
Dr. Pinsky, man is an absolute relationship god I swear.
I can sit there and tell him a story about Alyssa and I or any other relationship I’ve ever had and within ten minutes he’s got me realizing something profound about said relationship. It’s incredible and maybe if I can get Alyssa to go with me, we can begin to work out our problems as well.
The first time around with her cutting she never sought professional help. And really that’s my fault I take the blame there because I didn’t force her. I thought I could do it myself. I thought I had succeeded for years, but after tonight…I realize I’d only made her repress those tendencies and really that’s not healthy for her, myself or our relationship.
Our relationship…
What has that even become?
We used to just be so happy just to sit and lay together. Watch old movies together, sit and makeout on the couch just the two of us. What happened to us? How did we let life and our careers and friends and family get in the middle of us? I think that’s our main problem really, we got too comfortable with each other and began to take us for granted. And in that we succumbed to all the outside pressures and stresses of life. Really when you think about it, it’s pretty clear that’s the case.
I mean come on if we’re ever going to be able to get married and have a family that we both so desperately want with each other. Then we’ve got to make our relationship to the point of being nearly indestructible. And right now, our relationship is almost completely destroyed. It’s insane to the point where I’m nervous about going home and seeing her again. Will I feel the same way? Will she?
I know she loves me, I can always tell that she does even lately when all I see is her pain and self preservation tactics taking over. It drives me nuts how she can be so closed off and emotionless one second, and the next she’s fucking cutting herself again. I just wish she’d begin to let me in again like that summer back in 2001. I really love her, even more now than I did back then. Or maybe more than I was really willing to let myself realize.
That time in our friendship was so confusing and so emotional yet we were able to be come so close and so tight with each other that we couldn’t imagine anything coming between our friendship. And nothing did come between us…until I had to be the romantic sap and tell her I love her. Granted what had happened moments before kind of brought that out of me but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t plan on telling her that night. And now let’s hope we can eventually get back to that phase in our relationship. Where we just trust and confide in each other like we used to.
Then maybe we can become the couple we’re supposed to be, and shed all this negativity around us once and for all.
That I think is really what we should be, we should be happy
End Narration.
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Alyssa Narrating:
Dear God…what have I done?
Looking at it now as I lay here in bed, our bed, the place where we made love the first time, hell the bed where I lost my virginity and where he told me he loved me the first time. If I close my eyes, I can remember every detail of that night in my head, feel everything I felt.
And at the same time I feel the most intense regret of my life.
Not because of what happened. But because of what I let us become. We were so much stronger than this back then. I let us almost destroy everything we have. And I feel so horrible for it. Those words he said to me tonight. They cut me more than anything piece of glass or a metal razor ever could. It just hurts so much and I can’t stop crying.
I know I should be crying, I’ve been holding everything in for so long that it needs to get out but I can’t handle this can I?
I don’t even know what really drove me to it.
Was it my internal pain? My anger at myself and everyone around me that led me to cut again. It all seems so fuzzy now. One minute I’m in the shower wallowing in my own pain then I step out and change and then I see myself in the mirror and everything comes to a head and I just never felt so angry or alone in my entire life. I hate myself I honestly do and I can’t understand how to get through that.
Losing Noah…
That was the worst thing that could have happened, but to lose Nick on top of that. God I can barely fathom the first let alone the second. Losing Nick too? I really won’t survive it and I hope to God he’s just mad at me and will come back and talk this out with me. I need him to understand to just hold me as I cry. And I couldn’t let him do that before. I just wanted to punish myself. And I know that’s wrong I shouldn’t punish myself like I did with Brandon, or when Collin died, or even when my dad died. And as much as I miss my father the only way I was able to get through his death was to let myself rely on Nick fully for everything.
I miss that so much. Being able to fully rely on him. To know that he’s right there with me I know this’ll get us through. I just need to work on this problem I have. I don’t know how to describe it or even what it is. All I know is that it’s terribly distructive to not only me but to Nick and our relationship. It’s been weighing on us for months before Noah even passed. And its because I’m scared…scared of our seriousness and our bond and everything between us. It scares me and I know that I began to push him away. I know I shouldn’t push him away. But I did it and I want to change. I guess I just don’t know how.
But I know one thing’s for sure. It’ll start with us talking again. I know that’s the one thing we both need right now. We’ll talk and everything can begin to get better.
End Narration.
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Nick got up from his spot on the sand dusting himself off and headed back to his truck with a firm plan in mind. He drove home going in through the garage and through to the living room seeing Layla pick up her head from her spot of sleeping on the couch. She saw him wagged her tail then went back to sleep. He chuckled and went up the stairs into his bedroom. That’s when he saw her, her sleeping form clutching his pillow as she slept. He looked over at the clock seeing it was already after 3AM. He rubbed his eyes slightly and took the arm chair in the corner and sat on it watching the slight light from the moon illuminate her body and face. He grinned slightly seeing one of his very old white and orange buccaneers jerseys. He watched as the pillow fell away from her body as she turned over reaching for him.
Alyssa stirred seeing Nick not in bed beside her as she had searched for him in her sleep. She sighed and pulled her knees to her chest and put her head in her hands. She felt eyes on her and looked up seeing him sitting in the chair across the room covered in a sheet of darkness. “Nick?” She asked softly almost afraid to go above a whisper for fear he was just and abberation.
“Yeah it’s me…” He said softly leaning forward so she could make out his face slightly in the minimal light in the room.
Alyssa swallowed hard and looked at him slowly just studying his expression his features and his entire body language that seemed to illustrate so perfectly the pain and betrayal he felt. “Where’d you go?” She asked keeping their conversation going yet still mild at the same time.
“Where else, I drove around for a while, then found myself up in Malibu at the beach.”
Alyssa snickered slightly figures she shouldn’t have even had to ask. The beach was the one place Nick went whenever he was upset about something and needed to clear his mind. She looked at Nick met his eyes she saw even for a brief instant, pain, anger, betrayal and love. She took in a shaky breath and looked out the window turning away. “So…why’d you come back?” She asked.
He looked at her and took a deep breath standing and moving to sit in front of her on the bed letting one leg dangle off the side. “Because I realized something.”
“What?”
“That I love you too damn much to let us tear each other apart.” He said solemnly avoiding her eyes as his fingers played with a piece of the comforter. Alyssa watched him slowly nodding a little. “And I know that you’ve been in so much pain. I got to see Noah before he died, and you didn’t get the chance to really even say hello much less than goodbye. I’m sorry I couldn’t understand why you started cutting again. I’m willing to work with you though. Because I need you Ali, I’m hurting too okay? I wasn’t there when he gave up. I was getting something for you and him and then I came to see you, to check how you were doing when Mary called me. By the time I got there, he was already gone. And I never felt so helpless in my entire life. I should have protected him, protected you and I failed.”
Alyssa felt tears stinging her eyes at his confession of his own pain. “Nick, it’s my fault okay…It’s my fault. If I would have…”
Nick stopped her by placing his hand on hers that were folded and wrapped around her legs. He pulled away hoping that if he pulled back first then she wouldn’t be scared and recoil from him either. “It’s not your fault, it’s not mine either. It happened and it hurts so much and I just need to know that I can rely on you and that you can rely on me too. I love you…” He said looking at her straight in the eyes.
Alyssa sat for a long moment thinking then finally moved. She leaned over wrapping her arms around him hugging him close as she began to cry into his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” She said in between sobs. Nick wrapped his arms around her and felt her body give in and go weak against him. He pulled her close and rubbed his hands up and down her back ‘shh’-ing her in his attempt to soothe her. A moment later Alyssa broke away and stood up. “I’m sorry, for this…” She said pointing to her bandaged arm. “But I’m most sorry for hurting you…for not realized how everything was pulling us farther and farther apart. I miss us…”
Nick shifted letting both his legs dangle off the bed and he took her hand and pulled her to stand between his knees he pushed her hair behind her ears the moved his hands to her hips. “I miss us too…” He said before bringing her head down in a lingering kiss. After they both pulled away he pulled her onto the bed laying them both down on their respective sides. He laid his hand at the bottom of her ribcage and pulled her close.
“So how do we fix us? How do we get back to what we used to be?” She asked curious as to any ideas he had to offer.
He sighed and kissed her again. “How about counseling?”
“Like a shrink?”
“I’ve been seeing a therapist for a while now, and I really think if we’re going to get better at all and really be ready to settle down fully. Then we need professional help, an objective third party that can help us work through our problems together.” He explained.
Alyssa took it all in and nodded in agreement before burying her face in his neck. She pulled back a second later. “Where’s the rest of you?” She asked innocently.
He laughed hard at her quick change of subject and her question. “What you knew I was working out.”
Alyssa’s eyes lit up a little, “Really? Shows you how self centered I’ve been.”
Nick sighed and kissed her long and hard then broke away. “Well then let’s talk about it. We’ve missed a lot with each other these past few months…” He offered.
“Yeah I’d like that a lot…” She replied with a slight grin. She sighed as they began to talk slowly talking about everything, every event of the past few months and before they knew it the sun was shining in the room signaling that day had finally come. Both of them yawned and soon fell asleep in each other’s arms as day slowly came in signaling a new chapter in their lives and hopefully a better future for their relationship.
(**) Inconsolable By BSB
If you had a chance to read, let me know what you think! Hope to hear from all of you!
Author's Chapter Notes:
Yes I totally got the chapter title from Gwen's song of the same name. That and Inconsolable are awesome tracks to listen to as you read the chapter, (just a hint LOL) anyways thanks for the reviews and hope you'll stay tuned!
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks again to Tri for pushing me to write a second chapter in one day LOL
