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Our emotions guide us through the dance of two bodies trying to communicate at their most honest, vulnerable, basic, and raw moments together what they can’t with words. I love you. Please forgive me. Don’t leave me. How could you. I hate you. I love you. I will fucking die without you. You are mine. Only mine. I belong to you. Only you. It is beautiful. It is soul shattering. It is good-bye.
I feel nothing. I’m numb.
Love is never supposed to hurt. Love is supposed to heal, to be your haven from misery, to make living fucking worthwhile. But as I stare at my wife, I know it’s all fucking bullshit.
The miscarriages were the oil, and Arsen was the fire. Together it scorched my crumbling marriage, burning it to the ground.
“When you were broken, I loved you for the two of us, Cathy. For the two of us and I didn’t fucking care…I didn’t. I thought my love would be enough, I loved you that much. If you had asked me to cut my own arm off for you, I would have. I would have given you my whole fucking body, Cathy. Only for you. I should’ve never had to share you, Cathy. Never. I thought you were mine, like I’m yours. Or was. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This is so fucking unbelievable.
I hope you’re happy because Arsen may own your heart, your body, but you’ll always be empty because I own your fucking soul. Your soul is part of mine and it always will be. I will heal, I will learn to love again, but you…I pity you.
“All I really wanted was...I just wanted to hold you in my arms for as long as I could. I wanted that second or third or fourth chance for us to be whole again. That was all. So if you think you’ll be happy with Arsen, well good luck. But honestly, I don’t think you’ll be able to.
Sometimes even holding onto someone as you’re falling won’t stop you from falling. Sometimes you just have to fall.
How am I going to live a life without Ben in it? He’s all I’ve ever known. He’s been my world, my truth, and my reality since I was eighteen years old. He’s the other half of me. Is there even a Cathy without him?
“Oh, Arsen…” I whisper against his mouth. “Don’t you understand? I feel you on my skin, I feel your taste in my tongue, I feel your hardness inside me, and it’s never enough.”
“This belongs to you. Only you, Catherine. It’s been yours since the day I met you, and it will be yours until you don’t want it anymore.” Growling, he pulls me closer to him, “I just want your hands on my body, your lips on my mouth, and your heart to be mine. Only mine.”
“You belong to me...only me...I need you...we need each other.”
I love Arsen because he taught me to move on, live life, and forget. I love him because he makes me laugh. I love him because he opened my eyes to life and helped me heal. And I love him because he’s Arsen. But he just isn’t my Ben.
Can you hear it? The sound of my heart breaking, ceasing to beat. Can you feel it? Excruciating pain, eating me alive, slowly tearing me apart limb by limb. It’s my fault. Only mine. Not his. Not theirs. I’m alone.
Love is infinite. There is no beginning and no end. There’s no starting point and no finishing line. Love just is. Love is born, grows, matures, and sometimes it dies. But the memory will remain with you for the rest of your breathing hours. You fall in love, you fall out of love. But you will love again. You always do.
Arsen became the air I needed to breathe, but Ben was my lungs.
“Daddy, how can I love her so much when I’ve just met her? Is she real? Is she really mine?”
Because I was right. It was always him. Not Arsen. Not anyone. My maple-brown eyed boy.
“Because it’s not fair to her. I saw you and I fucking knew.” Ben
“I don’t know...but I’ve tried so hard, Cathy. I can’t. Every pair of green eyes I see is yours. Every dimpled smile...every time I fucked someone and closed my eyes after...it was you I saw. It was your hands that pulled my hair. It was your kisses I felt. It was your mouth I wanted. Your taste on my lips every time I...do you know how sick I felt whenever I fucked a woman and wished it were you the entire fucking time?”
“I’ve had the real thing, and nothing can compare to it.
“Miracles are the consequences of daring to believe. And I dare you to believe in us again, Ben. I dare you to.”
And as I stare into my ex husband’s eyes, I know that there’s no me without him.
“If she’ll let me, I’ll buy her as many cupcakes as I possibly can,” Ben says, smiling into my daughter’s eyes.
About to reach for him with Nadia in my hand, I let myself think of that boy with the aqua-blue fire in his eyes one last time. Silently, I thank him because he’s the reason why I’m standing in front of Ben. He saved me from myself, and in a roundabout way he gave me Ben back. Without his help, and whatever it was we had, I don’t think I would be here. I would probably be dead. I love him and always will because his inner fire brought me back to life. Yes, he was the fire that burned my marriage down to ashes, but in those ashes, hope was reborn. He healed me. Arsen.
Missing you is a sickness I can’t cure, and it’s fucking killing me.
I had to let her go.
All I wanted to do was fix her, save her.
Somehow she became my reason to be, to exist. I loved her so damn much.
It wasn’t until after she told me she was pregnant, and I saw the way her eyes were glowing with such hope and tears, that I knew. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take it away from them, even if it didn’t work out. Ben and Cathy deserved that baby.
She was back where she needed to be all along, even if it killed me for a second time in my life. The only difference was that this time, I didn’t think I would be able to survive because I was already dead.
Instead, she stares at Ben with all the love that should have been mine.
I know that I did the right thing that day long ago. I did the right thing by letting her go, just as I’m about to do for a second time. And it’s tearing me apart once again.
They got their happy ending. That’s the only reason why I can make myself walk away, make myself say goodbye to my girls, even though it kills me that I’m not the reason behind their smiles. And I will never be.
And I hate myself because when I saw that little girl… I just knew. She is mine, yet she’s not. Just like her mother.
I am broken.
