Unspoken (20 page)

“Marion,” my father put his hands on my shoulders, “you look beautiful.”

“Thank you, dad,” I kissed his cheeks, “congratulations,” he smiled.

“It’s not tight enough,” said my mother eyeing the bun. Of course, despite doing everything her way she had to find something that was wrong.

“Thanks, mom,” I said rolling my eyes.

“No eye rolls tonight, Marion,” she said using her stern voice I just nodded resisting the temptation of rolling my eyes.

The people arrived and the three of us stood there shaking the hand of each and every person that arrived at the damn ball. My mother and father engaged in deep conversation with most of the people while I alternated standing on each foot because I was beginning to feel the upcoming formation of blisters.

“Beautiful as always,” I looked up immediately to find Leonard standing in front of me with a beautiful smile

“Leonard,” I was genuinely happy to see him so I hugged him passing my arms around his neck, “Are you staying?”

He chuckled “no, I just wanted to congratulate your father and, of course, see you in a formal dress,”

“Of course,” I nodded.

My mother was close to send someone to get the red carpet for Leonard, she still believed that we could be together. I knew we couldn’t and I was almost sure Leonard knew that but I let her dream a bit. It didn’t hurt.

I could actually see people ball dancing in the center of the room and we were still shaking hands. I began to wonder if I was ever going to eat. Alexa had come shook our hands in a very sarcastic way and then gone to take her seat. She had eaten and was already dancing with some guy and I was still shaking hands with strangers.

I was looking down at my feet, inspecting from a long, and high, distance for new blisters when I heard my mother cleared her throat. When I looked up I lost my balance and had to held on to my mother’s arm. Sara Bardwell was right in front of us but she wasn’t alone. Jackson was there…with her… Sally.
Perfect blonde hair, perfect smile, perfect red dress, perfect couple
I could actually hear my heart break, I couldn’t breathe and I had to take my hand to my heart just to make sure that it was
still
beating.

“Monica, Robert,” Sara said to my mom and dad. “Congratulations,” I was looking down. I had to focus on the hardwood pattern if I wanted to have a bit of sanity left by the time they were gone. They exchanged words, I heard her voice saying something, I felt my knees go weak. This couldn’t be happening to me. He promised to come back but not like this. Why? Was it all a game? I looked up he was smiling,
let me explain.

“No,” I whispered and looked back to the floor. I saw their feet walking away and then I turned to look at my mother. She held my hand.

“Go home,” she said nodding. She knew that my heart had been broken, maybe she had heard it. I nodded and practically ran out of there.

I took a cab back home and the very moment I was inside my house my legs stopped working. They had been supporting my entire death weight from the very moment Jackson had appeared in front of me. I fell to the ground and cried. I was amazed by the sounds coming out of my mouth. It was the sound of dying hope, dying purpose. I screamed, cursed fate and hated myself for letting myself believe that things were going to be ok.

“Mar,” I heard his voice. I was hallucinating and that meant that I had officially thrown my sanity out the window. “Mar,stop,” I heard him again but this time I felt his arms surrounding me from behind.

“What are you doing?” I asked pushing him away and crawling away from him. I was a fucking mess, I was sure but I didn’t care anymore. My heart was broken and I didn’t care if the whole world went to damn hell.

“Let me explain,” he said going closer. His beard was gone. He wasn’t with me anymore.

“Get the fuck out!” I was sure my screams could be heard throughout the street.

“No,” he said grabbing me by my upper arms.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed again while crying.

“I’m not with her,” He said getting his face closer to me.

“Yes you are,” I didn’t want to hear reasons. I was tired of that.

“I’m not! We both agreed to pretend to be together of a little while because of our parents upcoming social and work events but soon I’ll be yours,” he grabbed my face with both of his hands forcing me to look at him.

“Just leave, Jackson,” I was tired of crying, of fighting against something bigger than me.

“It’ll be over,” He didn’t let go of my face

“Go away,” I covered my face with my hands and screamed into them. I was tired, exhausted of the stupid game of lies, hopes, dreams but mostly of broken love. I couldn’t do it anymore. “I’m done,” I said looking up into his eyes.

“Don’t say that, Marion,” he tried to reach for me but I crawled back a bit.

“I can’t fix you Jackson,” my voice was hoarse. “I can’t give you a map to the road you need to take. This is something that you need to do by yourself.”

“Mar,” I was angry that he couldn’t say anything other than my name.

“We’ve hurt each other when all we wanted was to love each other. We fucked up, Jackson,” I laughed and I felt bile rising in my throat “we have to pay for that,”

“I am yours, Mar, this will be over soon,” he seemed so sure of whatever he is saying but I wasn’t

“Leave,” I said pointing to the door.

“I am yours,” he said going closer to me.

“I don’t care anymore, Jackson,” I tried to shrugged but the tension in my shoulders made that impossible “I need you leave.”

“I’ll come back,” he said as he stood up from the floor.

“I can’t promise that I’ll be here when you do,” I said not crying anymore.

“I love you, Mar,”

“Leave!” I screamed because those words burned what I had left of a soul. “Leave and don’t ever come back,” I threw myself on the floor and cried again. I heard the door close and I knew, in that moment, that he was gone.

The stupid dream of happily ever after had ended and I was left in the floor, broken, with nothing left but my regret, shame, and pain to keep me company.

Jackson Bardwell was finally out of my life.

He was gone. Officially gone and I was nothing but a mess. Jackson didn’t come back after New Year’s and I stopped receiving purple tulips. He didn’t come back for the summer and by the time September rolled around I had accepted that he had left me for good.

Everything turned gray. It wasn’t that everything was pink when he was here. It just had more color. It was Technicolor.

I was walking in a cloud that didn’t seem to disappear. I had no idea how or when did I come to the realization that Jackson wasn’t coming back. Maybe it just happened little by little, as my heart broke one piece at the time, one day at the time, until one day, one forsaken day, I woke up knowing that I was living a new life.

My life without Jackson.

I must’ve cried myself to sleep right on the floor, where Jackson left me, because I opened my eyes to someone calling my name. It was Alexa and she seemed worried but I couldn’t feel much, I knew I should be sad, completely undone by what happened, my choice of removing Jackson out of my life, but I wasn’t. I was numb. Maybe that’s the way your psyche reacts to prevent you from losing your mind. It was working.

“Marion,” Alexa shook my shoulders once I sat up in the middle of the floor of my house “where’s Jackson?” Jackson, that name should made me feel something right? Wrong, she might be talking about someone named Joe and I would’ve had the same reaction.

“He’s gone,” I didn’t recognized my voice, it was detached and monotone. I was in zombie mode.

“Gone where?” she asked trying to make me stand up but after a few pushes and shoves she gave up and sat with me on the floor. Both of us with our ball dresses.

“Don’t know,” I think I shrugged “he’s not coming back,” I waited for the tears to come but no, there were nowhere to found. I think I was crying on the inside. Is it possible to run out of tears?

“He called me,” she was looking at me like I was some deranged woman “He asked me to come and look after you,” He felt guilty for the state he left me in, I was sure.

“He left with Sally,” I used her name and that did make me feel something. Jelousy, hatred, no disappointment. I was disappointed that she existed and maybe that was mean but it was a feeling at least.

“Did you give him a chance to explain?” she seemed to be walking on eggshells around me. Maybe I was scaring her. I was sure that I looked worst than Frankenstein’s bride.

“Marion?” Connor and Lauren walked into my house in what looked like pajamas. Great, were we having a reunion. “Hey,” he said and joined us in the floor, so did Lauren.

“You look like crap,” he said and Lauren elbowed him in the ribs.

“I know,” I nodded

“What are you doing here?” Alexa asked him confused. I was confused as well.

“Jackson called me,” of course he did.

“Marion, there’s an explanation to everything,” he said reaching for my hand.

“I’m sure there is,” I looked at him “I’m sure he tried to explain,” I nodded “I just don’t care anymore, Connor,” I took my hands to my face expecting the tears but the seemed to be officially gone. “I can’t play this little game. It’s been almost 9 years. 9 years of my life wasted on what ifs and maybes,” I shook my head “I can’t,”

“Ok,” he said patting my hand “Let’s get you to bed,” he said standing up. I didn’t argue with him. He passed his hands under my knees and carried me to my bedroom. Alexa and Lauren helped me out of the dress and into a t-shirt. They tried to get rid of the mascara that was smeared all over my face and then undid my bun. The tension on my scalp half gone. I finally laid my head on the pillow and took a big breath. I was ready for my new life to begin.

I remember hearing somewhere that the way you spend the first 12 days of the year will define the next 12 months. If that had some truth to it I was going to have the shittiest year ever. And If the next 12 days had to be borrowed from the next year then I was destined to have 24 months of pure and evil shit.

The first two or three days I stayed home trying to understand what I had done.
By the third or fourth time that I heard Jackson’s voice on my answering machine I unplugged the phone. I actually heard the beginning of the first message before I drowned in my own tears. He kept on repeating that it was all pretend. Bullshit, I didn’t want to know about it; I didn’t want to know a thing about him!

I had actually sent the love of my life to hell. I’d decided to live without him and it was some decision that I had to embrace because every hour, or two, I would regret it and grabbed my phone ready to call Jackson
back
and bring him back but then all I had to do was to remember her,
Sally
(I was back to saying her name like that)
,
looking back at me with all her perfection and with Jackson’s hand in hers. That’s all it took to send me back into the wallowing pit I had put myself into and hold on to the decision for dear life.

By the fourth day I was already baking, at home, and came to the realization that I never knew what living without Jackson meant. Even after he was gone, the first time, he was always around, in my mind, in my heart, in my baking and in everything I did. I didn’t know how I was going to make him go away for good. He was such a big part of who I was; he had defined a lot of me as an adult that I thought it would be almost impossible to be me without him. Even if that meant not being with him.

It was on the fourth day that I received a bouquet of tulips that I threw to the garbage without reading the note
. That was the day that I realized that cupcakes would never ever be happy food for me as I looked around after a long day of baking and thinking. My kitchen was invaded by cupcakes. I was sure I’d baked more than a hundred cupcakes while thinking of Jackson.

Alexa had called me every day and respected my need of space but always asked me go to work. Connor had stopped by once a day,
to intercede in favor of Jackson who apparently called him a lot
, and Lauren had eaten a good portion of the Jackson cupcakes, she was pregnant, she had an excuse. I didn’t so when I found myself crying( the tears came back on day 4) on the floor, my hands sticky with frosting and half a dozen cupcake wrappers around me I decided that it was time to do something else.

On day five I went back to work. I didn’t do much but bake cupcakes and chocolate cookies but it helped me to be around people and stay away from zombie mood. Jessie was the biggest life saver because she was learning fast and helping Greg with everything that needed to be done and, of course, Greg kept the bakery afloat with his baking. He even took un baking the zucchini and espresso muffins.

Days went by and little by little I got used to the whole in my chest with Jackson’s name.
He stopped trying to reach me and sending tulips, he was out of my life.
I wasn’t happy, not even close but I was functioning and that was a lot for me to say. I did have breakdowns like they very bad one I had the day I found Jackson’s shirts and toiletries at my place. It was embarrassing the way I broke down. I held on to one of his shirts while I cried in the closet’s floor. I tried to sniff the shirt but I couldn’t find his smell in there, it was then that I grabbed a bottle of his cologne and sniffed it like a junkie smells glue. I think that breakdown lasted a couple of hours but maybe it did all night. I had no idea, I had spent the night on the floor.