The Life I Now Live (13 page)

I know my actions are hard to understand. Please know that I needed to leave and my love for you is part of the reason. You deserve happiness. You deserve better than me, Patrick. I know you would shake your head and say it’s not true. What is true ... is that you’re the sweetest guy I’ve ever known and it kills me that I may never know you again.

One day, after you’ve moved on and started a family with a beautiful wife, I will tell you why I had to do this. Right now just isn’t the right time.

Please, let me go as you have let Emily go. Walk into your future with bright eyes and hope for tomorrow. There’s hope even in the darkest corners. If I can say that, so can you. Find a way to live again. For me. For what could have been.

When you’re ready ... if a nice girl walks into your life and gives you her heart, give her yours. Please. 

I’m just a memory now. 

Always in my heart,

Heidi

The letter was sweet, but it pissed me off. I ripped it up and left the pieces on her kitchen table, then walked out to my so-called bright future. I don’t know what she intended, but the heart doesn’t work like that. You don’t fall in love with a person and swipe your heart back when it’s convenient. The fact that she claimed she loved me, only to tell me that we couldn’t be together and I needed to give my heart to another girl, seriously pissed me off.

What kind of sick game show did I end up on?

I left her house and tried to call her at the next stoplight, but her phone was disconnected. Not in service. She must’ve changed her number.

I punched my steering wheel, then squeezed it as hard as I could. I’m not an angry kind of guy. I don’t pinch and hit and yell. I’ve never thrown anything across the room. But right then I sure as hell wanted to.

Not because of her. Whatever she did, she genuinely thought was for the best. I wasn’t angry with her. Just the situation. The twisted circumstances that I never failed to shove my heart into.

I didn’t say this often either, but I needed a drink.

Another email popped up on my phone.

From: Secret Admirer

To: Patrick Wheldon

Subject: Something you used to do...

Hey Patrick, just wondering ... what’s one thing you did before marrying your wife that you wish you could do again?

From: Patrick Wheldon

To: Secret Admirer

Subject: RE: Something you used to do...

Hello nameless strange person, I used to skateboard. Haven’t in years.

From: Secret Admirer

To: Patrick Wheldon

Subject: RE: Something you used to do...

Meet me at the skate park in 10?

From: Patrick Wheldon

To: Secret Admirer

Subject: RE: Something you used to do...

No. 

From: Secret Admirer

To: Patrick Wheldon

Subject: RE: Something you used to do...

Okay. Well, maybe go by yourself? Might be fun to try it again. If you want company, I’ll be spying on you from the tree branches. Watch out for flying acorns. 

I laughed. Almost responded and told her that trees don’t have acorns in winter, but I refrained. Never in a million years would I fall for a secret admirer, but curiosity lingered. Weird to imagine. Kinda creepy too. If she didn’t know my friends, I definitely would’ve trashed her email.

Can’t say the oddness of it didn’t intrigue me though. Just a little. 

Ch. 21 | Heidi

Andy and I walked into an apartment building and he asked the lady at the front desk if we could see a vacant rental. She pressed a few buttons on the phone and a few minutes later a man walked up to us, shook our hands, and led us through a hallway, up two flights of stairs, down another hallway that smelled like curry, and to a door. He unlocked it, revealed the one-bedroom apartment with tan carpet and one small window by the kitchen, then asked us if we liked it. Andy looked at me. I nodded. I’d take anything at this point, didn’t really care. Also liked that it was a month-to-month lease, just in case Andy left me again.

The man led us back down the hall, the steps, the other hall, and into the office. I signed a few papers. Andy refused to have anything in his name. He didn’t want to be tracked. I didn’t remind him that someone could probably find him through me if they really wanted to. Instead, I signed the papers, paid the deposit, and took the key.

“That easy?” I said.

The lady blew a bubble with her gum, then popped it. “Yup.”

“Thanks.”

We took our stuff out of the car and brought it to our new home. I set Riley’s bed up in the bedroom and piled some sheets, blankets, and pillows on the floor beside it. Andy ran into the room, out of breath. What now? I wanted to say, but couldn’t.

He reclined onto the pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“Andy, can I be straight up with you?” I sat beside him and pulled Riley toward me.

“Of course.”

“If you leave me one more time you are never coming back. I will move on, get married again, and live as though you really are dead.”

“But—“

“No.”

“But if th—“

“I’m serious. If you leave me again I will never let you back into my life.” I hugged Riley to my chest. “Or Riley’s.”

He extended his hand and we shook. Strange. Like a business deal or something. I hoped he understood my seriousness. No more fresh starts. No more games and fears ruling our lives. I couldn’t stand it anymore.

He stood and surveyed our makeshift bed. “Probably be a little bit before we can afford furniture. Want to go get dinner somewhere?”

I bundled Riley in her winter gear and followed Andy back to the car. We drove around for a while, scoping out our new area for grocery stores, restaurants, and the nearest Target. I couldn’t live without Target. Everything from bananas to underwear all in one place? Definitely a must-have in my book.

We settled on a local Ruby Tuesday’s, ordered a three-course meal and talked about furniture in the midst of Andy’s mild panic attacks. Every time his eyes snapped to-and-fro looking for someone out to get him I pictured Patrick. His peacefulness. The way he thought I was crazy for being scared of the dark. His strength. His lips.

I hated myself for thinking of him so much, but willpower didn’t help. The heart can ignore the mind. Happens all the time. But the mind cannot ignore the heart. I tried, believe me. Doesn’t work. The heart rules when the mind is in doubt.

“Do you see that?” He pointed to the decorations above our table.

I shook my head. Didn’t see anything abnormal.

“They are everywhere,” he said. “The Illuminati. It’s a pyramid symbol. I see them everywhere I go.”

“And that means?”

He leaned in and whispered, “They are watching us. See the eyeball in the pyramid?”

I rubbed my eyes, five times, hard. 

“You don’t believe anything I say.”

“I don’t know what to believe, but whether it’s true or not, I don’t really care.”

“How can you not care?”

“I could get into my car right now, get hit by a drunk driver, and be dead. Why am I going to spend my last precious minutes of life worrying about how I could die, or how it might happen, or when it might happen? I’d rather live. When I die, I will die having lived, instead of living my last moments in fear of the end.”