“You won’t leave me…..”, I say this smugly, with a look of absolute disgust on my face.
We have been back in Bend now for about 6 months. Ash and I and the girls moved to Mexico last year for about 5 months after our apartment flooded. We have been dating for about a year and a half and most of the time its amazing but recently we have been fighting constantly. Ash has been working graveyard shifts at Home Depot and I can tell its taking a toll. 19 years old and he is trying to be a father and a partner to me. My expectations are unattainable and my need to control every situation has gotten out of hand. But I don’t know how to relax, I cannot let my guard down, its the only thing protecting my broken spirit.
Part of me actually believes that he won’t leave. The other part of me is terrified that he will. Inside my heart has kicked up a notch, my chest suddenly feels as if it will explode, my face is hot and I am afraid that it is turning red, afraid that he will see the truth…….. The truth that I care, that I am afraid that he actually will leave. “Ivy, I cannot do this anymore, I cannot keep fighting, yelling, feeling as if you don’t appreciate me. I love you so much, but loving you is killing me.” Ash says this quietly, as if all the wind has been knocked out of him………maybe I knocked it out of him. I cannot breath, everything has gotten so loud in my head, what is he saying, how do I make him stop. “Ivy, this idea of staying in Bend, hell, staying on the same continent as you, and not being with you is impossible for me, so I have bought a one way ticket to Hawaii and I leave in two weeks. I was able to transfer to the Home Depot in Kona” He is crying as he says this, crying so hard, I want to smack him, I want to grab him and not let go, I want to scream “don’t go”, I want to beg “please forgive me, for my meanness, please give us another chance, I love you and I am lost without you….” instead I say, “You asshole!, I let my girls love you and you are leaving them? After all they have lost? I should have known you would leave…..get the f@#k out of my house!!” Ash stands up to leave, the hurt and pain written all over his face, as if to say, “this is why I have to leave, your pain is hurting all of us”. He heads for the door and I am desperate, my body is shaking, I am sweating, is this really happening? The man that I fell so deeply in love with after I believed that I would never feel again, the man that I thought would never leave, the man that I thought I could control……..actually leaving? “Don’t call them!!!” I shout this at his back spitting venom with my words, “Don’t call me, don’t ever come back!!! He turns around with tears running down his face, his eyes pleading with me. Why can I not just hug him and say good bye? What is keeping me from telling him that I love him. Why can I not be kind? The door shuts. I fall to the floor and weep.