Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 19:41:46 -0800 (PST)
From: J M <jm08nyc@yahoo.com>
Subject: Everything Goes Awry - Chapter Ten

Thank you all for continuing to read this story, I will try and post
chapters more frequently as I work towards the conclusion.

Your ongoing feedback, ideas and thoughts are always
appreciated. Jm08nyc@yahoo.com.

CHAPTER TEN

For a moment I let my eyes fall closed. And for a moment I let myself be
transported back in time. It could have been a year ago, or two. The same
players; the same scene.  But with him approaching, handing me a cup of
coffee as he slipped his arm around my waist and kissed me on the cheek. A
quiet "good morning" as he slid back to the stove to finish making
breakfast.

The two of us. Breakfast. Bliss.

I shook my head. And banished the thought.

That was then. This is now.

Eyes wide open.

I slipped into a chair at the table, sitting across from
him. Silent. Observing. Taking in every detail of his face, his clothes. A
person I had known so well, so intimately. The nose, the mouth, the
lips. Features I had memorized. I had kissed. I had loved. I had pressed
against my own.

His hands lay on the table, palms down. He still wore the ring on his right
hand; the pair we had picked up in a vintage store in a back alley in
Johannesburg a year or so ago. I didn't need to glance at my own hand to
know that mine wasn't there.

I had taken it off nine months ago.  I had left it sitting on the counter
in the bathroom of the house on Rue Charlot the entire summer I was
away. And it was there, waiting for me when I returned in the fall.  It sat
there to this day. Of everything that Sophie has touched, or cleaned, or
polished in the house, that one item remains fixed. Like a constant point
in time that can't be revisited, can't be changed.

His mouth open. Words starting to come out.  I needed to focus. The first
few phrases all I could hear was his voice; his accent. The one that had
wooed me on the plane that first time we met. The one that had comforted me
in my lowest points. The one that I heard first every morning and last
every night for years. I wasn't listening to the words he was saying. I was
just taking him in.

Every ounce of him. As if the nine months we were apart were a hundred
thousand years and I was looking through a dark glass at a ghost from
another era.

Focus.  Focus!  FOCUS!

I concentrated not on the voice, but on the words.

"...when I got to the house yesterday and found only Sophie there, I knew
there would only be one place you'd go to. It was late, but I hit the road
right away and must have arrived this morning right after you left for your
run. I've been sitting here awhile...you didn't change the locks."

Silence.  Him waiting for me.  Me, not sure what to say.

I had, of course, thought about what this might be like.  Would I cry?
Shout?  Throw things?

I felt like I had already done all of those things; especially as I filled
the notebook, sitting in the red chair, in our...my... bedroom on Rue
Charlot. Was there anything left to say? Or do?

I remained quiet.

"Well, you look good... I like the longer hair, it's a nice change," he
said softly looking down at the backs of his hands, his warm, oh-so-English
voice hitting me across the table. "Sophie mentioned that you spent the
summer down here. The house looks amazing—who ever would've thought. I
knew you always had a vision, but..."

He trailed off. Not sure of what to do next, I suppose.

I watched him get up from the table, and, for a moment, tensed thinking he
might try to come close to me. To touch me. To embrace me. Instead he
walked toward the desk in the corner, and leaned down to look at a painting
that was leaning there on the tabletop against the wall. One of his.

It was a small painting, one he had done for me just after we had gotten
together and not long before we'd bought the house in the south. He had
done it during a trip we had taken one weekend. So small, so fine. Just
pale, brown paint on a canvas. Me. Laying in the grass, eyes closed,
asleep.

The painting had moved around over the years. It had always held a special
place in my heart. For years it had hung in the library here in the south,
a reminder every I reached for a book of him and us. When I had come down
to the south in May.  Abandoning Paris after Cooper had...left...and
working on the house in the south I had moved the painting. But, not
wanting to get rid of it...not being...ready?...to get rid of it I had left
it here on the desk.

He started, "...you didn't...you kept it." He was facing away from me and I
could hear a soft sob.

This had to end.

"Cooper," I started... not sure really where the strength or words came
from, "Cooper, I think you should leave. I..."

I lost it was what happened. Lost my voice and my ability to carry on.  I
just looked down at the table.

I could feel him approach; the heat from his body radiating next to
me. Mere inches. The man who for so long shared every moment of my life,
every night in my bed. The man who I haven't seen or spoken to in nine
months. The man who had taken my heart and who had thrown it away.

"I know," I heard him say. As if from a distant place. Quietly. Laced with
melancholy. "I'm going to spend the night in town. There's a room available
at the hotel. I want you to know that I read the notebook. Every page. I
want you to know that I haven't forgiven myself for what I've done to
you. And, what I've done to us. I know—and I read it in your words as
well—that we were the best thing I've ever had, ever experienced, ever
wanted, ever dreamed."

I kept my eyes cast down. Willing myself not to cry. Keeping the closest
thing I could to a poker face on, despite my crumbling interior.

He continued, "I'm going to be down a the hotel through the weekend. I
don't anticipate you coming to look for me, but I will be there if you
do. And, I can't leave without saying this, which I hope will not hurt
you—I love you. More than anything in my life, the good and the bad,
more than my triumphs and my failures. There's always you—you
transformed my life. And I love you for that, and for you who you are. And
while I may have lost that love from you, I've learned from my mistake, and
I will never take that love for granted again."

Breathe.  Deep.  Breaths.

Don't cry.  Do. Not. Cry. Don't.

I heard him walk away. Slip through the door, it swing shut behind him.

I put my head down on the table.  Fuck.  Me.

***

I lay in bed looking up at the rafters in the bedroom, remembering the work
that went into sanding them, finishing them, perfecting the imperfect.

I had been here since Cooper left. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do much.

The hours had passed. The sun had set.  And I remained.  As had become the
routine of the last nine months.

Alone.  In the dark.

***

Sometime after two am I awoke with a start. I had finally drifted off—it
must've been about midnight—a fitful, unhappy sleep. One that I couldn't
return to now.

I climbed out of bed and slowly made my way down the stairs. Wandering in
the darkness.

I fished my phone out of the drawer in the hall table, where I had stashed
it the evening before. I scrolled through my missed calls, missed texts,
missed life.

Thomas.  Sophie.  Thomas.  Thomas.  Stephanie.  Daniel.  Mom.  Stephanie.
Sophie.  Dad.  Daniel.  Thomas.

Fucking Christ.  I shoved it back in the drawer. I can't deal with any of
them right now.

I made my way to the couch in the living room without turning on any
lights. I laid down and pulled a blanket over my head. Counting myself back
to sleep and hoping it would be a dreamless one.

***

I could feel the sun beating down, warming me through the blanket—I
pulled the blanket down just enough that I could make out the clock on the
table across the room.  Blinking in the bright sunlight, allowing my eyes
to focus. 9:33am.

And, unexpectedly, as I dragged myself off the couch, I actually didn't
feel half-bad. I stretched long, arching my back, my hands reach for the
ceiling as every muscle in my body came to life.

Maybe the sleep was cathartic. Maybe the sun was a tonic. Something was
different though.  It had been twenty-four hours since I had seen
Cooper. And the time had come to do something about it.

***

In the bathroom we had once shared, under the eaves of the house in the
south, I showered. Music pounding through the houses speakers fueled the
energy that had seemed to come from nowhere upon waking.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Head.  Chest.  Legs.

Cock.  Balls.  Ass.

Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

I let the water sink into every pore over every inch of my skin.

I let the music take over as I showered. The beat moving my legs. The
shower becoming my own personal stage. The shampoo bottle my
microphone. The steam my audience.

I jammed.  Laughing to myself.  It had been awhile since I had felt this
good.

The momentary feeling of calm and relief that had come after writing my
thoughts down in the notebook had been replaced the last few days by a
sense of dread, and, since seeing Cooper yesterday, by a sense of
loss. But, with the new day, I felt the potential for a new beginning.

It wouldn't be easy.  But it would mine.

His.  Ours.

Fuck.

I shook my head.  What would they think?

Thomas.  Daniel.  Stephanie.  Mom.  Dad.  Sophie.

Everyone who cared. Who had comforted me in their own ways over the last
nine months as I had despaired and fallen and picked myself back-up.

What would they say?

But, as I stood there in the bathroom, dripping water all over the stone
floor as I looked myself in the eyes in the foggy mirror, I knew there was
only one course of action.

Only one thing to do.

And, now, clean, and resolved. I would do it.

TO BE CONTINUED.