Beth Michele - Scarred Beautiful

“Seriously?” he asks, not waiting for me to reply. “That’s fucking crazy and wild all at once.”

Resting my elbows on my knees, I drop my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“You don’t know what to make of it?” He lightly knocks me in the head forcing me to look at him. “I know what to make of it. It’s called fate, meant to be, and all that shit.”

I stare back at him with a pained expression, my chest sore as my heart breaks apart.

“Oh shit, man.” Caleb’s eyebrows pull together in sympathy and shock. “You’re in love with her.” And there’s no question in his tone.

I scrub a hand over my face again while rubbing the back of my neck. “Who said anything about love? That’s not possible. It’s been one fucking week.”

“Really, and who told you that? The love fairy?” He chuckles before he continues, “Dude, there’s no time limit on that shit. My parents got engaged in a month and married four months later, and look at them, they’ve been married more than thirty-five years. You see how they are with one another.” He grins. “I mean, remember Greg Riley and Jill Stevens in high school. They dated for five years before they got married, and guess what? They were married for seven years and then got divorced. I thought I had that with Allison, too, until she ripped my heart out of my chest. She just didn’t feel the same way about me. But when you find it, man, you have to grab it and hold onto it. I see the way Fran looks at you, and I’d stake money on it that she feels the same way. She’s just scared. Peyton told me she’s been through a lot of shit.”

“Yeah, she has.”

“What the hell are you doing sitting with me? Go find her and tell her how you feel.”

“I don’t know how I feel,” I tell him, and it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself more than him, I’m not sure.

“Bullshit. I think you know exactly how you feel. I think she threw you for a loop and now you don’t know which end is up. And,” he says, lifting his hands in the air to emphasize his point, “now the heart thing.”

I push myself up off the couch, stuffing the charm in my pocket. “I’ve gotta go.”

“I hope you’re going to see Fran,” he says, his lips pinched together in frustration.

“I can’t right now. I need time to think.” I head for the door but look over my shoulder. “Thanks, man. You know after twenty-five years, you’re it for me,” I attempt a joke and he laughs, even though right now I can’t laugh with him.

“Get out of here and go get your girl. At least one of us can get the girl and walk off into the sunset.”

I only wish it were that easy.

It’s been four hours and I haven’t heard a word from Matt since he walked out on me. I’ve left him three voicemails and sent four text messages and he hasn’t responded to any of them. And where am I? In the same place he left me four hours ago. I haven’t moved and I’ve barely breathed. I’m sitting here with this stupid shell clasped tightly in my hand as if it has special powers, as if it can bring him back to me.

I yank his t-shirt from the drawer and slide it on before curling into a ball under the covers, and that’s when the tears finally come, and they don’t stop. I’ve been waiting for them and wondering what took them so long.

It feels like someone is twisting a knife in my gut. Without a word, without a touch or even a glance, and with no explanation, he simply left. The look on his face was one of pure terror. Maybe he finally realized how broken I am and how perfect he is and that the two don’t go together. You wouldn’t mix up the original Mona Lisa with the replica. One is beautiful and perfect while the other has a faint crack just behind her eyes and if you look closely enough you can see she’s imperfect, flawed, not good enough.

The tears are dropping off my cheeks, soaking the pillow and Matt’s shirt, while the hole in my heart has resurfaced, the one I actually thought was finally repaired. I was better off before, trying to forget with meaningless sex. Instead, I created something meaningful and now I just want to fucking forget it.

I close my eyes and pull the covers over my head trying to block out the hurt that I’ve developed an intimate relationship with over the years. But I’m a glutton for punishment because my cell phone is glued to my side. I’m still hoping to get the call I so desperately long for.

* * *

When my eyes open again, the sun is setting over the horizon and I realize I’ve been asleep for several hours. As soon as I get my bearings, I scramble for my cell phone under the covers only to find there are no missed calls, no voicemail messages, only a single text from Peyton.

Are you back from Long Beach yet?

I never left.

That’s all I type back before my head hits the pillow again.

For a second, I start to worry that maybe something happened to Matt, but deep down I know he’s okay. He just doesn’t want to see me. Tears that I’ve cried burn my eyes and now new ones are falling, the realization setting in that whatever we had is over…if we ever had anything to begin with. Maybe it was all a figment of my imagination because I wanted so desperately for it to be real.

It’s amazing how your life can do a complete 180 in seven days. A laugh bubbles up in my throat, but it tastes bitter. Almost a week ago I was terrified to step onto the plane and now I can’t wait to get back on that same plane and get out of here. This was all some made up dream that I manufactured for myself, and I’ll admit it was perfect. Well, up until the end.

It didn’t make any sense before, but now it’s all falling into place. Why he didn’t want to talk about what we were doing, what we were? Because we were nothing to him…except seven days of fun, with the promise of sex. I don’t know how I could have misjudged him, although Peyton warned me before I left that this is what people do at these things and I ignored her. But it doesn’t matter, I dreamt it all and I’m wide awake now and whatever we had is done and gone. He was just a tiny blip on the screen that is my life. I’ll never make the same mistake again.

When the tears finally subside, the hurt turns ugly and anger sets in. I feel used, manipulated, and like I’m a really poor judge of character because I truly thought Matt was different. I guess when it comes down to it, it’s not really his fault. I mean, what did I expect? That we’d ride off into the sunset together? Maybe I did.

My phone dings and my heart soars right along with it. With a shaky hand I pick it up and nearly drop it, closing my eyes and making a silent wish. When the letters on the text don’t spell out Matt’s name, my heart breaks all over again.

It takes me a second to figure out who it is because I clearly can’t distinguish my head from my ass right now.

I’m on my way back to the hotel. Are you up for getting together tonight? Ryan

Ryan. That’s the last thing I need right now. But then I feel the festering anger wrestling with the hurt inside my chest, overpowering it by a landslide. So, I text Ryan back.

Sure. I’ll meet you at 8 in the bar.

Fuck it. Matt is now just one more thing on my list of things to forget.

I’ve been driving around aimlessly for hours with no direction in sight and it feels oddly reminiscent of my life. I think back to this morning, the look on Fran’s face just before I walked out the door and I don’t even know who I was walking away from—her or myself.

I’m such an asshole. She’s been calling and texting me all day and I haven’t responded, not once, mostly because I don’t know what to say.

My mind is filled with images raining down on me like a thunderstorm, complete with lightning. Fran is that little spark of lightning. A bolt, a spontaneous flash that stormed into my life and shook me to the core…and now I’m drenched in her. That dimple on her right cheek when she smiles, that tiny crease in her forehead when she’s confused, the way the green in her eyes reminds me of a summer’s day, her curves that I can now map with my eyes closed.

But most of all, her spirit, filled with hope and beauty, and light.

My sunshine.

Even now my heart squeezes tight just thinking about her, needing to see her, touch her, taste her, breathe her in. Is that love? I’m embarrassed to say that I’m thirty-three years old and I don’t have a fucking answer. I’ve been with plenty of women, but no one has come close to what Fran makes me feel.

I turn a corner, find a Starbucks and an empty space. I jerk the car into park and reach in my pocket, pulling out the charm and gripping it tightly in my hand, hoping that if I squeeze hard enough, I can feel Mom. I really need her right now. And that’s when it occurs to me. I know what I have to do.

* * *

I’m standing on the doorstep of this familiar house, wondering if, no, hoping she’s home. I ring the doorbell while twirling my keys non-stop, unable to look away from the happy clown staring back at me. The one that makes me think of Fran and smile, my heart doing a steady gallop in my chest.

After a few minutes, I’ve given up on the fact that anyone is home and start walking to my car when the front door opens. Mrs. Brody wears her usual warm smile but she’s covered in dust from head to toe, a broom in her hand, a sheen of white powder stuck to her barley-colored hair.

“Hi, sweetie. I’m so glad I caught you before you took off. I was cleaning out the basement, as you can see from the lovely display of dust balls. I’d hug you, but well”—she waves her hand over her body in a sweeping motion—“wouldn’t want to get you all dusty. Come on in.”

She sets the broom down and brushes herself off on the mat in back of the door. “I’m so happy to see you, and two days in a row,” she says, a twinkle in her brown eyes. “I’ve got pie.”

“I don’t think pie’s gonna do it for me today, Ma,” I reply, and her lips pull down into a deep frown before she takes my hand and leads me into the kitchen.

“Sit,” she commands gently, pointing to a chair, and she opens the fridge and snags the pie. She slices me a piece and fills a glass with ice water before coming to sit back down. “Just in case.” She pats my hand and smiles. “So tell me what’s going on? Because if you’re not interested in my pie, that’s problematic.”

Once again, I dig into my pocket to retrieve the charm and place it on the table in front of her. “Remember when my mom gave me this?”

She picks it up and flips it with her fingers, admiring it. “Of course I do, honey.”

“Well….” I swallow and gather the courage to continue. “This morning I discovered that Fran has the same one.”

Her eyes widen, her forehead wrinkling in surprise. “What do you mean? The same one?”

“She has a necklace with half a heart on it. Apparently her mother gave it to her for her ninth birthday. I don’t know much about it because I left right after I saw it.”

She taps a finger against her mouth, her eyes sailing upward for a minute. “Hmph, well, that’s quite a coincidence, dare I say more than a coincidence.” She meets my gaze again. “But, what’s really bothering you?”

“I’m overwhelmed. I have…feelings for her and I can’t figure them out. She’s gonna go back to New York. Caleb thinks I’m in love with her-—”

“Are you?” she interrupts, her chair scraping against the floor as she pulls it closer to the table.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before so I don’t know what it feels like. But…I’ve only known her for a week so that’s just not possible.”

“Who told you that?” She drags a book from across the table and pretends to randomly flip through the pages. “Is there some rule book somewhere that says that? No, there isn’t, because there are no rules when it comes to the heart, Matt. If there were, sweetie, no one would ever fall in love.”

“But,” I add, “how do I know what this feeling is if I’ve never felt it before?” As I hear myself say the words, I realize I sound like a teenage boy and not a grown man. Maybe I’m still that boy. The one who watched his mother slip away. Maybe I’m incapable of love. Maybe that part of me died when she did.