Chris had just left work and absolutely couldn’t wait to be home. Smoking a cigarette in front of the shopfront next to his house, he replayed scenes from, what had been, a comedy of errors at the station.
A story he’d been working on was scooped by an unscrupulous reporter across town at channel 12.
"...That dickhead poached that goddamn story from me and he KNOWS it," Chris sulked.
One of Chris’ sources played both sides of the fence at City Hall, and Chris was none too happy tonight.
On top of that, he'd received his 15th parking ticket from the meter maids in the Central Business District. "...The fucking parking Gestapo," Chris grumbled to himself, looking at the bright orange ticket in his hand.
Earlier, he’d seen a group of meter maids in training on a street corner in the CBD. A virtual beehive of cruelty, he thought, as he watched the senior officers training their young recruits.
"Ha!" He scoffed, "...I didn’t realize that you could actually TEACH evil."
On a promising note, he’d decided earlier in the week to finally move out of his tiny home of exile and rent a small but decent place…with windows. LOTS of windows!
He hadn’t received a return call from the prospective landlord today and worried that he might not get it. He winced at the prospect of living by the shop for another minute. The cottage behind an industrial shopfront had been a necessary refuge, but had long overdue served its purpose.
How?? HOW could this day get any worse? he wondered as he turned the key to the ancient, 200 year old door.
'Hey," a gentle greeting from behind broke Chris’ concentration. He turned to find Marie.
"...Fuck! You scared the shit outta me; you trying to give me a heart attack??" Chris snapped.
"No, Chris, I’m not," Marie tersely replied. "...Can I come in?"
"Marie, I’d really like to go inside, alone, and chill; it’s a bad day," Chris sighed.
"What’s new with you and bad DAYS, huh?" She sarcastically retorted.
"What the hell does THAT mean?" Chris indignantly demanded.
"Please let me come in for a minute, Chris; I’m tired of this silent treatment bullshit. We’ve known each other far too long," Marie pressed.
Inside, Chris threw his shoulder bag onto the floor in the corner of his room and grabbed a beer from the fridge as Marie sat in the floor at the foot of the bed, staring at Bailey, who trotted over to lick Marie's hand.
"...So, what’s so important tonight?" Chris dismissively asked.
Marie laughed. "...Oh, I don’t know, Chris, maybe it has something to do with you avoiding me for weeks. Maybe I'm just beating myself up for how I fucked up and then found myself on the receiving end of you pushing me to the side...like I'm human garbage!" She continued to firmly set Chris straight, "...Ghosting me? Really? ME?" Marie laughed.
"...If I, or anyone else, pushed YOU aside for being stupid? You’d have been alone in this fucking world, long ago! But, stupid us...ME, Thomas, every single one of us, we stayed with you. I wonder WHY that is? Oh, that’s right; because we fucking understand the meaning of friendship; we understood and actually GRASP companionship," Marie lamented; her anger building, intensely.
Chris interrupted. "...Look, I’m not with Erin, for now, we’re taking time. We'll see. We made some concessions the other day. Who knows? Maybe we’ll try it again, down the road; your relationship advice was solid. So, maybe or maybe we wont, OK? I made a breakthrough, and she actually helped me to realize it," Chris explained.
"...Well!" Marie feigned shock, "...that’s great, Christopher! I’m glad that, while everyone around you tried to help you realize what’s WHAT, that you finally took HER advice. Glad you had a 'breakthrough,' That’s great fucking news, Chris! GOD, you selfish bastard!" Marie laughed.
"What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean, Marie? I'm giving you a Goddamn compliment!"
"...It means that you walked around forever, in a fucking mood, causing people who care about you to worry. You made them miserable, quite frankly; including ME! We all felt helpless, like a lost Goddamn ship at sea. You're the Titanic movie that wont fucking end, even AFTER three hours! And, all of a sudden, you have a fucking brainstorm and realize that we were all CORRECT…out of the blue. That’s GREAT, Chris, I’m happy for you," Marie sarcastically yelled.
"You sure you wanna fucking lecture me right now, Marie?"
"No, I don’t wanna lecture you, but I WOULD like to remind you of a few things, since I’m here. Then I’ll get outta your Goddamn way so you can dish out even MORE of your selfish arrogance."
"Get out." Chris quickly, calmly and softly ordered as he glared at Marie. "...I’m not takin’ this shit from you, Marie, not tonight."
"No, I won’t get out. I listened to you for long enough. So, you can take five Goddamn minutes of your life to listen to ME, now. It’s okay for you to lecture Thomas, or any fucking one else, for that matter, but when it comes around to YOU, it‘s off limits. You’d rather ignore and sink as low as you can go, into a pity fucking party. A walking suicide hotline call! That's what you ARE, Chris! Marie laughed. Tears of anger welled up in her eyes
Chris' glared, silently steaming.
"... Meanwhile, people who care about you, GOOD PEOPLE, watched you self-destruct. Watched you melt! You selfish motherfucker! Marie verbally pounded hard.
"...Not ONLY did you self destruct, because we ALL know that you’re an overachiever and impatient, EVEN AT BEING DYSFUNCTIONAL, you took it to the ultimate level of selfishness and tried to kill yourself on that street. I’ll bet you were a real joy as a fucking kid, Chris," Marie laughed.
"...It's not like that, goddammit, you know it, Marie!" Chris interrupted.
"Yeah, Chris, it IS like that. And, during the process, you finally sucked all of our energy dry; you got what you needed from us and, as soon as someone screws up or someone makes an honest slip up, you just forget all about everything good in your life and toss em’ to the side."
"...It’s always a slip-up or an honest mistake with you, isn't it, Marie?" Chris shot back.
"Yeah, Chris?? It WAS a mistake, just like YOU. But, it was HONEST, unlike you," Marie retorted.
"What the hell does that fucking even mean??" Chris slammed his beer on the nightstand, splashing it all over the floor and wall. Bailey scrambled to the closet.
"...It means, that in the real world, where most of us fucking live, people make mistakes. They’re innocent, and, while bad, they’re unintentional." Marie rose from the floor, coming nose to nose with Chris. "...Oh, and it’s not because they couldn’t make up their Goddamn mind, while fucking up lives in the process; that‘s YOUR job, Chris," Marie pounded her hand on the bed, punctuating her answer with each syllable.
"...You got about two fucking minutes, Marie," Chris interrupted.
"...Your mistakes were anything BUT honest, Chris, and they certainly weren’t slip ups." Marie returned, defiantly, back to the floor at the foot of the bed.
"...They were STUPID mistakes, mistakes you made because you couldn’t decide your way out of a fucking wet paper bag. You couldn’t take your head outta your ass long enough, so you ignored everything and waited for people to come to the rescue," Marie continued to deliver a long overdue verbal pounding.
"...There we ALL were, for poor little Chris; we ran straight to you, to mop up the mess and comfort you when you needed it…that‘s what REAL friends do, whether we agree with you or not!" Marie yelled, her anger reached fever pitch. "...it's called un-fucking-conditional love, Chris! You should try it sometime!"
"Yeah??? Well, no one twisted your fuckin' arm, Marie!" Chris yelled back.
"Uh, Yeah, Chris, they did…YOU did," she laughed at Chris‘ naiveté.
"...Well, you won’t have to worry about it anymore, princess; sorry to be such an inconvenience, honey. Get out, now!"
"Inconvenience??? Hah! Chris, it’s more like a burden. You sucked every Goddamn bit of energy I had…that we ALL had. When you’d go missing for a few days, I wondered…Well, this is it, he’s finally moved away or, even worse, he’s dead. Did you EVER, once, stop to think about how much people worried about you?? I worried when I didn’t hear from you but now you go for weeks without even talking to me because of a stupid mistake! You’re a fucking dick!"
" ..Stupid mistake?" Chris interrupted. "You fucking told Erin where I was, knowing that I was innocently with Angela. Sure, Erin finally believed me, but I shouldn’t have HAD to explain, because it was innocent. Your stupid MISTAKE was, indeed, stupid; they always ARE, Marie!"
"I FUCKED UP, OKAY, CHRIS?? Jesus fucking Christ!" Marie retrieved Chris' beer can and threw it against the wall behind him.
"...HA! You've fucked up so many times I've stopped counting, Marie!"
"Oh, and YOU never fuck up, huh, Chris? You know what, Chris?? Speaking of fuck-ups, maybe everyone would have been better off, including yourself, now that I think about it, if you’d just finished the job in front of that gate!! But, then again, you couldn’t even get THAT right; you failed at killing yourself…go figure. Maybe I should have HELPED you, so you could've, FINALLY, done something right!!"
"GO TO HELL, Marie!!" Chris yelled.
"HELL?? I’ve BEEN there, thanks to you. I’ve been there for a LONG time because of you and you repay me by turning your Goddamn back on me like a fucking coward. No wonder you failed with Angela when you were married. You should have left her or taken a stand, but taking a STAND would have been a decision! OH, and then there’s Erin!"
Marie paused, hesitantly, before going in for the verbal kill.
"...Quite frankly, she’s better off without you... the first AND second go around, actually, motherfucker; truth be known, they’re BOTH better off, Chris!" Marie lobbed anything that she could muster in order to hurt Chris.
Chris stood, his eyes narrowed, his face turned red with anger as he moved toward Marie and grabbed her hand, jerking her to her feet from the foot of the bed. "...Get out! Now!!" He yelled. "...I want you out of my fucking house and outta my fucking life, Marie!!"
"Oh, You wanna hit me, Chris? Like my ex?? You wanna shove me against the wall now?? You wanna scream?? Marie taunted.
Chris’ grip on Marie’s hand was tight. She jerked her hand away and pounded his chest, pushing him backwards. He stumbled against the wall.
"Fuck you, Chris! I hate you, I FUCKING HATE you!!" Marie screamed as she lunged toward him, completely out of control. She continued to pound his chest, barely able to speak as she cried uncontrollably. Her breath was labored.
Exhausting every bit of energy she could muster, Marie grabbed Chris' shoulders, still crying as she collapsed into his arms, completely spent. Her words barely escaped as she struggled to breathe. She sobbed, finally laying her head against his chest. Loosening her grip, she slid to the ground, collapsing at Chris’ feet.
Chris tried, desperately, to pull her up from the floor until he finally sank to the floor in front of her, realizing that Marie was completely and utterly at the end of her rope.
Despair.
He felt terrible as he witnessed the pain he‘d caused, the past pain she's lived with, long before he even KNEW her; Chris' eyes began to glisten as he placed his hand on Marie's face, trying to calm her. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
Marie could barely speak, through her tears. "...I know I’m stupid," she began, trying to catch her breath. "...I screw up everything," she gasped, "I always did."
"You’re not stupid, Marie," Chris reassured.
"Yeah, yeah, I am, Chris; I should have known better, but I didn’t. I hate myself for it, too. I don't hate you, I hate myself for letting this happen," Marie confessed in a whisper.
"What??" Chris asked. "Marie? What? Talk to me, tell me, what do you hate yourself for??"
Marie paused, searching for the final ounce of nerve to confess something so sacred that she'd protected in her heart for a long while.
"...For falling in love," she softly answered.
Marie helplessly looked up, locking eyes with Chris.
"...Falling in love? What the fuck does that have to do with THIS?? Falling in love? With WHO?" Chris pressed.
The room fell silent for a moment. Only a window fan whirling in the background could be heard, before Marie’s full revelation, which had been silently building from the beginning.
From their first innocent meeting, both trapped in a hopeless relationship with other people, she saw a lot of herself in Chris' anguish, in his situation.
"...With you, Chris,"
she whispered, looking back to the floor.
"... I'm in love with you, Chris. I think I always have been, actually."
The window fan sounded like jet engines. No words were spoken for minutes, until Marie continued.
"...I feel like I can't do anything to change where we are. But, I always believed that I could do EVERYTHING to change where we can BE.. At least I always silently dreamed of it. I just bit my tongue, or a friend talked sense into me and shook me to reality. I honestly believe that even Thomas figured me out," she smiled.
Marie dabbed her eyes with the bottom of her tee-shirt.
I was careful about love advice to you, and YOU were to ME, too. Friends often THINK that they're giving good advice, and they're well intentioned. It's what's BEST for your friend, after all. Right? Only, it's what THEY feel is best for you. At the end of the day, we have solo decisions. Free will, to lead with your heart, not an opinion poll. Scary, Marie slightly laughed.
Chris studied Marie's face, trying to grasp her confession.
"...The boy gets the girl, in the movies, ya' know? Marie laughed through quiet tears. I want the Hallmark Channel Christmas, she tearfully confessed. When's it gonna be the GIRl'S turn, to get the BOY? In real life?
Chris delicately interjected, "...This isn’t a Hallmark movie. If anything, based on the situation at the beginning, it's the Scy-Fy channel," Chris tried to lighten the moment.
"...Chris, it's not because Hollywood says so, I'm realistic, Marie explained. I've SEEN it, with other people, just not ME, or you, for that matter. Ive watched people shit all over you and you've seen em' shit all over me."
Marie took thoughtful, but painful inventory over she and Chris' love lives.
"...It's not about getting the one who got away. It's about getting the one person who you're MEANT for, and they to YOU. It's being where you're SUPPOSED TO BE, even if you have to drift away for a minute. Something so much larger than you're capable of understanding, because you're SUPPOSED to spend a storied and beautiful life, exploring it. Together. Soulmates. That's my childhood dream, at least.
That's how you know you're in love, I think? Like in the movies, ya' know?" Marie whispered under her breath.
The silence which hung over the room was deafening.
"...You're the love of my life, Chris, and you came outta nowhere, and I'd like to share the rest of it with you. To find out what that looks and feels like. I can't believe I'm telling you this." Marie worried that her confession was too much. But, she finally felt a sense of freedom. Redemption, of sorts, for living in denial. She finally felt, truly, free.
Chris sat, motionless, his face flush; he was utterly stunned. Marie couldn’t look at him as she sat across from Chris on that floor, her head rested in her hands as she quietly cried.
Chris took a deep breath, leaning his head and back against the wall, his mind raced to find the words, to absorb the news, to make sense of what had just happened. He was speechless, for ONCE.
"...I tried to deny it for a long time, Chris," Marie explained.
"...I told myself that it was impossible. That, even if my feelings were real, it could never work, because you had Erin. We’ve been such good friends for so long, and it was agonizing to watch the heartbreak in your life. To see what was becoming of you and Erin, to see how you sank into a pit; I cried for you when your parents died," Marie calmly explained. "...You became unrecognizable."
Marie continued, "...You spun out of control, and I felt helpless. I felt like, there must be SOMETHING I could do. And then, when you almost died, I thought about how I would spend the rest of this life, knowing that you’d be gone, forever," Marie struggled to push the words from her lips.
"...I accepted that we'd never be together if you were with Erin, but, at least you’d still be around, I could still see your face, you’d still be around, to make me laugh, to talk with about all the things. To talk about my stupid ex, to talk baseball. If you'd died that night, that’s forever. I don’t know what I would have done. I dont wanna know what that feels like."
Chris silently sat, absorbing Marie's words; utterly numb. Humbled. Ashamed of his oblivious mindset. Absolutely ashamed.
"...That night, when you left the bar and went home, I worried so fucking much. I hoped that you had just passed out. Then, you told me the next week about the pills.
I didn’t let on too much in front of you, but I felt sick. I prayed for you so hard. Knowing that I let you leave the bar and you could have died. You SHOULD have been dead, and I could have stopped it. And now you hate me. I don’t know if I can live with that. I never wanted you to hate me."
Marie quietly sobbed again, her head resting between her knees. She felt completely broken.
Lost.
Chris stared at Marie without uttering a word. He watched her cry, and handed her a napkin. He listened to her confession, motionless.
Finally, Chris reached out and pulled Marie to his side, his arms firmly locked around her on the floor as she rested her head on his right shoulder; tears slowly trickled down her (and his) cheeks. Chris put his hand on the back of her head, gently stroking her hair and the back of her neck to calm her.
Bailey finally, slowly emerged from the closet. She licked Marie's hand.
"...Shhh, you’re okay...don’t cry, it’s okay; I promise I don’t hate you, and I’m a dick and I’m sorry," Chris tried to calm Marie's despair. "...I promise, I could never hate you, Marie," he confessed, holding her tight. "...you're literally my best friend. And, Bailey’s best friend, " Chris softly assured.
Marie spoke softly, her head lay against Chris’ shoulder. She looked up, staring into his eyes. "...Over the past few weeks, when you weren’t talking to me, I realized something," Marie offered.
"What’s that?" Chris asked.
"I realized that my world wasn’t the same without you in it, and I didn’t like it."
"...it was so vanilla."
"But, you LIKE vanilla," Chris responded.
They both laughed, through tears
"I like YOU, too, so there's THAT," Marie jabbed with a laugh.
Chris looked into her eyes. Marie turned away, unable to look at him, for her confession. She felt embarrassed, for telling him the truth and for saying the terrible things earlier.
"Hey," Chris prodded, "...look at me, Marie."
Marie slowly focused her eyes on his. He stared at her for a moment, wondering how hard it must have been for her. How agonizing it had to be for her to listen to him as he frantically tried to regain Erin’s love and trust. How SELFISH he had become, in the first AND second go around. .
She’d always given him sound advice, to help him. She truly wanted his happiness more than her own. Through all of the jaded mindset about his lot in life. About God doing things to him just to remind him that God does things to remind you that HE'S God, and YOU'RE not. Nothing personal.
She shared his ups and downs and desperately tried to help him find his happiness. Something he so desperately sought, knowing that his plans didn’t include her.
She cared for him unselfishly, without prejudice. He wondered, HOW someone could love another person that way. He marveled at the strength of her friendship, through all of her hardships.
He felt ashamed for the way he’d treated her over the past few weeks. He felt selfish. Rightfully so.
Chris whispered a confession to Marie.
"...She's not you. No one is, actually."
Marie smiled; a tear slid down her cheek as Chris wiped it away with his fingers.
Chris continued: "...No one can POSSIBLY be you. Only you. I never, in a million years, thought you'd have any of this or these feelings, for ME."
Chris placed his hand against Marie's cheek and wiped away her tears wih the napkin. She rested her head against his open palm as he pulled her close. They came nose to nose, their eyes fully locked, when Chris smiled and pulled her forward until their lips lightly touched. A soft, delicate kiss.
Marie backed off, slightly, then, turning back, looking into Chris’ eyes again. He moved forward, softly kissing her cheek, moving to her forehead then, slowly, to the other cheek and back to her lips, until they fully locked into a deeply passionate kiss, holding each other tightly.
Marie and Chris lost themselves in a moment that she’d longed for, moving her hands to hold Chris’ face close to hers.
Chris’ mind reeled as he returned her kisses, intensifying with each passing moment. The culmination of tension that had been bottled for so long, the emotions that had built, finally, released.
Butterflies. It was all the things.
Finally.
Neither had ever dreamed that their friendship would EVER lead to such an explosive, beautiful moment. followed by such intense passion. It felt natural. It was pure, unadulterated, raw emotion. It felt right.
It WAS right.
copyright, Pontchartrain Press 2008
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