Chris had just left work and absolutely couldn’t wait to be home. Smoking a cigarette in front of the shop, he replayed scenes from, what had been, a comedy of errors at the office.
A story he’d been working on was scooped by an unscrupulous reporter across town at channel 12. "That dickhead poached that 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 received his 15th parking ticket from the meter maids downtown. "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. 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 TEACH evil."
On a promising note, he’d decided earlier in the week to finally move out of the shop and rent a small, but decent, place…with 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 in the shop for another minute.
How?? HOW could this day get any worse? he wondered as he turned the key to the shop door.
'Hey," a soft 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 yelled.
"No, Chris, I’m not," Marie tersely replied. "You mind if I come in?"
"Marie, I’d really like to go inside alone and chill out; 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 the silent treatment. We’ve known each other far too long," she pressed.
Inside, Chris threw his briefcase on the counter in the corner of his room and grabbed a beer from the fridge as Marie sat at the foot of the bed looking at the floor.
"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. 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. If I, or anyone else, pushed you aside for being stupid, you’d have been alone in this world long ago! But, stupid us, we stayed with you. I wonder why that is? Oh, that’s right, because we understand the meaning of friendship," Marie spouted.
Chris interrupted. "Look, I’m not with Erin for now, we’re taking time. Who knows? Maybe we’ll try it again down the road, maybe not, OK? I made a breakthrough and she actually helped me to realize it," Chris explained.
"Well!" Marie feigned shock, "that’s great! I’m glad that while everyone around you tried to help you realize what’s what, you finally took her advice. Glad you had a “breakthrough” That’s great news Chris."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean Marie?"
"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. We all felt helpless and all of a sudden you have a fucking brainstorm and realize that we were all right…out of the blue. That’s great Chris, I’m happy for you," Marie sarcastically lectured.
"You sure you wanna 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 way so you can dish our even more of your selfish arrogance."
"Get out." Chris calmly 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 OK for you to lecture Thomas, or anyone 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 party. Meanwhile, people who care about you watched you self destruct. Not only self destruct, because we all know that you’re an over achiever and impatient, you took it to the ultimate level of selfishness and tried to kill yourself. I’ll bet you were a real joy as a kid," Marie laughed.
"It's not like that and 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 and toss em’ to the side."
"It’s always a slip up or honest mistake with you isn't it Marie?"
"Yeah Chris?? It WAS a mistake, just like you. But it was honest, UNLIKE you," Marie retorted.
"What the hell does that mean??" Chris slammed his beer on the counter.
"It means that in the real world, where most of us live, people make mistakes. They’re innocent, while bad, they’re unintentional. Oh, and it’s not because they couldn’t make up their Goddamn mind, fucking up lives in the process; that‘s your job Chris," Marie pounded her hand on the bed, punctuating her answer.
"You got about five fucking minutes Marie," Chris interrupted.
"Your mistakes were anything but honest Chris and they certainly weren’t slip ups. 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 a fever pitch.
"Yeah??? Well no one twisted your 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 Marie."
"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 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 Chris!! Jesus Christ!"
"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 have 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 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! Quite frankly she’s better off without you the first AND second go around now that I think about it; truth be known, they’re both better off Chris!" Marie verbally 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 room and outta my life Marie!!"
"You wanna hit me?? You wanna shove me against the wall now?? Better yet why don’t you pick me up and take me down the hall and throw me as far as you can into the gravel? It’s not the first time a man has done it and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time you lost control with someone. C’mon Chris, wanna re-live old times baby? Maybe that would make ya’ feel better…I’m not fucking scared of you!"
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.
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 looked at the pain he‘d caused; Chris' eyes began to glisten as he placed his hand on Marie's face, trying to calm her.
Marie could barely speak through her tears. "I know I’m stupid," she began, trying to catch her breath. "I screw up everything," she sobbed, "I always did."
"You’re not stupid Marie," Chris reassured.
"Yeah, I am Chris; I should have known better, but I didn’t. I hate myself for it too. I hate myself for letting this happen," Marie confessed.
"What??" Chris asked. "Marie? What? Talk to me, tell me, what do you hate yourself for??"
"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 me?? Falling in love with WHO?" Chris pressed.
The room fell silent for a moment before Marie’s full revelation.
"With you," she whispered, looking back to the floor.
Chris sat motionless, his face turned flush; he was stunned. Marie couldn’t look at him as she sat across from him in the floor with her head in her hands, still quietly crying.
Chris took a deep breath, leaning his 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.
"I tried to deny it for a long time Chris," she explained through the tears. "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 mother died," Marie calmly explained.
"You spun out of control and I felt helpless. I felt like there must be something I could do. And then, when you tried to kill yourself, I thought about how I would spend the rest of my life knowing that you’d be gone forever," Marie struggled to push the words from her lips.
"I accepted that we'd never get 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 things. If you'd died that night, that’s forever. I don’t know what I would have done."
Chris silently sat, absorbing Marie's words; he didn't know what to say.
"That night, when you left the bar and went home, I worried so much. I hoped that you had just passed out. Then you told me the next day about the pills. I didn’t let on too much in front of you but I felt sick. 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, her head rested between her knees. She felt completely broken.
Chris stared at Marie without uttering a word. He watched her cry, he listened to her confession; it touched his heart.
Finally, Chris reached out and pulled Marie to his side, his arms firmly locked around her as she rested her head on his shoulder; tears slowly trickled down her cheeks. Chris put his hand on the back of her head, gently stroking her hair and the back of her neck to calm her.
"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 comforted, holding Marie tight.
Marie spoke softly, her head lay against Chris’ shoulder. "Over the past couple of weeks, when you weren’t talking to me, I realized something."
Marie spoke softly, her head lay against Chris’ shoulder. "Over the past couple of weeks, when you weren’t talking to me, I realized something."
"What’s that?" Chris asked.
"I realized that my world wasn’t the same without you in it and I didn’t like it."
Chris lifted Marie’s head from his shoulder and looked into her eyes. She turned away, unable to look at him; 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 to his. He stared at her, 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. She’d always given him sound advice to help him do just that. She truly wanted his happiness more than her own.
She shared his ups and downs and desperately tried to help him find the happiness he 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. He felt ashamed for the way he’d treated her over the past two weeks. He felt selfish.
Chris placed his hand against Marie's cheek and wiped away her tears. She rested her head against his open palm until 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 and looked 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 tight.
Marie lost herself 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 feelings that had been bottled for so long, the tension that had built, finally released.
It was surreal. Neither had ever dreamed that their friendship would ever lead to such an explosive moment followed by such intense passion. It felt natural. It was pure, unadulterated, raw emotion. It felt right.
copyright, Pontchartrain Press 2008
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