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“Regan, what are we doing?” I reach for her.
She rol
ls away and stands up, tugs her dress up and looks down at me with her hands folded in front of her like a fucking schoolteacher. “We shouldn’t have done that. You…your job, my kids, our families…there’s just so much going on.” She starts pacing back and forth.
“My job?” What the hell does that mean? I sit up and start straightening my clothes and watch her pace.
“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you and I live a life incompatible with that. I have kids, you don’t want them. I live here. You want to travel. Your job has a morality clause, and I’m married, stained.” She slaps her chest with her open palm.
“Wait, what?” I stand, surprised at her mentioning my job again.
She keeps pacing, almost talking to herself. “I’ve done everything I can to protect you, but the minute we start dating, people will know. And everything I’ve done will be for naught. Marcel will ruin you. And for what? For a woman you don’t even know?”
“I do know you.” I put my hands on her shoulders.
“You don’t,” she snarls, and bares her teeth at me. “I’m not the girl you fell in love within that bakery or even on that beach. You like fucking me, but you couldn’t last five minutes in this fire with me.”
I lurch away, her words are like a backhanded slap in the face. If she notices my reaction, she doesn’t show it. She’s ranting, pacing, talking to herself.
“I’m trying to save Venus Rising, I’m trying to keep my children from spinning out of control and I am trying to let you go because it is for the best.”
“You’ll see. You’ll move on. You have to,” and then, she walks out and leaves me sitting there by myself.
I don’t go after her. I don’t trust myself to. I’ve never been so close to actually breaking something as I am right now. I stalk out to my car.
I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been. Thinking that this woman knew me and trusted me.
There hasn’t been a challenge in my life I haven’t been able to figure out. And this…this shouldn’t be a challenge at all. We are so fucking right together. But here we are.
And here we’ll stay.
I could go back inside and tell her I would have given up my job, my passport, whatever I had to, to protect her and what we have.
I could say it until I’m blue in the face.
And she’d never hear me.
I’ve already handed her my heart on a platter twice, and, both times, she’s found it lacking. So, she wants me out of her system. Then, that’s what she’ll get.
The Jezebel
Regan
The Jezebel Podcast: Episode 35
“Hey ladies, I know we’re still taking a victory lap after Dr. Zimmerman’s downfall, so you’ll have to forgive me for being a Debbie Downer. But my life has come a little too full circle recently. You all have heard my story; you know what happened to me in that house. But what you don’t know is that I’m a total hypocrite. It took me almost twenty years to tell my mother. I’ve never told my brothers or any of the friends I made, before or since. Not because I’m ashamed of what those men did to me, but because I know that it was my fault. My best friends lived a nightmare because I thought I was untouchable and led them straight into a trap I should have seen coming. When I had the chance to help one of the women who was there with us, I turned my back on her. All because I wanted to pretend it never happened. I used to be afraid of my own shadow. Then, I met this man – and guys, he’s amazing. My dream man. I love him. Things weren’t going to work out… because...well, the why doesn’t matter now.
My first thought when he left...was, “Thank God, I won’t have to tell him about those three days of hell.” And I was relieved. I saw that as a silver lining to losing the only man I’ve ever loved. Can you believe that? I’m a prisoner in a cage I’ve built around myself.
And I had to ask myself. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
How can I sit on here and preach about shunning shame and ask you all to overcome your fear so that I can tell your stories? How? When I can’t do the same. I’ve been so mad at my family for the secrets they’ve kept from me…and here I am keeping a whopper of one from them, myself. How can I expect them to trust me, when I don’t trust them? How can I help my daughter be brave and speak out if, God forbid, anything like happens to her, when I haven’t been willing to myself? I watch tv. I’ve seen what happens to women who speak out. From Anita Hill to Christine Brasley - Ford, it’s always the women who lose. I was afraid of the scrutiny, and I let that fear keep me in a marriage I should have never entered. It’s precluded me from knowing real intimacy with anyone, and now, it’s become the silver lining for my heartbreak.
I’m struggling, ladies. I’ve been telling your stories, setting the record straight for everyone, but I don’t know how to do it for myself.
I don’t have any answers or a happy note to end this on. I just don’t know who else would understand. Thank you for listening. Next week, I’ll be back with more stories about women we won’t allow the world to forget. This is The Jezebel, signing off.”
Venus Rising
