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My glass hits the bar, my elbows following, and I stare into thin air.
It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have encouraged our friendship.
Why?
Because it’s inappropriate.
She said I’m her best friend, and that has to mean that her husband no longer is. Our hugs have meant more to her too. Our conversation has just been so easy. So free. Honest . . . on my part. I’ve looked forward to seeing her, talking to her, being with her in any way. And she’s giving that all up because she thinks it’s inappropriate.
Because it felt too good having one person in this world who didn’t look at me like they felt sorry for me. Because when we are together, you take my mind off the horrors of my life with your silliness. Because you talk to me like a normal person, not like a woman who is going through hell.”
And now she’ll go back to hell . . . on her own.
And me?
I’m fucking heartbroken. Not only because I’m never going to see her again, but because there is nothing I can do to save her from her misery.
Not one thing.
And that is more painful, more difficult to accept, than admitting that I’ve fallen in love with her.
Part Six
Chapter Twenty
After I run away from Luke on the street, I don’t know how long I sit on the floor behind my front door, my knees pulled close to my chest, sobbing. Maybe an hour. Could be two. I’ve lost all concept of time this week, every hour melting into the next, days passing painfully slowly. It’s been slow and tough. Not only because Billy’s condition has deteriorated drastically, leaving me no choice but to take emergency compassionate leave to care for him twenty-four/seven, but because I’ve lost my one and only form of comfort.
Luke.
I know deep down I can’t see him anymore. That kiss, so simple, hardly even a kiss, said too much. That wasn’t a kiss of a friend. Not for him. I thought I’d found acceptance of his presence in my life. Thought I could take it for what it was. Relief. Escapism. Friendship. But our relationship was inappropriate. It was wrong. No matter how much solace I took from it, it was wrong. That kiss told me so. I can’t allow myself to depend on the mental relief Luke gives me any longer. I have to break away. It’s for the best, because I’ve been so utterly stupid and selfish, and now I realize that in an attempt to make my life more bearable, I’ve actually made it a million times harder.
Because I gave myself something I can’t keep. Something I should never have had. And right or wrong, it’s tearing me apart that I have to walk away from it.
All the moments I’ve had with Luke, moments when I’ve forgotten myself, are now being trumped by the most wretched feeling. Guilt. More guilt than I’m sure I can shoulder. While I was smiling, laughing, having fun, my husband had been lying on his bed dying. There had been no solace for him. Nothing.
As the tears stream down my face, I fight to come to terms with the loss of the one thing that’s brought me happiness in a long time. My heart is so . . . heavy.
Billy’s only getting worse. My hope is fading along with his life, and I see his strength and spirit lessening by the day. He went to his appointment on his own in a taxi. It was hard to let him do that when all I wanted to do was hold his hand, but I had to put my feelings aside. He called me at work after he saw Dr. Smith. Told me the news with an infuriating acceptance. There is nothing more they can do.
He wants to go into a hospice and relieve me of my duties. I won’t allow it. I’ve cried as much as one woman can cry. I have nothing left, only my strength to see this through to the end. The only two things I’m certain of in my life right now are that I will wake up in the morning, and I will go to sleep at night. What happens in between isn’t something I can or want to think about.
Bringing my folded legs to the side of my body, I use the table in the hallway to pull myself up. And then I wander blindly to my single bed and crawl in fully dressed, pulling the duvet over my body and curling onto my side. Cruelly, my mind goes back to the beginning of my relationship with Billy. To the days when I felt full of hope. Full of unimaginable joy. When I was fun. Bubbly. To the night Billy woke me out of my daydreams, tapping on my window, desperate to simply see me. When we made love for the first time. And I remember being giddy, thinking two things for certain.
