Broken
Broken
A loud crash wakes me out of a deep sullen sleep, what the bloody hell?! I jump out of bed, grabbing a pair of jeans and a sweater off the floor in the process. I slide my cold white legs into the jeans and cover my lifeless chest with the sweater as I take a quick look around guy number four’s apartment. Nothing seems to be broken, or moved at all. I wander over to a chair losing steps in my thoughts. It takes no time at all for me to realize that the disturbance was in my dream. I was dreaming of us again, of that day at the café. I remember it clearly, I spilled my coffee and you tried to clean it up but only made it worse. That stain was still there when the placed burnt down, taking the memories of us with it.
I hear movement behind me and it brings me back to reality. He’s stirring, guy number four this week. I remove myself from the chair and make my way back to bed, but I don’t return to the warmth that calls me so quietly. I dig through my bag searching for the lost half-smoked pack Marlboro Lights and stagger back to a chair I conveniently moved to the window in my drunken haze last night. I open the window and light my cigarette, I’m sure number four has woken by now. He’s up now, sitting in bed, “Come back to bed Maddy.”
“I told you not to call me Maddy, my name is Madeline” I reply harshly, the words dripping with annoyance. Why do I bother with these guys; they don’t pay attention to what comes out of my mouth, they only care about what lies between my legs. I’m not that different I suppose. I’ve been using numbers one thru four for sex this week.
“Well, fine then, Madeline. Why… uh… why don’t you come back to bed?” His voice makes a shaky awkward effort to care.
“No thanks, I’m fine. I’ll be out of your hair soon,” I add with a snap, no point in being awkward this isn’t my first time, “and thanks for last night, it was… well, just thanks”. I didn’t mean the thanks. He was just another warm body, another attempt at feeling your touch, another attempt at feeling back to normal.
I gather the few items I’m calling my possessions these days. They seem to be covering this small apartment I have woken up in. He wasn’t much different was he, Madeline. Just like all the others, living a shit-hole apartment in the bad part of town. Just another scumbag I knew wouldn’t ask questions as I downed shots of tequila and threw myself at him. He could have been different, if only I wanted him to be. I head toward the door, dressed in my clothes that reek of smoke and alcohol. Just as I reach for the handle I turn to look at guy number four. He is still sitting in that same pathetic spot on his bed, his golden brown hair messy as ever, bed-head as most would call it, I can hardly see his green eyes through it. I manage to look into those eyes just for a spilt second, they are an emerald green I’ve only ever seen one other pair just like it and for a moment I lose myself. I move my eyes down his fatless body that I had clung on to all night long. His name is Trent and it suits him well, everything in this little apartment suits him well, everything besides me. The realization hits me around the time my eyes meet where his sheets begin, and I grip the door handle and with a turn I’m gone.
* * *
The busy streets look completely different in the morning, they are dangerous but not in the way of getting mugged or any other sort of crime. In the busy streets of Brooklyn it is all too common to run into your broken heart walking toward you. I can’t believe I’m walking alone at this time, seven AM in his part of town. Christ and with the state of myself I must be asking for trouble. I know I’m just asking to see his face as he heads to his caffeine addiction. He walks to Brewskies everyday, my once beloved Parker. I pass the coffee shop holding my breath as I glance inside. I quickly scan the room looking for his messy dark hair, I don’t see it and let out a sign of relieve and turn my head back toward the street to continue my journey to the hole in the wall I call my apartment. My head doesn’t reach all the way forward when I’m knocked backwards by a large human-like object hitting me squarely. I regain my balance and apologize without looking up. I raise my head only to show this ass that got in my way whose boss. Oh shit, why did I look up?
“Maddy?” that voice sends icicles straight down my spine.
“Parker, Hello. I would love to chat but-“
He cuts me off in the same way he always did. “Its nice to see you, really nice. Let’s grab a cup, for old times sake” there is no hint of a question in his voice. I know I have no choice, I must agree to this drink.
“Well, alright. I suppose I have time for a quick drink with an old…friend” I add the ‘friend’ for my own sake. Parker is anything but a friend to me. He is my love, the one I lost because I was careless. He gave me his heart and I couldn’t handle it, I’ll never be able to handle it.
His hand moves down my back as he leads me through the door his chivalry made him open for me. His gentle touch sends me back, back to the time where we were happy and in love before my fear took control and pushed me out the door. I want to run back into my memories with him, to just live there forever but his voice snaps me out of it.
“Maddy? Are you going to sit down?” He’s sitting across from where I’m standing, just staring across the table at me. He had managed to move me all across the café without my notice to a small table for two. I sit down and avoid his eyes, those emerald eyes that I used to stare into day after day, night after night as we shared our lives. Instead my eyes found the flowers placed in the center of the small round table. Striped Carnations, not ones I see very often and I’m sure they were beautiful at one point, but now they are close to death in a vase filled with murky water. It hurts to see something so beautiful cease to exist. My thoughts are interpreted by Parker’s questioning.
“How are things Maddy?” there seems to be a genuine concern in his voice but where was that concern a few short months ago, I can’t trust his voice. Finally I allow my eyes to meet his through the thick frames of his glasses and they rip into my soul and crush me without a single blink.
“Fine. Fine. And yourself?” There is no way I want to get into a conversation that could lead me to tell him what I’m doing in his part of town smelling, looking and feeling the way I do. He doesn’t need to know those things anymore. I answer short and quick, a dead give away to him that I’m lying, lucky for me he didn’t get a chance to retort. The waitress showed up just in time to take our orders. He motions to me that I should order first, a simple gesture he did when we were us, I order a cup of Earl Grey tea and I see a smile cross his face as he orders a cup of the Specialty Coffee of the day with two sugars and one cream. As the waitress walks away Parker turns to me still smiling.
“Stopped drinking coffee. When did that happen?” His green eyes are smiling into mine.
“About the same time you spilled mine” I allow a smile across my face, this feels so comfortable, smiling with him.
With a slight nod of his head, Parker replied, “I see”. The smile was gone, from both his eyes and his face. His eyes move to the table to the same spot where mine had laid just a few minutes before. Without looking up from the table and the dying flowers Parker quietly asked, “Did you hear about Café Con Amore?” He didn’t have to look at me to know I nodded. “I wish it hadn’t burnt down. You and I…we had a lot of great memories in that place” I could hear the sadness ringing in his voice; it was only making my hangover worse.
“Yes, yes we did” My voice was quiet because I didn’t even want to say the words out loud. Out loud meant they were true, and that only opened the wounds I have been working so hard to bandage. His eyes remove themselves from the flowers to stare directly into mine. He’s searching for something, he did this all the time when were together, but what is it now? “Parker?” my voice cracks as I say his name. There seems to be no response, just his eyes moving back down to the table. However now my eyes can’t leave him. The way his dark brown hair is falling upon his face, it’s much longer than when I last saw him, his thick black framed glasses that still look too large for his face, the lens are clean for once allowing his emerald eyes to shine upon the world. But those eyes, they seem to have lost the sparkle, now they are just green and sad. I glance my eyes downward, to under the table where Parker’s feet sit quietly swaying. A familiar sight, the same pair of shoes I used to wear out to Café on the mornings I spent the night with him. I used to surprise him with coffee on those mornings. The shoes, the black fabric was now a light gray and the soles were held together by thin pieces of rubber. I return myself to the tabletop and send a smile across to Parker. “How are you Parker?” I allow the concern to drown my words.
His eyes finally return to me and they smile, “I’ve been better, it’s been a rough couple of months” he pauses and looks at me so I can see the smile leave his face “I’m sure you understand” his words cut me deeper than ever before almost has if with that once short sentence he told me he hated me.
“Yeah, I understand”. At this moment the waitress is my favorite person on this sorry little planet. She just lays the check face down on the table interrupting our moment of post-breakup silence. My hand reaches quickly for the check and without reading it I lay down a crumbled twenty from my pocket and get up to leave.
“Maddy, wait” his voice stops me dead in my tracks. My back is still turned to him and I’m ready to run for the door anything to get me out of here before the tears enter. “Don’t go, not like this”
“I’m sorry Parker, I can’t” and without turning around for one final look in those emerald eyes I’m across the room and out the door.
Rush hour was at a full force when I exit Brewskies. Yellow taxicabs line bumper to bumper and people flood the streets all around me. Perfect, I can get lost in this crowd and Parker will never find me. I start moving with the masses toward downtown and my humble apartment. I need to shower and get this scent off of me, the scent of my sins, the scent of love, the scent of Parker and all that was. I quicken my pace and snake my way through the people, anything to get further away from that coffee shop where I left my feelings on the table rolled up in a twenty-dollar bill. How could he do that? Just show up in my life acting like it’s all okay only to cut my heart out with his sadness. I should have known this was going to happen, I couldn’t just keep jumping from bed to bed without my feelings butting their stupid little head into it. My mind races to Parker and the sweet sadness in his eyes, how could I just leave him like that? I should go back to him. I stop, causing a traffic jam behind me, but I pay no attention the various screams in my direction, just Parker. My heart is telling me to turn around and to run back to him wrap my arms around and tell him I love him, that I always will, to beg him to forgive me but then that damn gut of mine. It just tells me no and drives my feet to keep moving forward, to leave him there, to forget and begin to move on. Move on, I tell myself over and over again, just move on. Don’t think about all you want to tell him, just keep walking get back to the apartment and shower, Madeline, that is all you need a cold shower to make you think straight. My brain is trying to tell my that my feelings are just the left over alcohol from the night before and to ignore them, that they will go away with a single dose of Advil. I do as my brain says and I keep walking, slowly reaching into my purse for those Marlboro Lights I so desperately crave. The nicotine feels good and calms me to my normal broken self. Just seven more blocks until I am in the safety of my own home, those walls that act as cage to me blocking out all visitors.
My eyes wander to the street and the yellow taxis that are speeding past, the traffic had lighten up while I walked allowing the taxis to do what they do best, speed and swerve to get to point B and to the fat cash in the pocket of the business men in the back seat. I’m on the opposite side of the street as my apartment complex when I notice the same human-like figure that bumped me earlier walking parallel to me. Parker. Probably hoping to catch me and make me face this, face what I did to him. I have to face this, this is it Madeline. Just talk it out with him, be able to move on, give the man his closure and begin to heal. Give yourself the closure you deserve Madeline. I check both ways, just like Ma always said, and I cross the street and meet Parker at the steps to my building.
“Hello” I allowed the words to slip out of my mouth and straight to his ears.
“I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to talk, that you aren’t ready but Maddy, we need to talk about this. You broke my heart, you broke us, I can’t just let you get away with that and have you think it’s all okay” His voice was no longer caring and soft, he wants answers.
“Parker, I know it’s not okay. I’ve beaten myself everyday for what I did to you. You must know I never meant to cheat on you”
“Did my love mean nothing to you?” There was no point in trying to get through to him now; his pain had finally taken control.
I try anyway, “Yes Parker, you’re love meant the world to me. Sadly, I figured that out too late. I shared the best years of my life with you. And yes, I fucked it up when I cheated on you with Landon but Parker, I loved you”
“Loved, I guess that the key word here Maddy” There it was again, those green eyes tearing up the way they did the day at the café when I told him about Landon. Parker wouldn’t let himself cry. Not now, not ever. I made him cry once and that was enough in his mind. I didn’t deserve his tears.
There was nothing else for me to say, I loved him but I can’t love him anymore. His love was almost like a poison to my body. I reach my hand into my pocket, feeling the cold metal band that has been there everyday for the past five months. I pull it out and in close it in my shaking hands. “I’m sorry Parker,” I say as I lean in to kiss his cheek. I feel the tears falling down his face and I place my hand in his finally returning the diamond engagement ring, “I hope you can forgive me for this one day”. I pull away from him and head up the stairs to my apartment to finally rid myself of this with a cold shower. As I reach the door I turn to take one last look at Parker. He’s standing ever so still staring at the once beautiful ring he had placed on my finger only moments before I broke his heart at the café. He closed his hand, stuffed it in his pocket and strode off, not taking a second to look back at the women who had broke him. I turn back to my door and continue to open it, “I’m so sorry” I mutter under my breath, although no one is around to hear it.