Happy Hollowdays Pt. 02

His face whipped around from glaring at mine to peering at hers. "How many guys kiss the whore they hire for ass fucking?" Gary shot back through clenched teeth.

Jill fought down her shame and rising anger, "We never did anything. Tim was lonely, he hired an escort. He thought I looked different from the rest. He could tell I wasn't a seasoned escort. We met, we talked. I told him about you, and he snuck away and contacted you. Gary, Tim brought me home to you. He brought me home! I wanted to die Gary, and he figured it out. I was going to be a whore because you thought that's what I was. So, I was going to take the pain and the drugs and the abuse until there was no me anymore, because without you there wasn't a me anyway."

I could tell Gary had frozen in his tracks. He knew her nature, if this is what she said her plan was and why, he believed it. He saw he had come close to losing her. At almost the same instant he saw he could still have her back intact.

"Tim figured out you were the only one who can save me, Gary. I didn't know he was taking me home. I thought we were out for a drive; all I knew is he was being a gentleman and not using me the way I had set myself up to be used. Tim just told me as we reached our old street, he said you were going to save my life, t-that you wanted to..." Jill's voice was as full of incredulous joy as her eyes were full of hopeful tears.

Gary hugged Jill tightly as my picture of the stars slowly stopped spinning. Then I was being helped up. I wasn't sure I was ready to be up yet. No matter, I was going up. Apparently, we compromised as I went as far as sitting.

"Sorry fella. Gosh that's some reward I gave you." Gary apologized standing over me trying to help as I tried to wave him off.

"Oh, he's used to that," Jill said with sympathetic eyes. "Tim's used to getting kicked for doing the right thing. Incredibly, he's strong enough to keep on doing it."

Gary stood back up facing her highly agitated, "Were you really a whore, Jill? Have you been for long?" Jill could hear the heartbreak in her ex's voice.

"No. Tim could tell I wasn't. He saved me too; he couldn't save me long term, only for the immediate future. That's why he called you. He kept putting our tryst off. Instead, we shared our stories. Gary, his fiancé left him for his best friend! I told him how I hurt you. You can save me Gary. Can you take me back? Can you possibly still love me? Gary, I know I set fire to your whole world. I will put out those flames and rebuild your world more and more each and every day. Save me tonight, just let me back in your life and I will save you the rest of your life. I love you, Gary! I will never stop!"

While Gary and Jill made their reconciliation and pledged their veracity, I woozily crawled over to the side of my car. Where, still shaking off the effects of Gary's punch, I pulled myself to a sitting position again, this time with my back against a wheel. I was still clearing cobwebs when Jill turned and looked at me. I could still detect a tint of sympathy, though faint as her eyes were swimming with joy and thankfulness. As I nodded that I was alright, her mouth split into a radiant smile as she mouthed "Thank you". Jill waived blissfully as she sailed inside with her husband.

I put my head back, resting it on the tire. I thought, 'In the midst of all that happiness Jill looked back thinking of me. That's more of a gesture than I got from Brenda, the woman who lived with me and said she loved me, and then just burned my whole life down.

I looked around. It seemed a bright happy neighborhood. Christmas lights were out, but it was getting later, it was very quiet outside, just the Christmas lights, surrounded by too much cold and dark to converse with anyone other than themselves. I was an uninvited outsider, again. I noted that no lights went on inside Jill's house. I smiled at that. Good, they were busy and happy. It was then that the entire weight of a holiday alone decided to smack me across the face. It made Gary's punch look like a pussy.

It was no body's fault I was alone for this time normally spent with loved ones. My parents thought I was with my sister and my sister thought I had plans. Besides she was too distracted building her own future that week. Jill was having her life saved. I saw Gary, heard his voice, he's had a sample of life without Jill. She was nothing but sorry for her one-time mistake. I was positive they would make it now. I knew it because I was still trapped where they had just been; the desolation of being alone.

As much as I tried to push the notion away, there were in fact several people who were at fault for my feeling like the last solitary man on the planet. Andy was at fault; he took several actions to make things turn out this way. He fucked my woman, then he took her out of my house. He left me to sell the damn couch where they made love. At least I wasn't alone with the damn thing mocking me twenty-four seven. Andy said he was sorry, but he didn't try to fix it. He didn't bring her back. H-He kept her. He kept my Brenda.

And damn it, Brenda, what the hell? You see me go out the door to get us all dinner, you even say "Be safe honey, I love you." But as soon as I'm out the door you fucked Andy raw. Then you left, you didn't bother to take your things. You didn't bother to dress or anything. You didn't bother to say "sorry". You didn't even say Goodbye! Forget "I'm sorry", I wasn't worth a "goodbye". Nothing you left behind held any value for you, especially me. I wondered if I had been abandoned like her belongings, or if I had been escaped from. No that wasn't the case, even that had more visceral energy to it than she deemed worthy to spend on me. I was no more than a blouse with a stain, last year's fashions, or that show that you saw before, and were disappointed when you did.

No wonder you fell for Andy so fast. If you can't tell a man you lived with goodbye, you must not have ever been in love with him at all. Oh, Brenda you must have been so overwhelmed to actually feel love. I can see it. I can understand. But damn, I hate it.

And damn, it cuts me to the core. I wanted you to love me! I thought you did. You told me you did...

I know how guilty, how awkward, you would have felt, but damn it, you had no decency. You owed me a "goodbye" and frankly a fucking "sorry" at minimum. I never saw you for a taker, but clearly anyone with a conscious would have done better than you. You took so much from me you couldn't see me any longer. You didn't even try. You declared it too hard and left me to whither. They say you cried, big deal. I'll show you crying.

I rubbed my face. I rubbed the back of my head that hit the ice when I fell. Hell, small potatoes, chicken feed. I knew it was coming, I'd fought it for too long. 'I'm gonna let you go, you selfish cunt. How do you like that? I know you don't care, but you had a man who loved, who really loved you, and you are losing that now!'

What has loving you, done for me? I've spent months alone, still loving you, knowing you didn't value my love or me. I hoped for a fucking phone call, it should have been in person. But no, nothing with a truly personnel touch. Damn girl, we were intimate, we were engaged. You loved me and said you wanted to forever.

I'll tell you what your love got me got me: I'm literally out in the cold, in a happy neighborhood full of families that love each other. I'm the lonely anomaly, sitting up against a tire for Christ's sake, with a bashed in face, and lump on my head all because I helped someone else.

That's beyond your comprehension, isn't it? Not the leaving me, you have that one down pat. Doing the hard thing, getting kicked in the teeth for what's right? Well, I care, you faithless whore. That's how you get punched in the face for doing the right thing. I'll do it again too! You won't, you will take what you want... and run. Poor Andy, if you want someone else will you do that to him like you did to me? I never would have thought so, but that IS how you did me.

Well take this: I'm done. I'm finally there. I've been fighting against not loving you because I love you. I'm not gonna fight it anymore, I'm letting it go. I'm letting it pour out. When I get up from here, I'm driving home alone; I'm not going to carry you with me any further. And you know what? Tomorrow you will wake up a lot less loved than you are right now. And you won't even feel the difference you stupid bitch. That's my revenge. You can't even understand it. Now I'm not the pathetic one for still loving you, you are the pathetic one for not even understanding what you've lost!

I sat there for a while thinking about my sudden resolution. Making the decision was huge for me, though it was going to set off an avalanche. As I felt it coming my last thought was to pray Brenda didn't do Andy like she did me. I didn't think she would, this had been too hot, too emotional, they were bonded, she couldn't do this again.

A terrible thought struck me, what would it be like to feel this bad and know you deserved it? If Brenda left him and he went through this Andy would kill himself. I prayed hard it wouldn't happen. The die was cast, I needed Brenda to love Andy forever now.

When I finished praying, I sat alone in the cold shadows, a forgotten man, and cried my heart out.

I was out there for a while disconsolate. I lamented those who would purposely or willingly give up on love. Didn't people know what an extreme gift it was? Not everyone got to experience it, especially not total love. Brenda had given up on it and lusted after more love, or rather a different love. Now she had forced me to give up on it as well. I would forgive her for falling for Andy, but probably never for forcing me to give back the gift of love when I knew how extradentary it was. I had put off the obvious for months, love didn't want to be practical or reasonable; love expected to conquer all. I had been conquered and thought Brenda had too. I hung my head; Brenda had been conquered by love, just not for me.

I wept.

I wasn't sure how long I had been out there. I had calmed down. I wasn't suffering so much; the omnipresent ache was gone. I ground my teeth bitterly. That pain had been subsided by an emptiness that I wasn't sure was a decent replacement. My feeling of life being aimless, dim, without purpose was still in place. I had loved life, more so since finding Brenda. I didn't like the new sensation or perhaps lack of sensation. I began to see where people could be driven to end their lives not only from suffering, but from the sheer lack of substance. It was better to go mad passionately, I thought. I was tired of always finding the dross lining.

I was very cold still sitting by the side of my car. I feared a cop may come along thinking I was drunk. Such patrols were infrequent in such a nice neighborhood, and I could pass any breathalyzer. However, what would I say if a policeman stopped me? "No drinking, officer, I just pulled over to have a nice cry?"

My head was sore. That seemed better than my heart. Having faith in people and trying to the do the right thing takes its toll. I took two handfuls of snow and rubbed my tears away, soothing my face where Gary had punched me. Though it hurt, it didn't seem to matter enough. 'Perhaps there was a silver lining to depression,' I thought ruefully.

I got up and drove home. My plan to find someone for Christmas was making my head spin as much as one of Gary's unexpected haymakers. It had worked: for both the person I hoped to spend the time with who turned out to be Jill, and her husband, who I had never imagined being part of my equation. For me however, my plan was an unmitigated failure. I didn't have anyone, not Jill, and now not even the part of Brenda that had become part of me. It seemed I would be spending time with the ghost of her and with me: a person that no one, even me, really wanted to be with.

'Happy effin Hollowdays!', I chided myself as I made the lonely trek home.