The Breaking Of Leah
It had been two weeks since he disappeared and no one had seen or heard from him since. My mom and dad and even my little brother, Seth, had helped me look for him, along with his family. But we'd found nothing.
I was sitting under the willow tree in my back yard that Friday night, bathed in the light from the moon. I wasn't crying that night, I thought I'd cried all I could. I was just worried and I missed him so much. We hadn't been apart a day in almost two years, since we had started dating and we were planning to get married after I graduated.
The night was cold and still, but I didn't care. I welcomed the chill because it made me feel, feel something other than worry, dread, and fear. I heard rustling in the nearby leaves, but I just thought it was a raccoon. I wasn't afraid of being in the dark, nor was I afraid of the sounds of nature. Our peopled embraced nature and we felt most at home when in solitude communing with her.
It wasn't until I heard the gruff, muffled sound of my name that I became alert and realized that I recognized the voice.
"Lee Lee. Leah."
"Sam. Sam is that you?" I cried, jumping to my feet and searching the darkness fervently.
"Stay where you are. Don't come any closer," he said, in the same gruff voice.
"Sam, baby, is it you? Is it really you?" I asked, moving toward where I'd heard the voice.
"Leah. I said stop!" he shouted, in a voice that I wasn't sure I recognized any longer.
I stopped dead in my tracks. I began to tremble, and I knew that something was wrong, terribly wrong.
"Sam. I've been so worried. I've...we've looked everywhere for you. I thought maybe you'd gone hunting and gotten hurt. Are you okay? What's wrong? Oh Sam.....I...."
The tears that I thought had subsided, began to flourish and returned, running down my face, leaving hot trails that stung my skin, in their wake. The silent tears gave way to the sound of crying, then sobbing, as I waited, unsure, not knowing.
"I can't see you anymore. It's not a good thing. I just came to tell you goodbye," he said, choking on the last word.
How could he? What was he saying? We had plans. We lo....I loved him. I fell to my knees. Peering up through my tears, I could see his faint silhouette half in the moonlight, half hidden by shadows.
"Sa....I....don't....under....stand. What.....have....I....done?" I cried.
"It's not you, Leah. It's me. It's all me. I'm different. I've changed. You're too good for me. I don't deserve you and never will. It's just better this way."
"I don't understand. How can you say those things Sam? What about us? What about our plans? Sam, let me help you. I'll do anything. Let me just come to you. Let me hold you," I begged, in my hysterical state."
"You're not safe with me anymore, Leah. I....can't hold you, I don't even need to be around you anymore. I have to go. Goodbye Leah."
I heard his voice trail away, and I was left there with nothing but the sound of my sobbing and tears that mingled with the dirt. What could be so bad that he couldn't be with me anymore? What had happened to him? So many questions and no answers, nothing but emptiness.
My brother, Seth, calling my name brought me back to the reality of my broken world. He dropped to his knees and pulled me up to look at him screaming at me to tell him what was wrong.
"Sam. He's gone. He left me," I said flatly with no emotion.
"Lee Lee. What are you talking about? You've seen Sam? Was he here? Is he all right? Left you? You two love each other. He wouldn't......"
I cut him off with sharp words, "he did," as I got up, pulling away from him and made my way to the house.
The lights hurt my eyes, everything was so luminescent and I felt so dark. So I went to my room, closed the door and lay down with my emptiness.
Seth must have told my mom what had happened and soon she was sitting on my bed, wiping my face free of the tears and dirt that had collected there. She too asked me what had happened and I told her again in the same flat, emotionless tone that he had left me and he was gone. I couldn't talk with her. I just wanted to be alone, forever.
I must have fallen asleep. Still, fully dressed, for when I woke up to the bright sunlight streaming in my bedroom window, I felt them clinging tightly to my body. I was stiff and sticky from my crying, so I got up and went to take a shower.
When I finally emerged from the bathroom, my mom greeted me at the door and told me she had called my cousin, Emily, to come down and stay with me for a few days. She thought that the visit might cheer me up.
I was glad to hear that she was coming. We hadn't seen each other in almost a year, but we talked every week on the phone. Emily was like the sister I never had. We shared everything, so she knew what Sam meant to me. She knew how much I loved him and she would understand, even if no one else would.
When Emily arrived, later that day, she took me in her arms and rocked me for the longest time. It felt good to have her with me, so I opened up and let the tears flow freely as I told her the events of last night. Her words of reassurance and comfort soothed me, so she suggested that we go for a walk down to the general store located on the reservation to buy a soda then we could walk on the beach, like we did every time she came to visit.
I didn't want to be around anyone right now, but Emily was the exception, so I agreed and we left, walking slowly down the dirt road that lead to the store. By the time we reached the store, Emily had me smiling as she reminded me of a couple of other times that I thought the world was coming to an end, only to realize later that I had over reacted.
Emily always did have a way of making things better, so she took me by the hand and we practically skipped into the store. The old wooden screen door creaked as she pulled it open and the cow bell clanked out its chime as the door slammed shut behind us being pulled to by a big rusty spring.
I had opened the drink case, pulled out two Dr. Pepper's and was turning to hand one to Emily, when I caught sight of him staring at us out of the corner of my eye. I dropped the bottles and stood there, unable to move, unable to speak, and everything after that moved in slow motion.
Sam looked at me with sorrow filled eyes and I thought, for a brief moment, that he wanted to reach out to me, then, as he slowly turned and looked at Emily, his face changed and his appearance took on that of a glowing angel. His eyes lit up and the color returned to his hallow cheeks. His hands trembled and I could feel the heat rolling off of his skin.
Emily, who had been looking at me and the broken bottles on the floor, looked up into Sam's glowing eyes and I saw it. I saw it all. They connected right there in front of me. He might as well have taken her in his arms and kissed her with more passion than he had ever lavished on me, but they just stood motionless. There was no need for touching. Their transfixed gazes told the story.
My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest cavity, by the claws of a wild animal, my body felt broken, my brain numb. Pushed aside by my love, left alone crying in the dust, and now betrayed by my cousin, my friend, my sister. I ran.
I ran from the scene of blissful awakening before me, out the screen door, down the dirt road, no tears this time, just bile that threatened to overflow my mouth, the churning in my stomach begging for an escape route. I stopped just outside of my house and gave in to the screaming inside of me. The acid burned my throat and lips as I heaved, and I wished that I could just disappear right then and there, never to be seen or heard from again.
But that was not the path that destiny had laid out for me. I was doomed to walk this earth and watch as their love, their putrid love which flourished and strengthened before my very eyes. I heard it, felt it, tasted it, hated it with each day that passed.
That's when my new outlook on life and any hope of joy or happiness, love or comfort was replaced with the bile that came from the pit of my stomach and it transformed me into the hard, cold dark person I am today.
What lesson have I learned from my experience you might ask? And I have but one thing to say. Love is not for the weak. You have to be strong, so you can fight through the current. I was strong, and I survived, but I'm forever changed, never to be the happy person I once was, for it was love that broke my spirit.