Chapter 3: Brooke
We say nothing to each other at the airport, not a single word. Ted listlessly flips through a people magazine. He is pissed, I can just tell, and why shouldn't he be, we were supposed to be on our honey moon for three days, and all we got out of it was one really crappy day, and one really boring day cut short. He does not get to do what he came here to do. We did not get to go sight seeing, or make out in the waves, or go snorkeling. I feel terrible for ruining honeymoon What had happened. I had been doing so well since our wedding. No falling spells or any of that jazz. I thought for sure it was just nerves, but who get's nervous on their honeymoon. Honeymoon's are meant for relaxing. Why couldn't I have just waited to have a bad case of nerves when we got home, the wedding went terribly, Ted had to stay a couple of nights with Brandy and Taquilla which sounds like he got drunk at the bar for two nights straight, but really he didn't get a drop of alcohol. When he got home, I knew he was still angry, apparently two nights didn't resolve anything. He angrily grabbed me by the arm. /span/p
"C'mon Brooke!" He snapped, "We're going to couple's therapy. Apparently he had made an appointment during the time he was spending with Brandy and Taquilla.
"What already?" I asked. It was pretty pathetic, we had only been a couple for two days and already we were about to go to couple's therapy. He grabbed me by the arm.
"C'mon let's go" He says. There was no talking in the car. It seemed like it took hours before we pulled up to a small building. I somehow managed to get out of the car and walk over to the building without having another "clumsy moment" and was glad I didn't because, Ted would have had no sympathy or time for that.
"Theodor and Brooke Sanders" The woman who I assumed must have been the therapist said sticking her head out . "My name is Evangeline" she said holding out her hand. She was I swear, one of the ugliest women I've ever seen, with her huge glasses, mousey brown pixie, her eyes too close together and her tiny button nose which is way too far away from her mouth which was hung open like she was some kind of a mouth breather, her teeth were crooked to make everything worse. She was wearing heavy perfume that made me want to either throw up or keel over. /span"Come on in you two" She said. "May I offer you two a cup of tea?"
"Sure" I said.
"What about you?" She asked my husband.
"Coffee" He said
"Oh I'm sorry" She said, with her annoyingly soothing voice, the kind of voice that would be relaxing at a spa, but at a therapists office is just infuriating. "Let's try this again" Evangeline said condescendingly
"Are you kidding me?" He snaps, Evangeline clears his throat "What kind of tea do you want?" She asked again,
"CO'FEE!" He said sounding it out as if she was mentally retarded or something, which I kind of wondered if she might have been. She did kind of look it. "I don't do coffee," she said. Ted looked even more infuriated then he had when we came in.
"We have black tea" She said, "Fine!" Ted snaps. "Black tea it is"
"What kind of tea would you like?" She asked me
"Um, I'll have vanilla" I said. She then disappeared into the kitchen area of the building, and Ted and I were left alone in angry silence. She returned in what seems like hours. "Here you are" She said, handing us our tea.
"Black for Ted, and Vanilla Black for you" My hands suddenly go limp again, the way they had at the wedding when I kept dropping the ring. I dropped the scorching hot tea and it spilled all over my lap/p
"Oh my gosh are you all right?" Evangeline asks. She immediately handed me some tissues.
"Clumsy moment" I said giggling nervously. Ted face palmed and threw his head back in exasperation./p
"What are you feeling right now!" Evangeline asked Ted.
"Well obviously exasperated!" He snapped
"And why is that?" She asked. "Because!" Ted snapped, "I'm sick and tired of her using that for an excuse all the time.
"Clumsy Moment!" He said that part mockingly in my voice. I must have looked pretty offended because Evangeline said"I can really tell from the look on your face that you didn't like that, it hurt your feelings didn't it, how did it make you feel. Why don't you share some feeling words about it?" "Icky" I said. She raised one eyebrow at me. "And kind of offended." Evangeline took out a yellow pad of lined paper.
"I guess we're going to have a lot to talk about this session" She said, "How long have you two been married? I'm guessing at least two years"
"Try two days" Ted snapped. "We're newly weds" Evangeline clicked her tongue, she sure was condescending.
"How can you two be having such problems already?" She asked. "Unless you had problems at your wedding"
"That's exactly it!" Ted snapped. Evangeline took off her glasses.
"Tell me about your wedding!" She said, folding her arms across her lap.
"Okay gladly" Ted said. "As Julie Andrews said in that really gay musical of hers let's start at the very beginning" He cracked his knuckles. I hate it when he does that, but maybe that was somehow supposed to make up for that Sound of Music reference, since cracking one's knuckles seems like a very manly activity at least to me. "I guess I'll start with my proposal to her."
"What about it?" Evangeline asked.
"She cried" Ted said disgustedly. "I see" Evangeline says. "And I don't mean in a good way. She did not cry because she was happy or any of that shit. She didn't even give me a yes or no answer, she just plain cried.
"You were fucking drunk" I snapped, "And you just broke up with that other girl, Vic-Whore-ia or what ever her name is. I was your rebound, and you threw up you fucking threw up right after you proposed to me." I couldn't help repeating what I said after our wedding word for word."Vychtouryah" He snaps, "Her name was Vychtouryah you fucking bitch."/p
"Let's not get angry?" Evangeline said calmly. "Why not get angry, this is fucking marriage therapy, aren't you supposed to get angry at marriage therapy, isn't that kind of the whole point?" Evangeline just sat there with her hands on her lap. "It's not good to be so angry, it's good to talk it out rationally" She says. She then turned to me.
"Brooke, why did you get his girlfriends name wrong when you knew very well that was not her name?"
"Because I fucking hate her!" I snapped crossing my arms tightly across my chest sticking out my bottom lip in a pouting motion. "I hate to say this Brooke, but calling her Vic-Whore-ia, sounded a little bitchy don't you think? And a little bit judgmental considering you never met the girl, she could very well be a virgin and not a whore at all, and she may also be a very nice girl." "She's not!" Ted interjected. "She's not a nice girl or a virgin."/p
"ANY WAY!" I said condescendingly. "I was Vychtourya's rebound. Her fucking rebound. As soon as he broke up with her, he was down on his knees proposing to me, It was probably the same ring he used to prepose to that fucking bitch. Of course I cried" I said.
"Okay fine" Ted says tossing his arms up in the air angrily, "It was the same ring! Fine that was an assholish dick move on my part. I apologize" Evangeline nods woodenly.
"That does not sound like a real apology" Evangeline said. "You know very well that you should never apologize unless you really are sorry"/p
"Good to know!" Ted snapped. "Because I sure as Hell am not really sorry!" Evangeline sat there patiently. "But then I proposed to her about five weeks later, and god damnit I did buy a new ring and a god damn expensive one at that" Ted said. His teeth were grit with anger.
"And?" Evangeline asks putting on her glasses,
"She said YES!" He snapped. Evangeline took off her glasses once again in order to blink her eyes a couple of times, she was purely confused. "The problem was. She obviously didn't want to get married" "Why do you say that?" Evangeline asked. "She basically ruined our wedding. That fucking whore" He said.
"I suddenly felt like I am not a part of this conversation. For all I was concerned I was no longer in the room, she only wanted to talk to Ted.
"Hold on a second Ted" She said at one point. She took off her glasses. So annoying how she kept taking her glasses off and putting them back on. "Brooke sweetie, are you okay?" She asked me. "Yeah why?" I asked startled "Yes why?" Ted repeated. "I mean with your husband tearing you apart and everything!" Ted throws his head back in exasperation once again. "
God why is it that people are always taking Brooke's side? And when I say Brooke's side I don't mean the fancy chocolates."
"Evangeline blinked her eyes once again and took off her glasses, and I didn't blame her for a second, that was fucking obscure of Ted./p
"I really don't understand what chocolates have to do with anything!" She said
"Forget it!" He snapped. She then turned to me.
"How are you feeling about all of this?" She asked. I really did not know what to say. What I really wanted to talk about is, what happened to me at the wedding and how none of it was my fault, and that I seriously thought I was sick, but I didn't want Ted to worry about me, if he worries about me, he might want me to go to the hospital and that might ruin things even more. If he found out that I was sick then he'd feel guilty and I did not want that, nor did I want to ruin our honeymoon, which was in a couple of weeks so I assumed we'd be over it by then.
"Everything's fine" I lied, I then smiled even though on the inside, I felt sad.
"Do you feel that you ruined the wedding?" Evangeline asked. Tears weld up in my eyes. All I can do is nod my head. It was all I could do to not cry at therapy. "I really don't want to talk about it" I said. "I Don't think you understand the point of therapy" She said to me, taking off her glasses again. She just shouldn't wear glasses if she can't decide whether or not to keep them on or not.
"When you go to therapy you're supposed to talk about your problems"
"Well" I said, staring at her. "I didn't want to go to therapy in the first place FYI. I didn't even get a say in it in the first place" I snapped, "Ted just dragged me and said 'C'mon we're going to couple's therapy. We're not even married and already he's sending me to couple's therapy, he doesn't even trust us to work it out on our own"
"How can we work anything out?" Ted snapped, "You don't even want to talk about it, you want to pretend it didn't happen, well guess what? If that's how it is, this marriage is never going to work."
"Ted" Evangeline said, "Why don't you try using some feeling words with Brooke. Just yelling at her like that, is going over her head, it's not the way we handle things at couple's therapy. Why don't you say something like, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but that really hurt your feelings the way you acted at our wedding
"Wait a sec" Ted snapped, "I'm supposed to say, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you hurt my feelings?" Evangeline just stared at us with her mouth open, breathing through her mouth. "How in the world is that affective?" Ted snapped. Evangeline puts her glasses back on. /p
"Never mind that" Evangeline says, clearly stating that Ted has won. "Tell me more about your wedding" She said. "What exactly did she do? I know your pissed off, but what exactly did she do that pissed you off so much? Besides the crying thing when you proposed to her drunk" Ted put his finger to his chin, and put on his thinking face. "Where do I start?" He asked. "Well first of all she had a lot of trouble dealing with putting on my ring. I've gone to a lot of weddings, and never have I seen anyone have that much trouble with that."
"I'm just clumsy" I said staring down at the floor.
"Shut up Brooke!" Ted snapped. "Why did you tell her to shut up just now?"
"Evangeline asked, purely confused. "Did you mean shut up as in oh my god? Or did you really want her to shut up. I can understand that your pissed about how she behaved at the wedding, but why did you tell her to shut up just now? What did she say that deserved that response?" Ted continued to look very angry. He face palmed once again. "I'm just clumsy, I just had a clumsy moment. That's just her go to excuse for every thing these days, every time she falls or drops something or whatever, or spills vanilla black tea in her lap. Let me tell you something. I've known Brooke since high school okay? She was on the powderpuff football team and the gymnastics team, not to mention she's always been killer at ultimate frisbee." "What's your point?" Evangeline asked, blinking her eyes in confusion once again. Ted gave her an ultra condescending look. "Well DUH!" He said, "My point is that she's not clumsy. She's very co ordinated, but you wouldn't have known that from the way she dancing during the bride and grooms dance."
"Oh dear" Evangeline said, "What happened?" I couldn't help noticing that Ted was tearing up a tiny bit. He is so embarrassed about crying in front of people. The last time I saw him cry in public was when he was shit drunk "Let's just say she had a bunch of clumsy moments. I know that you're going to probably ask if she was drunk, but I'll tell you first hand that she absolutely was not. That was way before the bar opened, she didn't have anything to drink at dinner. She was fucking sober." "What do you think was going on?" Evangeline asked.
"You really want to know what I think?" Ted asked, his voice sounded like a combination of worry and anger. "I think she was trying to sabotage our wedding" He snapped, going back to just pure angry. "Is she usually that kind of person?" She asked. "Is that something she'd do?" "Not usually!" Ted snapped, folding his hands in her lap, "But it was something she did" Evangeline turned to me.
"Is that true Brooke?" She asked me. I just stared at the ground and shrugged. "I don't really want to talk about it" I said again, sounding like a broken record player I assume. "
"YES!" Ted answered./p
"I was asking Brooke" Evangeline said./p
"Well obviously she's not talking" He snapped. "She has nothing to say about it,
"Well you better make it quick" Evangeline says, "Time is running up" "I think I've said all I need to say" Ted said. Evangeline looks down at her watch.
"Well what do you know, time's up, better get going" She says flapping her hands in a pushing moment. "Andoiulee, Andoiulee!" God there is just something about how she said that, that really bugged the shit out of me.
"Ted and I sat in silence for the first couple of blocks. I was the first one to break the silence.
"Andoiulee, Andoiulee!" I say mimicking Evangeline angrily.
"Ted rolled his eyes. "I really don't understand what chocolates have to do with anything" He replied, also mimicking the therapist.
"I was shocked, I had expected him to get mad at me, but instead miraculously, he was angrier at the therapist. I laugh nervously. "I don't want to hurt your feelings but you really hurt my feelings at the wedding" I said nervously.
"Ted laughed grudgingly. "How about the way she kept taking her glasses off and putting them back on? What the fuck was up with that?" He asked. "Did you notice how tiny her nose was?" I asked, "And how far her mouth was from her nose" Ted nodded. "I did notice, and what about the fact that she didn't do coffee" He cleared his throat. "Let's try this again. What kind of Tea do you want?" I laughed again and that time it wasn't so strained. We were comfortable again even if our bond was based on making fun of poor old ugly Evangeline. "I can really tell from the look on your face that you didn't like that, it hurt your feelings didn't it, how did it make you feel. Why don't you share some feeling words about it?" I said. Ted laughed again. I was really starting to miss that laugh "I hate to say this Brooke, but calling her Vic-Whore-ia, sounded a little bitchy don't you think?" Ted replied. Before I knew it, we were laughing our heads off, I started to get nervous that after we finished making fun of Evangeline, we would go back to not talking to each other. We pulled up to our driveway, and for some reason I thought for sure, we'd go back to hating each other. I knew for a fact that our mutual hatred for Evangeline was not going to fix our already strained marriage. Shockingly Ted took my hand. "C'mon Brooke" He said, "Let's have some make up sex" After that things were back to normal, it was a start to a really good relationship, at least that's what I thought. Also I was able to keep the strange symptoms of clumsiness at bay, maybe it was just nerves all along. But then once we got to Mexico, the symptoms of clumsiness showed their hideous faces once again.
"So now, here's what we got. A very short and pathetic excuse for a don't talk on the plane. Ted and I just sit in silence. I have the aisle seat and am staring out the window looking at nothing. I really wish I could tell my husband how I'm really feeling, but every time I try to, my throat feels all closed, and my body get's all sweaty. Ted appears to be asleep with his earbuds placed in each ear and his Ipod on his lap. He is still very much pissed. My brain feels like it is in a foggy mist once again, and I do not like it. I would like it much better if it was to be expected, if I knew what was causing it, if it were drug related but I don't know what is causing it, and it is not drug related. My entire body breaks into a cold sweat but at the same time a hot sweat. I do not realize it yet, but I am crying. I mean really letting it out crying, A full body cry. I am not crying silently, loud deep sobs cause my entire body to shake uncontrollably. I realize I have woken Ted up. He groans loudly. "I'm sorry to wake you" I sob.
"You all right?" He asks me. Surprisingly he is not super pissed. As a matter a fact not pissed at all. Worried
"No!" I sob. "I don't feel well, I want to get off"
"Is everything all right?" One of the stewardess asks.
"Apparently not" Ted says. My head feels more foggy and misty by the second, my hands start feeling like balloons again, but this time not inflated balloons, this time more like deflated balloons.
"What's the matter with you babe?" Ted asks.
"I don't know!" I moan. Tears stream down my cheeks. The stewardess stays by my side. A woman from across the Aisle stands up.
"She can have one of my Sonata's" She says.
"No!" Ted snaps, "There will be no sedating my wife." \
"It's a short lasting drug, it should wear off in an hour and a half" The woman says, "The flight is a couple hours" "Do you have anything stronger?" Ted asks, I don't understand him, one minute he's telling the strange woman not to sedate me, and the next he's begging her to give me something stronger.
"I do have a couple of Xanex" The woman says, "Is she a first time flyer?" She asks Ted, "I mean like no offense or anything"
"No" Ted says, "She's flown before many of times." He then turns to me. "What's going on?" He asks me. "What's wrong?" Tears continue streaming down my
"Take this" the woman says, handing me a white pill. I pop it in my mouth and drink the cup of cranberry juice cocktail.
""Atta girl" She says."Now just take some deep breaths" She tells me. I try taking a single deep breath, but I feel like there is no air in my lungs, my chest feels tight. "I can't breathe" I complain.
"You can" She says, "You're okay, you're just having an anxiety attack" She pats my hand.
"I don't think she's having an anxiety attack" Ted says. "Brooke what's wrong babe?" He asks me. My sweater suddenly feels too itchy, and maybe a little too tight."Are you all right dear?" The lady who gave me a xanex asks me. "I can't breathe" I moan once again.
