Carry Your World

by DrunkOnJerichohol

He was, by all accounts, an eyesore to most who crossed his path, but to one woman, he grew to be everything. In evolving together, she taught him an invaluable lesson; when his world became too heavy to hold on his own, she could reach out and carry the weight for him.

36. Gone, Baby, Gone

To this day, Chris is my biggest hero.

When he loves, he does it with his whole heart, not just a fraction. When he first became a staple in my life, it was like I instinctively knew I could trust him with any issue, big or small. He was my best friend and my biggest supporter, the kind of confidante I could always lean on when times got tough. When I celebrated personal victories, he celebrated them right along with me as if they were his own. A win for me was a win for both of us and I think, in a lot of ways, he actually built my self-esteem.

For example, that time I scooted on my butt across the living room floor and screamed like a banshee because Speewee was peering into the window, Chris could have given me hell. He could have pointed his finger and laughed at me every day of the week, but he didn't. I was mortified and embarrassed, and he knew it, so he never brought it up again. A couple of times, Speewee referenced it when he came to visit in an attempt to get an easy laugh, but Chris would squash it right away, cut him off, and change the subject to something else.

Although he never admitted to it, I even suspect Chris may have pulled Speewee aside and had a stern talk with him about teasing me, because after those couple of times, it never happened again, save for whenever Chris wasn't in the room with us. That's a small example, of course, but it still highlights exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe Chris had been mocked enough in life that he knew how bad it felt and he didn't want that for me. He has always been so protective in that way, like my own personal savior. Even when we weren't getting along, I always knew deep down that he had my back, just like I always had his.

My head is all jumbled as I write this, so I don't know if I'm getting my point across as well as I could be. What I'm trying to say is that no matter how badly I messed up or overreacted, I still remained a top priority for Chris, and he was concerned for my safety and security above all else. That was exactly what I needed in my life at a time when so many uncertainties kept me from being free and happy. I had too much on my plate, and whenever Chris noticed that was happening, he always took a little off and added it to his own plate instead.

He's always been sweet like that.

After my dad "left" our house on that morning so long ago, I was paralyzed with panic. Here I was standing in my living room with his luggage sitting at my feet and he was nowhere to be found. He had left walking, I assumed, as I hadn't noticed a car waiting for him outside and he wasn't in sight when I finally stumbled over to the big window to look. It was a brisk, overcast day in Winnipeg, and I immediately feared for his health and safety. I considered jogging out to chase after him, but that would only put both of us at risk to be consumed by the elements, so I raced into the kitchen, snatched my keys off the counter, and cut through our garage.

I found my car in the dark, got in, and started the engine. Still running on adrenaline, I pressed the remote to raise the garage door, and backed out into the driveway, watching the garage go back down before pulling away. I drove around the block, moving slowly and narrowing my eyes as I searched for my dad. At first, I thought I wasn't looking in the right spots and that I needed to look in the other direction, but after 10 minutes of this, it became readily apparent he wasn't anywhere out in the open. Immediately, a burst of anger welled up in me and morphed my cheeks a sickly shade of red. He had done this on purpose. He left his bags at my place so that, when Chris eventually returned, I would be tasked with having to explain to him why Dad's things were there in the first place.

The natural conclusion Chris would come to was that my dad, at some point, had been inside our home without his prior knowledge, and we would argue. This was what Dad wanted, I thought: To rock the solid foundation upon which Chris and I stood. I couldn't believe I had ever been so stupid as to give him our address and allow him to enter our private domicile. I felt sick just knowing Chris and I would fight over this, that he would have to deal with this kind of unnecessary stress a matter of weeks before his second surgery. Chris didn't deserve this.

I thought about calling him and confessing the whole thing, but instead, I swallowed despite the heavy lump in the back of my throat and drove the few blocks back home, wondering all the while how Dad could have moved so quickly as to just be gone like that. When I was safely back in the closed garage, I slipped inside and locked the door I had entered through, rushing to the counter and leaning on it for support. My eyes grew blurry with tears I held onto, too prideful to allow them to fall. I wished I could rewind to earlier that morning and ask Chris to stay with me and keep the doors locked so Dad never could have come inside to begin with.

I found my way upstairs minutes later and flopped into bed, the minutes ticking by agonizingly slow. I forgot all about pretending to go and get my hair done and all that other make-believe stuff I told Chris I would be out doing while he was gone. I spent the rest of the day moping in our bed, falling asleep off and on. Either way, Chris would find out what I had done and would be upset with me, so I saw no reason to keep up the act. Instead, I tried to get in as much relaxation as I could before he returned home and the real battle began.

I was awoken when the room had gone almost entirely dark, the first signs of dusk setting into an already gloomy day. The front door slammed shut and voices mingled in the background as Chris called my name loudly. "Steph! Stephanie!"

My eyes snapped open and I rubbed them with my balled up fists, wishing I could erase this whole entire day from my existence. I flat-out didn't want to deal with it anymore. Me and my brilliant ideas, right? I had single-handedly caused all this trouble for myself, for us, so the least I could do was go down and face the music. Chris was calling my name again, his voice seeming to draw closer by the second, but then it drifted farther away. He was looking around for me, probably so he could demand to know what I was thinking when I had decided on all this.

"Stephanie!" Chris called out again.

He rarely used my whole first name. He either called me by my five-letter nickname or used some sort of cutesy pet name. I knew when he used my full name that he was serious about whatever it was he had to say. I considered going down, but I could still make out other voices, and I recognized them as Speewee and Chad. I didn't want to walk into a bunch of people and be ganged up on all at once. I couldn't see why else Chris would have invited them inside with him unless, of course, he hadn't expected to find Dad's luggage sitting there upon his return.

Chris probably decided he would have his guests over for some dinner, but the second he stepped inside, he tripped over Dad's stuff and read the name on the tags. He would have known right away that Dad had been here, and that would have prompted him to call my name over and again, like he was doing at that very moment while his cousin and friend talked just behind him. Either way, I had to deal with the situation, but first I had to pee really, really badly.

I felt my way to our bathroom in total darkness and ran my hands along the wall until they found the light switch. I forced it on and sat on the toilet, listening to my pee tinkle into the bowl as footsteps grew louder on the stairs. My heart lurched when I heard him enter our bedroom and shuffle across the floor, and a second later, he appeared in the bathroom doorway, looking only mildly irritated. My pee stream slowed to a stop and I sat there with wide eyes and a shut mouth, struggling not to find it humorous that I had been caught literally with my pants down.

"You didn't hear me calling you?" he asked. He didn't sound angry, just perplexed.

"I did," I said, "but I had to pee."

"Okay," he nodded. I sat there staring at him, and I thought I detected a hint of a smile peeking through. "You just gonna sit there, or do you wanna wipe and pull your pants back up?"

Snapping out of my trance, I tugged some squares of toilet paper off the roll and patted myself dry. With the toilet flushed, I avoided all eye contact with the mirror and ducked my head while I washed my hands, knowing Chris was watching right behind me. I dried my hands and went to leave, but Chris was still blocking the door and showed no signs of moving. His arms were folded across his chest and he read me like a book, crossing one of his feet in front of the other. I stared at my own feet and said nothing.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"It was...um..." I wasn't expecting that question right off the bat, so I had no answer prepared. I fiddled with my thumbs like a dummy, and Chris took pity on me.

"Are you okay?"

I looked up, bewildered. "I'm fine."

"I'm just sorry you felt like you couldn't come to me and talk about this."

"Huh?" I asked, my face turning inside out on itself. This, I hadn't expected.

Chris reached his hands out and rubbed my hips, then he took me fully in his arms and pulled to his chest. The move was so unexpected I almost didn't know what to do with my hands at first. They flopped around aimlessly until I snapped to attention and hugged Chris back, slipping my hands under his shirt and squeezing him tightly. I closed my eyes when I felt his lips touch down on top of my head. This man was always and forever surprising me, but on this day, he impressed me just a little more than expected, and I'm still grateful to him for it.

"Let me cut to the chase," Chris said. "I know Vince is in town because, not only is his luggage downstairs in our living room right now, but I saw him, talked to him, the whole deal."

"You what?" I asked, lurching backward. Chris placed his hand gently on the back of my head and pulled me to him once more, waiting until I calmed to continue speaking.

"Stephanie," he began, and there it was again. My whole name. This was serious. "You've always been close to your family. That's a good thing. So many people wish they had good relationships with their family members, and you've got that. Vince isn't my biggest fan, obviously, but I would never, ever in a million years tell you that you couldn't invite him up here. I know you love him, and after talking to him just now, no matter how misguided I might think some of his feelings are, he loves you, too. You're still his little girl."

"Except I'm not a little girl anymore."

"Right, you're not in the actual sense, but in his mind, you're his little girl. He spoke very fondly of you, he misses you, and he feels like I've taken you away from him. I'm not telling you this for any reason other than I think you should maybe reach out to him a little more often if that's what you want, you know what I mean? If you're ever missing your parents or your brother and wanting to talk to them or see them, I don't want you to feel like you can't just because my relationship with them is rocky. I would never try to keep them away from you," Chris said. "You need that support system. You're a family-oriented person, and I think that's important for you."

"It is, but I feel so torn," I mumbled into his chest. I was always so safe in his arms. "I love you, but I love them, too, and I'm just trying to keep everyone happy."

"It's not your job to keep everyone else happy. You need to make yourself happy. That should be your number one goal."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you I invited him."

"Come on," Chris said. I allowed him to guide me backward, and he caught me at the waist and gave me a boost onto the bathroom counter. He stood between my legs as I sat and watched me with eyes so full of love and respect that I wanted to crawl into bed with him right then and there and do our usual business. Chris reached up and moved some hair out of my eyes, pressing a light kiss to my forehead. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. When I asked you to move up here, maybe I didn't make it clear enough to you that you weren't just moving into my home. You moved into our home. This is our place."

"Okay," I nodded feebly.

"You don't have to ask permission to have your family up here. This is your home, and if you want them to come, they can come, just like my dad can always come whenever I want him over. I mean, yeah, it's cool to be considerate of each other and give a heads-up, but just like I have people over, so can you. That's not even a question. You don't ever have to hide it from me that you want Vince to come. This whole thing of getting me to leave the house so he could be here was silly."

"But I didn't want him to be mean to you," I said.

"I'm a grown man, so I can handle it, but even if I couldn't, if I thought it was going to make for an uncomfortable atmosphere, I would have left on my own and gotten some coffee or whatever. Maybe hung out at a bookstore for a while. What I'm saying is that could have been my choice. You didn't need to get me to leave with friends so you could have him here. It makes me feel bad, honestly, that you thought you couldn't just say to me that your dad was coming."

I bit my lip and looked down. "I got scared you would be mad at me."

"Well, I'm not. Did he tell you he was out there waiting for me?"

"Who?" I asked, snapping my head up for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

"Your dad," Chris replied. He popped his shoulders when I tipped my head quizzically. "He waited around, which, I'm not sure why his stuff was in here while he was out there, but he was just chillin' outside when I pulled up with the guys. I thought maybe he had told you he was going to wait for me to get back, but I guess he left you in the dark about his plans. He went off on me a little bit when we first pulled up and accused me of holding you here against your will and, like, mind-fucking you or whatever."

"He said that?"

"I mean, not in those exact words, but he said I had brainwashed you, that I was a sick son of a bitch, that I didn't deserve you, and that if I didn't send you back home, he would make me sorry. There was a bunch of other stuff, too, but that was the gist of it. I kinda just shut my mouth and let him go off, because if he waited around all this time for me to get back home, I figured he really needed to get all that stuff off his chest," Chris said. He rubbed my hair some more and took a long and deep breath. "Did you kick him out without his stuff? Is that why he was out there?"

"No, he left on his own," I answered.

"Oh, did he?"

"He got mad at me when I said I wouldn't, like, immediately move back home to Connecticut with him, so he just turned around and left. I went out in the car to look for him once I realized he left his stuff behind, but he was nowhere to be found."

"I don't think he ever actually left," Chris chuckled. "When we pulled into the driveway, he came around from the side of the house. I think he was hiding out here or something. He's a dad, and he's protective, so I kinda get it because I'd probably be almost the same way with my daughter if I had one, but at the same time, it was a little much. I don't care if he yells at me or talks shit to me, but I don't want him upsetting you. That's all. As long as you're okay, I'm happy."

"I'm so sorry I dragged my mess all the way up here. You're really not mad at me?" I asked, hugging my arms to myself.

"I'm so not mad. Not even a little bit."

"Promise?"

Chris pulled me closer, pressing his rocky forehead into mine. I stared right into the blues of his eyes and, instantly, my evening was brightened. "I promise. You're pretty much my family, which makes the rest of your family my family, even if they hate my guts. They're always welcome here, because I know how you feel about them, and you need to see them. That's healthy and normal."

"Thank you."

"Hey," he shook his head, "stop thanking me. I'm not giving you a gift. It's your right to have people over, and that's all I'm saying. I just wish you would have told me you wanted to talk to your dad. I would have been on your side."

"I know that now."

"You should have known before."

Voices were still drifting back up to us from downstairs, and I peered at Chris. "Should we go down and make dinner for the guys?"

"I can order some take-out for us or have pizzas delivered. It's no big deal," he said, hesitating. He rubbed up and down my sides. "Um, baby, your dad is still in our front yard, and he says he's not leaving until you go out and talk to him. He's got a car out there now, and he's just sitting in the backseat with the driver, not moving. I think you should go chat him up and see what he wants. Maybe he just needs a little more time with you, and I'm no one to stand in the way of that. Go see him and try to work something out."

"Okay," I agreed. "I'll see what he wants."

"I'll be in here figuring out what we're all going to eat for dinner, but I want you to know that if he asks to spend the night or if he wants to come back inside and eat with us, he's more than welcome. You don't have to feel awkward or weird about it."

I didn't have the words to say how grateful I was to have this wonderful man in my life, so I said nothing at all and sealed his promise with a kiss. I was downstairs and out the front door before I even realized I was moving my legs, placing one foot in front of the other without a single thought. I operated on auto-pilot, avoiding the wet grass and following the edge of the driveway to Dad's car. I knew it was his because it was the only vehicle in the driveway that I didn't immediately recognize.

I expected the door to open, but when it didn't, I cupped my eyes and peered into the back window. Dad was looking right at me but not budging. I inferred from that that he was waiting for me to make the first move, so I swallowed my pride and reached for the door handle. I found it unlocked and slipped into the backseat beside him, shutting the door back to block out the cold air. The car was off, so it was cold inside, too, but as soon as I was seated, the driver started the engine and blasted the heater.

He had been trying to conserve gas, I suppose. From beside me, Dad piped up, speaking directly to his personal driver. "To the airport, please."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I cut in, bringing the driver to a halt. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror and I shook my head. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm just here to talk to my dad for a minute."

"To the airport," Dad repeated, more gruffly than before.

"Dad, I'm not going," I said. "I just came out here because Chris said you wanted to talk. So...let's talk. Let's catch up."

"Hey, I'm just trying to work," Mr. Unnamed Driver interjected. "Just trying to make money to feed my family."

"You'll get paid," I assured him, "plus extra for all the trouble."

Mr. Unnamed Driver let out an awkward chuckle. "If you say so."

"We're about to eat. You can come in and have dinner with us if you want, but I'm not sitting out here all night. Nothing against you, I mean, it's not that I don't want to see you, but it's cold out here and I want to be inside with the guys. Can't you just come back in?" I pleaded. Dad was so angry his hands were trembling, which I noticed under the pale glow spilling in from our motion lights outside the home. He wouldn't even look at me and, instead, trained his eyes out the window. "I'm really trying here."

"You're not," he argued.

"Yes, I am."

"You've always put your family first for pretty much all your life. Now we're, what? Last?"

"Of course you're not last. You guys have never been last to me. I don't think I should have to do exactly what you want me to do just to be considered a good daughter. You lived your life and made your decisions, and I'm sure your parents didn't always agree with everything you did. This is no different. I'm just trying to live my life and be happy, and Chris makes me happy. I don't know what else to say, other than I wish you would spend the night here. Spend time with me."

"I will as soon as he leaves," Dad said. This time, he turned and pointed directly at the house.

I rolled my eyes. "He's not leaving. This is his house."

"I thought it was yours," he mocked.

"Okay, I really am not playing this game," I replied. I pushed my hair away from my face and steadied my hand on the door lever, ready to let myself out at a moment's notice. "You can't push me away and then blame me that our relationship is suffering. I'm reaching out to you, but you have to make some effort, too. You're always welcome here to visit, so don't blame it on Chris stopping you. He's not. In fact, he's the one who told me to tell you that you could spend the night or come in for dinner if you wanted. If you don't want to come in and face him like a man, I can't stop you from leaving, but don't twist this around and say I'm turning my back on you when that's actually exactly what you're doing to me."

"He's making a fool of you, ya know."

"Excuse me?" I said, frowning. I could feel deep wrinkles carving themselves into my brow. I thought I heard him wrong for a second, and I wanted to ignore it and move on, but curiosity got the best of me.

"Him," Dad repeated, once again pointing at the house. He didn't respect Chris enough to even use his name, which pissed me off to no end, but I quickly forgot about my anger and returned to the main point at hand.

"What about him?"

"Don't you get it? He's using you to get to me."

This was a sensitive subject for me, for obvious reasons that go without repeating. I didn't like hearing these types of things because it made all my doubts swell up inside me until they were triple their normal size. Here I was, thinking I was over feeling insecure about my relationship with Chris, but, nope, it was right there with me, where it had been all along. Shakily, I breathed out slowly and folded my arms. "He wouldn't do that. We trust each other."

"Do you, though?" Dad asked. I could read his arrogant smirk even in the dark. I think he sensed he had discovered my weak spot and he was going to play into it, get into my head even more. I had to stop his manipulation before it started. The best answer to that would have been to climb out of the car and go back inside, but I was paralyzed. "What would you say if I told you he just admitted to it?"

I cleared my throat and stared straight ahead, sensing a few nervous glances in the rearview mirror from the driver. He didn't deserve to be placed in such an uncomfortable situation. I felt guilty, but not enough to end things right then. I had to hear Dad out. "I'd say you're lying to get me to do what you want, which is to go home with you."

"Come on," Dad laughed. "Even you don't believe that. You know he lies."

"He has before, but we've been over that, he apologized, and we moved on together."

"He just laughed about you in my face. That's how arrogant and smug he is," Dad said, all traces of humor leaving his face. Instead, those ridges were replaced with deep, troubling lines on his forehead and near the corners of his mouth. He leaned in toward me, subtly giving his words more power, whether those were his intentions or not. "He stood out here just now and made fun of how gullible you are. He rubbed it in my face that he's got my daughter and isn't going to give her back. He only dates you so he can work through you to get to me."

"He wouldn't," I said. My folded arms faltered, and I lowered them, placing my hands in my lap instead. Softer, I repeated, "He wouldn't dare."

"Well, he did. I guarantee he's in there right now laughing it up with his friends."

"Okay, I'm not going to listen to this," I said. I turned my body and reached for the door, but Dad's next words still haunt me to this day. Even as I retell this story, I remember the haunting way my heart rattled inside my body, each beat making every one of my limbs tremble along with it.

"I came this close to knocking him right out, that goddamn weasel," Dad pressed on. "He had the gall to call you a slut."

I slowed to a still. I felt hollow, like there were an outline of my body but no soul inside anymore. I needed to believe Chris couldn't betray me like this, but yet, he had in the pretty recent past. He had done it once before, which had to mean he could do it again. "He c-called m-me a...what?"

A shaky, cold burst of air hit the back of my neck, and I realized a second later it was from my dad, who has scooted in close enough to wrap his arm around me from behind. "He's a vulgar son of a bitch. He called you a slut and said he could have you anytime, anyplace. He bragged about how easy it was to, you know, to have his way with you. He thinks it's one big joke, that he can use you up and just throw you out when he's finished. He's planning on dumping you after the big surgery, by the way, as long as it goes well. He said so himself just now, that you're not even his type. He likes blondes. He laughed about having some hot blonde on the side already and said after his surgery he's kicking you out of this house, all so he can rub it in your face and mine that he never loved you in the first place. He said all this today. He enjoyed getting to me, and he's going to love getting to you, too, when all is said and done. He's always been using you, right from the start. Didn't you learn from the first time this happened? How many more times does he have to do it before you get it?"

I focused in on our porch light, at the moths flitting around it with not a care in the world, except capturing the warmth of the bulb. I stared until my eyes hurt, desperate to hone in on something to make me feel grounded, like I were still a part of this world I had come to know, because if not for that light and those moths, I would have believed I had died a slow and painful death and was floating endlessly up and away. Existence as I knew it had come to a grinding halt. I didn't know what it meant anymore to be alive. Dad was not making this up. He knew too much and was being too specific in his accusations. Chris had to have actually told him these things.

These were statements Chris would have made, and that he had actually made the first time we had broken up from a relationship that wasn't real in the first place. He had told me I was a good lay, that that was all I had been needed for, and as my father recited these lines to me, I came to terms with knowing I had been played a second time. The ring, the promises of marriage and kids, it was all a hoax. Chris wanted all those things, but not with me. No, he wanted them with a sexy blonde who was probably serving tables at Hooters as we spoke, just waiting until I was gone so she could move into my bedroom and live her own version of happily ever after with Chris.

Dad fumbled in the dark until he found my hand and stroked my knuckles. "Stop letting him take advantage of you like this, honey. He's only going to hurt you even worse than the first time he pulled this."

Every part of my body hurt. Normal feeling had come back in a sudden rush, and now all I felt was pain. I hunched forward in the backseat and rested my head against the rear side of the driver's seat. I couldn't know for sure what had gone down, but until I did, I wasn't spending another minute alone with Chris. I refused to give him the satisfaction of chewing me up and spitting me out for a second time, and especially with an audience of two waiting for me back inside. I couldn't even imagine how stupid I appeared from the outside looking in, how dumb Mikey would probably think I was when I skulked back home.

I had left behind the possibility of a real future with Mikey, all because I was too blind to see what Chris was pulling. I was nauseous, hot, and faint. A huge part of me wanted to stay, go back inside, and rain down my fury upon Chris, but I also wanted to tuck tail, run away, and never return. I couldn't handle nor process the enormity of it all, so I didn't try. I rushed to the safest arms I had known since the beginning of time and hugged my dad until tears squeezed out of my eyes and down my cheeks, until I had effectively fallen apart in the midst of our embrace.

Dad kissed the top of my ear, I guess since it was the only part of me he could get to easily, seeing as how I had buried my whole head in his chest and wasn't letting up. He whispered to me, "Go and pack your things, sweetheart. Wash your face before you do. Don't even give him the satisfaction of knowing he's made you cry. Just pack your things and bring them to the door. I'll help you bring them out here."

"Yeah," I squeaked, "okay." I took one look at the house and broke down, hiding against Dad once more. "I can't do it. I can't go in there."

"Then don't. We can replace anything you brought here anyway. Lord knows we've got enough money. Driver," he said, directing his attention to the front seat, "to the airport, please."

I can admit it was foolish to trust what my dad was saying without first questioning Chris, but I couldn't face him anymore. Dad had played into my deepest and darkest fears, and I didn't know who to believe, but I sure knew who I was leaning toward believing. We backed out of the driveway slowly, and if I would have looked up at exactly the right moment, I might have caught Cousin Chad peering out the blinds at our vehicle. Inside the house, unbeknownst to me at the time, our car pulled away as Chad hurriedly called Chris back into the living room.

"Hey, man, why'd they leave?" Chad asked, as told to me later by Chris. Chris shuffled in with a frown, rushing to the blinds and looking out himself.

"They left?" Chris said, more to himself than anyone else. "What the fuck?"

"Did he get into her head?" Speewee piped up from the couch.

Immediately, the blinds pinged off one another as Chris let go, stepped back from the window, and drove his fist directly into the nearest wall. He shook the pain out of his knuckles and gritted his teeth at the damaged drywall he would now have to get fixed. "Fuck! Shit! Fucking goddamn it!"

"You all right, dude?" Speewee asked.

Chris spun around, eyes wild with rage. "He lied to get her to go with him. Whatever the fuck he told her, it was bullshit."

And that was how, a matter of weeks before major surgery, I left Chris. I left him on the basis of lies.

Unbeknownst to me, at the time.