"Ouch!" I jump back, away from the stove as the sizzling hot bacon grease pops up and burns my forearm. I twist my arm in some convoluted way to assess the damage on my arm. It doesn't look so bad. It's just a grease burn. I rub it in a circle to try and rid myself of the pain, suck it up and grab my fork again. I stand off to the side so the grease doesn't pop on me again and turn the bacon in the pan with the fork. I turn my head and tuck my mouth into my shoulder while I stifle a yawn. I'm actually pretty tired still. I didn't go back to sleep after the big ordeal between me and Alex. I wanted to but as I laid there in my bed listening to the heavy snores of his drunken slumber, I just couldn't. I started crying so hard that my entire body felt weak and I thought for sure that the feeling of crying like that would've put me to sleep but it didn't. So I laid there and cried for about an hour before I decided that I needed to get up and make him something to eat to feed his hangover. This just isn't the reunion I had in mind for us. I didn't expect for him to be a drunken mess my first time seeing him in two weeks. I guess having him here is better than having him a million miles away, drunken or not.
I sort of knew that he was going to do something crazy. When I first realized that he was drunk upon opening the door to let him in my apartment, I knew that something was going to happen because that's just how Alex gets when he's drunk. Alex is the worst when he's drunk. He's so abusive, mostly verbally and sometimes physically. He's a horrible drunk. I had braced myself fr his words. Even though I had just woken up from a dead sleep, I knew what was going to be coming and I braced myself. And for the most part, I was prepared for him to call me a bitch and all the many terrible things he's called me before. I was ready for that. What I wasn't ready for was him accusing me of cheating on him. Even more so than that, I was totally blindsided by him shaking me out of a deep sleep to take off my bra. I've spent the last hour or so trying to forget how embarrassing and humiliating it was to stand there while he examined my body for evidence of me cheating. I just thought that he would believe me if I told him that I wasn't sleeping with another man. He should've believed me. I thought for sure our relationship had trust. I guess I was wrong but then again, I've been wrong about a lot lately.
Since the bacon is close to being fully cooked, I turn the heat down to low and walk back over to the counter next to my fridge to grab the pancake mix I bought from the store about half an hour ago. I know for sure that Alex is going to wake up hungover and I haven't gotten around to grocery shopping just yet so I walked two blocks down the street to the supermarket and bought breakfast food for his hangover. Don't ask why I haven't bought food for my house when there's a grocery store two blocks away. Just know that today is the first time since I left California that I've actually gotten out of bed before 3:00 in the afternoon. And it's the first time I've actually used my stove. I rip open the box of Bisquick and shake some of it into a glass mixing bowl without measuring it out. I like to think of myself as a pretty good cook...good enough to the point where I never measure anything out and I don't follow recipes. I open up my fridge and grab a carton of eggs. I crack a couple of eggs into the Bisquick and am interrupted by the loud buzzing of my phone. I wipe my hands on the seat of my shorts free of the egg yolks that splashed on my hands and go over to the counter where my phone is at.
I don't recognize the number that's calling me and I have half a mind to ignore the call. I pick it up anyway and slide my finger across the screen. I quickly turn the bacon off so it doesn't burn, sit down at my kitchen table and hold the phone to my ear. "Hello?" I call out to the person I don't know on the other end of the phone. While I wait for an answer, I cross my legs.
"Hi Jo, it's Helen." Her voice on the other end sounds energetic and really lively. I can't help but wonder why Alex's mom is calling me though. My stomach immediately ties itself into knots. "Is Alex around? I tried calling his phone and got no answer, that's why I'm calling you honey." It's like she just read my mind. I breathe a sigh of relief and attentively listen to her. "I talked to him earlier this morning and he told me he was in Massachusetts with you but now, of course he's not answering. Is he there?"
"He's actually asleep right now. Do you want me to tell him to call you back when he wakes up?" Now that I know I'm not in trouble, I stand back up and brace the phone against my ear with my shoulder so I can continue making my pancakes.
"Yeah, that would be great." I hear the sigh in her voice. I guess what she had to talk to Alex about was pretty important. I use a whisk to break up the egg yolks in my pancake batter and look around for the butter I bought since I can't remember where I put it. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you too, Jo." She says again.
"Okay." I find the butter and dump an entire stick of it into the batter. "What about?" I ask.
"Just about things, sweetie." She sounds cheerful about it so I know that I'm really not about to be yelled at or anything. I don't know why I feel so oddly comfortable talking to Alex's mother. I think it's the motherliness in her voice, maybe. I don't know for sure. Something about her makes me comfortable though. "Like how are you doing, honey? Is everything okay?"
"Um...yeah, everything's okay." I take the bowl of pancake mix over to the stove and sprinkle some sugar from the sugar shaker to sweeten the pancakes a little. I stir it again and clear my throat. "How are you guys?" I think she might be able to hear the fact that I'm confused. I'm just not sure what she's asking. "How's Amber and Donald? Are you guys all okay?"
She chuckles into the receiver. "Jo, I'm not gonna bite you, sweetie." I hear the air shift in the background. "Look, by the way Alex is talking, I'm pretty confident that you're going to be part of my family sooner or later and if that's true, I wanna know how you're doing. So when I ask you how you're doing, I really mean it. Don't ask about me, honey. We're all alright here. Now, how are you?"
I giggle softly and stick my finger into the mixture to taste it and make sure it'll make good pancakes. "I'm fine, Miss Helen. Everything's fine with me." I taste the pancake mix and am satisfied with it. "Alex and I are okay too. Things were tough for a while there but we're getting back on track it seems." I have that weird feeling that Amber calls "butterflies" in my stomach again. I got them when she said that she thinks I'm going to be part of her family someday. I don't think she has any idea how much I want that to happen. "I don't think we quite figured out what we're going to do yet but we're managing. We're doing well."
"Is Alex treating you okay, though?" She coughs softly into the phone. "Is he being good to you? Supportive? Taking care of you?"
"Yeah." I nod my head as if she can see me. "Alex is treating me well." I feel bad for lying to her. I bite my lip. "He came here drunk, but...I mean, he's okay. It's not too bad."
"He's been drinking a lot lately, actually." She sounds like she's gently dropping a bomb on me. "I've been talking to him about once a week. I was talking to him for a while after you left, too. He wasn't doing so good with it. Every time I would call him he was drinking. I told him that he needed to cut back on it but..." She clears her throat. "As long as he's treating you well though. You know, I remember him telling me about you...that you don't really have people you can talk to. I'm not trying to be pushy or all up in your business but I'm here to listen if you need to talk. Even if you need to vent about my son, I'll listen." I laugh at her when she says that. "You can laugh but I'm serious." She's laughing too. "I'm serious, honey. I'm Alex's mother...If anyone knows what you're talking about when it comes to Alex, it's me."
"I hear you." I bend down to look in my bottom cupboard for a skillet to make the pancakes in. "Alex gives me a lot to vent about too..." I sigh and start rubbing butter on the bottom of the skillet so the pancakes won't stick since it's not a nonstick skillet. "...Um." I bite my lip again and try to decide if I want to talk about this. She said I can vent to her about Alex whenever I want but I really don't want him to be angry with me for talking to his mom because I know for a fact when he sobers up, he's going to be really apologetic. He might feel like I'm attacking him if I tell his mom about it. "Can I please talk to you about something?" I stop buttering the skillet and sit down. "I mean... really talk?"
"I'm listening, Jo. I'm listening to you...go ahead and talk." She makes herself sound so supportive.
"...So you know Alex came here drunk. I don't know if you picked up on that when you talked to him earlier but he was. He was really drunk when he showed up on my doorstep and fine, whatever." I try so hard to blink back tears but I know that I'm going to cry. "Alex has been drunk around me before and yeah, he's mean...he's a mean drunk but I know how to deal with him when he's drunk. I don't like it but I know what to do to deal with it, I do." I cross my legs and hold the phone to my ear with my hand to give my shoulder a break. "But like..." I sniff and she's dead silent on the end of the phone which makes me feel good. She's listening to me. "He thought I was cheating on him and stuff and...I...he made me take off my clothes. I stood there naked while he checked me for hickeys and stuff and I know that's not n..." My voice cracks as tears stream down my cheeks. I thought I was done crying about this but I'm not. "I know that's not normal...for him to do that, I mean. It's not normal for your boyfriend to make you strip while he checks your body for evidence that you're cheating." I sniff and quickly wipe my eyes. "I don't know if I should talk to him. I don't know if I should bring it up...I know when he's sober he's going to apologize. I know that if he was sober he wouldn't have done that. H...he grabbed me pretty hard but...I just don't know." I sniff again. "What do you think I should do?"
"...First of all..." Her voice is so much different now. It was really cheerful a second ago but now that I've just poured my heart out to her, her voice is harsher with more intensity and she seems angry. "Jo, you make sure you have him call me when he wakes up. You make SURE he calls me..." Oh, she's definitely angry. "I may not have been there for his entire childhood but I know good and goddamn well that Alexander was not raised like that. His father would lay into his ass if he were here and he heard about this, believe that. James didn't play things like that. James taught Alex to respect women and what he did to you Jo, was DISRESPECTFUL and I WILL be talking to him about that. He will NEVER do that to you again, Jo. Ever."
"I just don't know what I should do." I have to be very honest. When Alex made me take my clothes off like that, I felt so worthless to him. I shouldn't have had to do that. He should've just believed me. You know, I've had a lot of embarrassing and humiliating moments in my 23 years but that had to have been the worst. To just stand there while he was circling my naked body took a small piece of my humility. I didn't like that..I was so uncomfortable. "I'm so scared that he's becoming an alcoholic, Miss Helen. Like... the last time I talked to him over the phone, he was drunk. He shows up here this morning, he's drunk. Now you're telling me that every time you've talked to him he was drunk? What if he's an alcoholic? I can't deal with that. I love him so much and you know, I'd do anything in this WORLD for Alex. But if he's an alcoholic, what's the point? He treats me so bad...how do you love someone like that? Someone that treats you so horribly? I want to love him but if he's in too deep with his drinking, how can I?"
"That's a decision Alex has to make. You can't make that decision for him." She says that so smoothly. "Jo, Alex loves you. When he talks to me about you, I can hear it in his voice. He's happy, he's lively, he's energetic, he's so in love with you that it kills him. I wasn't around much but I still very much know my son. I know Alex and I know when he's happy about something and Jo, he's happy about you. He loves you so deeply. And if he loves you the way I believe he does, he'll make that decision to put the alcohol down. But you can't make that decision for him. He has to decide...you understand me?"
"Thank you, Miss Helen." I sniff again. I'm done crying but my nose is still running. "He's sorry...I know he is. He wouldn't have done it if he was sober. Don't be too hard on him. I just needed someone to talk to..."
"Don't make excuses for his behavior, Jo. Drunk or not, there's no excuse for him to treat you that way. Don't make excuses for him."
"Okay." I merely whisper.
"And stop calling me 'Miss Helen'. It's ridiculous for you to call me that and it's borderline offensive."
I chuckle and finally stand back up to continue with breakfast. "Well what would you like me to call you?"
"You can call me Helen...or you can call me Mom, since I'm gonna be your mother-in-law eventually anyway."
"You're pretty confident about that." I chuckle again.
"You're the only one I approve of for my son to marry, so."
Instead of giggling this time, I full out laugh. It's nice to know that Alex's mom likes me. I think that's a real important part of any relationship, not just mine. You always see in the movies about how the significant others' parents hate the spouse or whatever. I guess I'm just fortunate that Helen likes me. At least that's one hurdle me and Alex won't have to tackle. His family seems to approve of me for the most part. "So I'll talk to you later. I was actually in the middle of making breakfast when you called."
"Alright, Jo. Make sure you have Alex call me."
"I will."
"Take care, sweetie."
X X X
I knock on my own bedroom door very softly and quietly open the door to prevent heavily disturbing him. "Alex?" I poke my head in the room and look directly at him. He's buried underneath the covers of my bed to the point where I can't see anything but the outline of his arms and his butt. I tuck loose strands of hair behind my ears and tiptoe completely inside the room. "Alex..." I call his name again as I approach the bed. I'll admit that I'm a bit apprehensive to see how he's going to react to me waking him up. I'm not sure if the liquor has completely worn off or if he's still drunk and that worries me. I just mentally prepare myself for the possibility that he very well might be drunk when I wake him. I put my hand against his back and gently shake him. He's such a monster when he's drunk. I've dealt with a lot of crap from Alex since I've known him. I mean, I always knew he was a bit of a jerk and oftentimes, his rudeness would creep back in from time to time. But I really think the way he treated me a few hours ago was the worst he's ever treated me. He accused me of doing something he KNOWS I wouldn't do and when he doesn't believe me, he makes me strip?
I guess I can understand how bad that probably looked but I don't get why he had to be so mean about it when I TOLD him that I wasn't sleeping with anybody else. He was just going based off of what he knew though, so I'm kind of excusing him. I know his mom said I shouldn't make excuses for his behavior and I know she's probably right but that's just my way of coping. If I don't make excuses for him, I'm going to end up hating his guts for what he did. It helps me to keep reminding myself that he wouldn't do it if he were sober. And it helps when I think about how confused he must have been, especially being drunk and all. Alex just knows that I never sleep in bras. I never, ever, ever sleep in bras and he knows that. So to see me in bed with wet hair, my bra on and stuff...that probably made him think and I guess I don't quite blame him for that. "Alex." He's sleeping like a log. Nothing I do can budge him. "Alex, wake up." I pull the blankets back and stare down at him. I have a problem with staying mad at him. I can't stay mad at him. Look at him...how could I? I stroke his hair back and rub his cheek. He's my baby. I bend down and rest my lips on his temple. "Alex." I whisper in his ear.
His eyes snap open and I flinch a little bit, for not knowing what mood he's going to be in when he gets up. "Jo?" He mutters my name into the pillow he's lying on and grunts. He's questioning me, as if he doesn't believe it's really me that's waking him up.
"Yeah baby, it's me." I stroke his hair some more and kiss his cheek this time. "You ready to wake up?" He grunts again and closes his eyes. "You have a headache?" I ask. He nods his head. "I have something for that." I rub his back. "Wake up, baby." I don't know why I tend to call him "baby" a lot. Most of the time it just comes out. Like I'll just be talking to him and it just slips. It doesn't seem like he's going to be getting up anytime soon so I climb into the bed next to him. "Your breakfast is gonna get cold." I run my fingers through his soft hair and press my lips to his forehead. He smells like liquor still. "You wanna go eat?"
"What'd you make?" He mumbles into the pillow again.
"Pancakes, bacon, eggs..." I uncurl one of his loose curls and watch it furl back up when I let it go. "You have to get up though." I just love playing with Alex's hair. It's so fluffy and thick and all wavy. I love it. "You want me to make your plate and bring it to you?"
"No." He grunts once more and picks his head up. "You come here..." He lifts up the blanket and scoots over to make room for me. "Lay down next to me." I open my mouth to speak but he takes the words right out of my mouth. "The food will still be there when we get up. We can eat later. Right now, I want you to lay down with me." I sigh and climb underneath the covers with him as per his request. He grabs my arm and pulls me towards him and keeps pulling until eventually, I fall onto his chest. Ironically, I'm not in the mood to cuddle with him. I'm still a little bit unsure about him. I can't just forget how mean he was to me. He wraps both his arms around my waist and holds me really tight but I keep my arms down at my sides. "...You still mad at me?" At least he remembers. I really thought he wasn't going to. "Jo..." I just stay quiet and look at my nails. They're getting pretty long, by the way. "Josephine." I know he's just using my full name to get me to pay attention to him and I'm not having it. He sighs. "Look Jo..." I roll my eyes. And here comes the apology. "I'm not gonna apologize for what I did because I honestly don't deserve for you to forgive me." Well that's different. "I hope you're able to but I don't deserve it. If you do decide to forgive me, thank you...if you don't, I understand. But just know that I love you, okay? And I'm never drinking again. And I'm never letting go...okay? No drinking and no letting go."
I look up at him with an unamused look on my face. "I'm serious!" He exclaims. I dramatically roll my eyes and turn my attention back to my nails. "Jo, if you don't want me to EVER drink again, I won't. I'll do whatever you want."
"Alex, what I want right now is-"
"Don't say that, Jo." He squeezes me tighter. "Please don't say that. I know I messed up big this time and I'll be making it up to you for the rest of my life if I need to. I'll make it up to you, I promise. But don't say what I think you're going to say. Don't say it, Jo. I'm here. I know you might not believe me but I'm serious. I wasn't serious when I let you go but I'm serious now. I'm serious and I want you. I want it to be forever, too. I want that...better or worse, sickness and health crap. Just forgive me. I'll make you...I'll...I won't make you regret it...forgive me, Jo. Please."
"I can't keep—"
"I know. I'm just stupid. I...I started drinking because I couldn't deal with losing you. I couldn't deal with that and I needed some way to. I won't drink anymore. I just want you...please Jo. Please. Whatever you want, I'll do it. Whatever you want..."
"Alex, I'm not saying that-"
"I know but Jo-"
"Can you let me talk?!" I push away from him out of annoyance. I look at him for the first time since the last time I did and see that tears are lining the rims of his eyes. "Alex, I'm not saying that this is it for us. I'm not saying that." I shake my head. "I'm just saying that this can't keep happening. I can't keep letting you treat me like this. Something has to give. And I hate to do it, but I'm putting my foot down. I understand that you only drank or whatever to deal with us not being together. I totally understand that. I had my own ways of coping too and I'm not knocking you for that. I'm not. But my ways of coping aren't hurting you. My ways of coping don't degrade you, humiliate you or embarrass you. My ways of coping don't include me pushing you into walls, digging my nails into you or calling you names. Your way of coping is harmful not only to you but to me. And I'm putting my foot down. Either you stop drinking or we can't be together, period. I can't keep excusing your actions. I'll keep excusing it and eventually, it'll escalate into you actually hurting me and I can't put myself in that position, no matter how much I love you. So all I'm saying is you have to stop drinking. I'm not breaking up with you, I'm not telling you to get out of my house and I'm not saying that I don't love you anymore because I do." He's crying so I reach up and wipe his tears. "I love you, Alex. But you have to do better than this. You have to do better than showing up drunk off your ass at seven in the morning, accusing me of stuff we BOTH know I didn't do."
"You do love me, though?" He's actually crying pretty hard.
"Of course I do." I keep wiping his tears. "I love you with all my heart."
"Good...because I can't lose you, Jo." Although he's the one crying, he pulls me close to his chest again and holds me. "I can't deal with losing another one. It'd be even worse if it was you. I need you...I hate myself for it but I do. I need you so bad. I can't live without you..." He shakes his head. "And when I say I'm not letting go, I mean that. I mean that, Jo." He's squeezing me so tight that I can't breathe but it sort of feels good. "I want you forever. I'm not going back to California. I'm staying right here. You and me, we're gonna stay right here. I'll get us a house closer to your school...a real house. One with a fence and everything, just like you always wanted. And when you're done with school, we can go anywhere in the world you wanna go to raise our kids. If you wanna go to California, we can go to California. If you wanna raise our babies in Massachusetts, we can. Kansas? That's fine too...I just don't want to lose you again. I can't deal with that."
"Alex, don't be ridiculous." I reciprocate the way he's holding me by wrapping my arms around his waist. "You still have a job in California and a house...you can't just pick up and move to Massachusetts just like that. You're gonna have to go back to California, at least for your job. Be realistic." For once, I'm being the realistic one and he's being the dreamer.
"I quit that damn job." He mumbles.
"YOU WHAT?!"
"I quit." He shrugs. "It wasn't worth it."
"ALEX, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! THAT WAS YOUR DREAM! YOU CAN'T JUST..."
"Jo, all the money and dream jobs in the world aren't worth losing you. I'd much rather be...be broke with you than rich alone at some job I hate. I hated that job and let's be real, I don't need it. I don't need a job, Jo. What I need is you." He puts his lips on my forehead. "I can keep the house in California, it can be our vacation spot. I don't have any obligations out there anymore without that job. I'm here for you and we can make this work. I might have to go back just to get my stuff and my car and all that but I'm staying here with you. You know I've got you. For as long as you need me, I've got you. You're gonna finish school and we're gonna get married and have kids and that's how we end, Jo. That's how we end. Not like that...not in two different states."
"Yeah, you don't need a job until you're broke from putting me through school. Alex, you need to do something..." I shake my head at him. I can't believe he quit his job on a whim. And it was probably on a drunken whim at that.
"Don't worry about me and the money, Jo." He smirks. "I'm in love with a genius that's gonna be a hotshot doctor someday. She can be my sugar mama." He winks at me.
I crack a smile. "So you're serious about this? You're sure?"
"I'm more than sure." He kisses me on my lips. "I'm absolutely certain." He keeps kissing me on my lips in between sentences. "We can make this work." I close my eyes and kiss him back.
"We can make this work." I nod to agree with him. I put my head against his chest and close my eyes, just thinking about this life we can live together. For once, I don't feel like my dreams of having a family with Alex are far-fetched. I feel like now that he's staying with me, we can have it all. The house with the fence, the wedding, the babies...we can have it all. Is it bad that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop? Things don't go this positively for me, ever. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just drop already...what's the catch here? Alex kisses my cheek pretty hard and holds me closer to his body. I push the negativity from my head and close my eyes again, falling into a daydream about the life with Alex that's actually possible.
"Did you ever think this was going to happen?" I nuzzle my cheek in his chest and keep my arms lightly wrapped around his waist as he sways back and forth slowly in tune with the music, with me in his arms. His hands are on my lower back, just above my butt and stroking me. I think it's crazy how there's a room full of people surrounding us but still, swaying here in his arms, I feel like we're the only two people even in the room. Granted, we are the only two on the dance floor at the moment but still. I can't even feel other peoples' eyes on us. It's just me and him. "I didn't." I whisper to him.
"I hoped it would." He whispers back. Today was a fairytale. It was nothing like the wedding we planned out back when I was a naive 23 year old girl with a pink dress and a princess tiara. I have to admit that it was so much better than that. I never have thought I was all that pretty but standing here dancing with my new husband, I feel like the prettiest woman in the world. My dress isn't pink like I wanted back then but standing here as a 26 year old, I think I made the right decision with navy blue and silver. It's strapless, with pure silver rhinestone and crystal hearts on the bodice. The back is open and the bottom is flowy with silver and crystal hearts on the bottom. It's beautiful and it goes nicely with Alex's white tuxedo. I don't have a tiara in my hair but I do have a pretty sparkly clip holding half of my hair up. The other half is down and the hairdresser put lots of pretty spiral curls in it. I don't quite look like a princess but I sure do feel like one.
"I never thought it would...from the first day I met you, I didn't think you'd be the one I'd marry." I turn my head and lift it up. "I'm glad I did though." I smile at him.
"I love you, Jo." He says that with so much seriousness.
"I love you too." I pucker my lips and he leans down and kisses me. As a reminder that we're actually not the only two people in here, everyone around us "awwws" at our kiss.
"Jo?" Alex calls my name and when I go to open my eyes and find that I can't, that's when I realize that I wasn't in fact daydreaming. I had actually fallen asleep. I didn't realize how tired I actually am. I was dreaming...and damn, it was a good dream.
"Hmm?" I mutter, still half-asleep and half-awake.
"...You wanna marry me?" He says that with a tone of voice that suggests that he's really nervous.
"Hmm?" I'm not sure I heard him right.
"Will you marry me?" He asks with the proper terminology this time.
I lift my head up and wake myself up so quick. "Are you serious?" I wrinkle my brow and narrow my eyes. His eyes are directly on me and by his facial expression, it was something he really had to muster up the courage to do. He was probably thinking about it for the entire ten or so minutes I was sleeping and dreaming. "...Are you serious?" I ask again.
"...Yeah." He nods his head like he's come to the realization himself that he's serious. "Yeah, I'm serious." He smiles. "Will you marry me, Josephine Wilson?"
"...A..." My heart sinks down to the pit of my stomach. I shake my head a little then stop myself. "I...I..." How do I tell him this? I mean...HELL YEAH I want to marry this man. But not...right now? I'm not... "Alex...are you..." I swallow a lump in my throat. "I..." I can't find the words to say. "I'm not...ready for that." I shake my head at him. His eyes fall and I can see the emotion drain from his face. "We...barely..." I just hurt him bad...it's written all over his face. "No, Alex...I'm not...I'm not ready. I'm...I'm 23. I want to..."
"Great." He murmurs and pulls the covers back and stands up.
"Alex, wait...just hold on. Let me explain..."
"Nope. Nothing to explain." He's crushed. He goes over to the door, opens it, leaves the room and slams it shut behind him.
He has to let me explain...
