When You Think Of Me

Chapter Three

He studied the "20" on the outside of her door, wondering when he had last stood on this side of the door long enough to even register the apartment number.  The green paint was peeling in the upper right corner, and the doorknob was scratched up – mostly likely from rings on the girls' hands, he decided, or the variety of people that entered this apartment turning the knob with keys still in their hand.  He'd done it, too.  More times than he would ever be able to count.

            He closed his eyes, imagining her on the other side of the door, oblivious to his presence in the hallway.  He could hear tiny sounds, from what sounded like the kitchen.  She was probably cooking, maybe a dinner for all of them, or cookies for Ben's next visit. 

            A deep breath, a trembling hand lifted to knock – twice, softly.  A pause, then footsteps, the doorknob turning…

            Her appearance behind the door left him speechless, his heart thudding even more wildly than it had ten seconds before.  She held a potholder in one hand, but it dropped to the floor as her eyes widened, her hands beginning to tremble in shock. 

            "Chandler," she whispered, taking two steps backward, her eyes never leaving his face.  She looked like she'd seen a ghost.  He guessed she probably felt like she had.

            "Hi," he whispered back plaintively, when he felt that he had regained his ability to speak.  He almost laughed at his stupidity.  He certainly owed her more than just 'Hi'.

            "What…I mean, how…" she stuttered, and he couldn't blame her for being unable to find words.  "You…are you really here?"

            He nodded, and slowly took a step toward her.  She didn't back away.  Instead, she began to sob and threw herself toward him, barely giving him enough warning to prepare himself to catch her.  She sobbed against his chest, gripping him tightly.  He slowly lifted his arms to encircle her, surprised and slightly frightened by her response to his presence.  He had expected her to be icy, hateful, wary.  Pretty much anything but this. 

            "You're here," she finally whispered in a shaky voice, burying her face in his chest.  "You're back."

            "I'm back," he assured her, holding her even more tightly. "I'm here, Mon."

            "Why'd you leave?" she asked, her voice still trembling.  "Why did you leave me?"

            "I had to – " he began, but she wasn't listening.  She pulled away, shaking violently now, her hands squeezing his arms so tightly it was painful.  And she was repeating the query over and over again, louder and louder – "Why did you leave me, why did you leave me, why did you leave me" – until it finally merged into the accusation, the decibels rising with each statement and her eyes flashing with fire. 

            "You left me.  You left me.  You left me.  You left me you left me you left me you left me you…"

            Consciousness jolted Chandler from the dream, and he bolted upright in the bed, shaking visibly, but not from his sweat-soaked t-shirt or damp hair.  His body remained frozen while it adjusted to wakefulness, but his head was swimming.  He kept hearing the same phrase running over and over through his head, the accusing tone of her voice forever imprinted on his mind.

            The dreams were getting worse.

            Still shivering, Chandler pulled his wet t-shirt over his head and tossed it in the corner of the room, then burrowed back under the covers, trying to erase the nightmare from his mind.  Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy.  The dream was the result of the situation he had brought on himself. 

            It was his own damn fault.  He'd brought it on himself. 

A hundred days have made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face
A thousand lies have made me colder
And I don't think I can look at this the same

All the miles that separate
Disappear now when I'm dreamin' of your face…

            It had all started with his mother. 

Not long after all of their friends found out about their secret relationship, Nora was in New York on a layover for a few hours, and she had begged him to meet her for dinner.  He had agreed, reluctantly, and over dinner, his mother's perpetual declaration that he "needed to fall in love" had finally defeated him, and he had confided that he'd already fallen in love.  With Monica.

            Nora had been delighted.  In the barrage that had followed his announcement, she had proclaimed Monica every wondrous adjective under the sun – all of which Chandler agreed with, of course – and then had moved on to praising her son for his good taste.  Chandler had endured it all good-naturedly, though he felt that his mother was going a bit overboard, as usual.  She acted like she'd really expected him to spend his entire life alone…or maybe to follow in his father's footsteps.

            Somewhere near the end of her tirade – just as they were leaving to go back to the airport – she'd asked him when he planned to propose.  And then, with an ecstatic expression on her face, she had started crooning about grandchildren.  It had shocked him.  Not the thought of having children (though, truthfully, that was rather horrifying), but that his mother was happy with the prospect of being a grandmother.  He'd always assumed that she would be the kind of woman that would balk at being called "Grandma" and would invent some other title for his children to call her.  For some reason, in his head her derivative of "Grandma" was always "Gi-Gi". 

            But it wasn't until she used the phrase "little Bings" that he had started to freak out.  He'd been a "little Bing" himself once, and it was an experience he lived every day to forget.  Living in the shadow of gossip about his father's sexuality and his mother's…sexuality.  Forever labeled because of what his parents did.  "Little Bings" to her might be adorable little children with Chandler's eyes and Monica's smile, but all Chandler had been able to see at that moment was those same precious children suffering ridicule because he, their father, had screwed up.  Geez, he didn't even have to be gay.  From all reports, Ben's classmates took his two mothers completely in stride.  It could be anything.  One wrong move, and he could scar his own children for life.  The thought chilled him, because he knew he more than had the ability to screw up.  He was pretty good at it actually – he was a Bing, after all, wasn't he? 

            The panic had been momentary, and after his mother was back on her plane to Phoenix, Chandler forced himself to push it aside.  He was thinking of his future with Monica, and he would not let some silly comment from his mother ruin it.  But it remained there, like a deadly computer virus, quietly spreading through his system, slowly breaking him down.  Making him susceptible to attacks on other fronts. 

Like Richard Burke. 

            Chandler still cursed, just thinking his name.  Everything was going along just fine until Dr. Burke reentered the picture – and on their anniversary, no less.    He knew he shouldn't be jealous of an innocent lunch, but he was.  And that had scared him.  For some reason, he'd thought his relationship with Monica was immune to this sort of thing, but he'd gotten a quick reality check when she admitted that not only had she had lunch with Richard…she had also avoided telling him about it. 

            It was what happened every time.  The threat of another man, his jealous rantings - all leading up to a miserable confrontation, the inescapable break-up, and broken hearts.  It had happened with Janice when Joey caught her kissing her husband, it had happened with Kathy and Nick the costar, it had even happened with Aurora, who was supposed to be sleeping with other men. 

That was when he realized how easily he could ruin everything.  One wrong word, one bad reaction to something completely innocent on Monica's part could send everything careening down the same path as his other relationships…only this time, it would be worse, much worse.  Because this time, it was Monica.

            And it scared him, to be feeling the same way about Monica.  It scared him enough to make him propose on a whim at the craps table, in an attempt to keep the broken hearts at bay, to give their relationship the ultimate security.  To keep her from leaving him.  To keep himself from ruining something so good.

            But the plan had backfired when Ross and Rachel got a little too drunk, and he and Monica had arrived back in New York with no wedding bands…and a lot of questions about their relationship.  But he had been so determined to make her happy.  And he had started to believe he was succeeding.  Until the day he realized that he couldn't. 

He should have known it was a bad idea when Phoebe asked them to help her watch the triplets.  He should have realized that a day of babysitting would be all it took to break his illusions.  First he swallowed the plastic gun from a toy superhero, and Monica had to carry him off to the hospital like a three-year-old.  A year earlier, the situation might not have embarrassed him so much…but now he had to wonder what Monica was thinking.  He was twenty-nine years old, and the condescending doctor - who kept shooting smiles in Monica's direction, by the way – was telling him teasingly that "toys were made to be played with, Chandler, not eaten".  Monica had glared at the doctor, then squeezed Chandler's hand to reassure him.  But he couldn't help thinking that she probably shared the doctor's tongue-in-cheek point of view.  She was probably embarrassed to claim him.

Then, to make things worse, when they returned to their apartment, it was in shambles.  Chandler had tried to keep her from ridiculing Phoebe for the mess, but she had turned on him, blindsiding him by saying that the apartment would always look like this when they had kids, and when would that be? 

Of course the words had invoked in him the panic she had intended.  But after his initial attack, he'd been more hurt by the fact that she knew it would make him panic.  His fear of commitment – and, of course, of babies – had been the only thing that had ever stood between them.  And now, she had accepted it so completely that she made a joke out of it.

Four months earlier, his issues had prompted a fight so big he had proposed in an attempt to make things right. 

Had she just given up on him?  Was she tired of waiting for him to become the man she had once believed he could be?

            His doubts – his mother's comments about children and his jealousy about Richard – had returned in a flash, and he had decided at exactly that moment that he wasn't good enough for her – and he never would be.  He couldn't give her the perfect life.  He couldn't even watch one baby for one hour without swallowing a toy.  How could he ever be the husband she dreamed of?  The father her children deserved?  Monica shouldn't have to accept his shortcomings, and learn to joke about them.  She shouldn't have to "make do" with him.  She could have better.  She deserved better.

            He was afraid.  Afraid he would never measure up.  Afraid that he would hurt her, and that he would do it when they were in too deep to ever recover.

            She'd once told him – during that same fight that ended with the first proposal – that if he was too afraid to be in a relationship, then he shouldn't be in one.  Back then, he'd been sure that they would make it.  That he would be able to make it up to her, somehow. 

But this time, he decided he should listen.  He would let her go – because he was afraid if he didn't, he would be the reason she would look back in twenty years and wonder what had happened to her life.

And he wasn't going to give her a chance to convince him to stay.

I'm here without you, baby

But you're still on my lonely mind

I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time
I'm here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight, there's only you and me.

Chandler swung his legs over the side of the bed, determined not to stay in the bed all day, wallowing in his self-pity and devastation.  If nothing else, he would at least start looking for a job and an apartment.  It was certainly time; he'd been in Boston for almost four months now.  He couldn't live off his mother forever, and he was sure he couldn't bear sharing an apartment with her much longer.

He stumbled into the hallway, and made his way to the bathroom, marveling at how much heartbreak felt like a hangover.  He took a quick shower, and decided after a glance in the mirror that today would be one of his randomly-selected days to shave.  Feeling slightly better, and more confident about his ability to get through a day thinking of Monica only every other minute, he headed downstairs to grab a bagel and maybe look through the paper. 

"Hey Chandler," came the greeting from the living room, and Chandler turned to see his mother's latest boyfriend sitting on the couch sipping coffee as he read the paper.  Though he had been skeptical of him at first, "Pilot Mark" had turned out to be the best thing about Chandler's trip to Boston.  Mark was only a few months older than he was, and he reminded Chandler of Joey in some strange way.  Now they treated each other as friends, and Chandler genuinely enjoyed his company – as long as Chandler didn't allow himself to think about the fact that Mark was having sex with his mother…

"Hey Mark," Chandler replied warily, abandoning his plans for the newspaper and pouring himself a cup of coffee.  "What are you doing here this time of day?"

"I've got an off-day.  Usually I fly charters to Nantucket on my time off – good money – but today I thought I'd sleep in, relax a little, maybe take the Cessna out this afternoon if it's nice."

"You fly on your day off from flying?" Chandler asked, incredulous.  "Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of not working?"

Mark grinned, drained his cup, and set it down on the coffee table.  "Yeah.  I just can't get enough of it, I guess.  Have you ever flown?"

"Of course," Chandler told him with a shrug.  "Lots of times.  I've been to Vegas, London – "

"No," Mark interrupted, and Chandler was happy to let him.  Just the mention of those trips set up "Monica alarms" in his brain, and he was relieved that Mark had retaken control of the conversation.  "No, I mean, have you ever flown.  The plane, yourself."

"Yeah, right," Chandler replied with a giddy laugh, still recovering from the memories that had just flooded his mind.  "Me?  Fly a plane?"

"It's not that hard," Mark assured him, then sat back and studied Chandler for a minute.  "Why don't you come with me this afternoon?  See what you think?  If nothing else, it'll relax you.  And maybe you'll want to sign up for classes.  I could even teach you if you want."

Chandler started to shake his head adamantly, and make a sarcastic comment about his ability to operate complicated machinery.  But then he decided that there was nothing to lose.  He didn't have to fly the thing…he could just enjoy a hopefully relaxing afternoon flying over the suburbs outside of the city.

"Okay," he found himself agreeing, and he knew he was smiling slightly.  "As long as you promise not to make me hold the wheel or something while you go pee."

"It's a deal," Mark chuckled, and Chandler leaned back in his chair and took a drink from his cup.  The day suddenly looked more promising, and he was sure Mark's company was preferable to just his own. 

He might even be able to forget about Monica for a few hours. 

Everything I know, anywhere I go
It gets hard but it won't take away my love

And when the last one falls, when it's all said and done.
It gets hard but it won't take away my love

I'm here without you baby
But you're still on my lonely mind
I think about you baby and I dream about you all the time

I'm here without you baby
But you're still with me in my dreams
And tonight girl, there's only you and me

~Arnold, Roberts & Harrell, sung by 3 Doors Down

To Be Continued…