Making It Through

I didn’t sleep very well after I got back from Josh’s place; not that I expected too. Sure, I was tried and drained from crying about the situation. I was angry he could do this to us and not realize how big a deal it was when he flipped over a simple kiss.

I’ll admit I tried to reason it away. I tried to come up excuses for his betrayal but I couldn’t. There didn’t seem to be a reason, or logic or anything. I didn’t care that he was drunk, it wasn’t an excuse, he still had to have some idea what he was doing.

It hurt, plain and simple. My heart literally ached when I thought about it. I thought we were happy, well as happy as we could be considering that we were trying to recover from what I thought was the biggest mistake either of us would make. I was wrong.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon on the last Friday in June, the first day of my vacation, and I was still in bed wishing that someone would stab a knife in my heart so the pain would go away.

Of course that wouldn’t have made anything better - I knew that - I just wanted to stop hurting because of guys who don’t care about me like they claimed. I started to think about the guys I went out with and almost started crying again when I realized that the last three guys I dated, cheated on me.

What the hell is wrong with me? I wondered. Did I piss off the goddess of love without realizing it? I rolled over onto my right side and sighed heavily. Well there are two of them, I reasoned. It’s totally possible I did something to annoy the Greek goddess Aphrodite or something to tick off the Roman goddess Venus. I shook my head, oh good lord! Now he has you over thinking goddesses of love!

I sighed again. Shifting my position, I went to stare off into space but my gaze focused on my bulletin board covered in pictures from my past; pictures of my life, my family and friends.

Jordan. My eyes narrowed as I stared at a picture of us on a winter’s day almost ten years before. This is all your… I sighed. I wanted so badly to blame him for this but I couldn’t. He didn’t make Josh cheat on me, no matter how much he claimed that Josh wasn’t the man for me, I knew in my heart that he wouldn’t set up something like that and hurt me. No, this was all Josh’s fault.

And mine for being stupid enough to think I was enough for him. Why did I think I could make him happy? Why did I think we were soul mates? Because he made me feel good? Because he was happy to see me after 5 years? Because he has the most adorable son? I groaned in agony. Oh Jesse!

Stop this! I screamed at myself. This isn’t going to help you at all, you went through all this before, it only led you to a near breakdown. You can’t go down that path again. You have to deal with this and start to move on. You are strong, you can do this and you have many people around you who love you and will help you in anyway they can. I looked back at my picture board, the smile that was forming melted away when I spotted Jordan’s smiling face. “Don’t think you’ve won,” I told his picture as I shoved the covers back and sat up in bed. “I’m stronger than that, I will not run to you. You will not have the chance to wrap me up in that web of confusion again. You are and will only ever be my best friend so suck it up Buttercup!”

I laughed at myself as I went around my room, gathering up my shower stuff. You know people would think you are crazy right now, right? I paused to glance in the mirror at myself. “Like I care,” I stuck out my tongue at me and headed for the shower.

About forty minutes later, I was feeling a little better, or at least that’s what I was telling myself as I ascended the stairs and turned down the quiet hallway to make my way to the kitchen for something to eat. I thought I was alone in the house so I was little surprised to see Zack standing at the counter waiting for the toaster to give up his toast.

“Hey,” he waved absently over his shoulder and gave a tiny cheer when his toast popped.

“Ok,” I laughed as I opened the fridge door. “You really need to get out more.”

We moved around the kitchen in relative silence as we went about making ourselves some thing to eat - toast with honey and peanut butter along with a glass of milk for Zack and grilled cheese sandwich with orange juice for me.

He had finished his first slice by the time I sat down. “Hey,” he took a sip of milk as he looked over the rim of his glass at me.

“I believe we covered that,” I flashed him a smile. “What’s on your mind Zack?”

It took him a few minutes which was very usual for him. But that wasn’t the thing that shocked me, it was what he said. “I’m sorry Anna.”

I dropped my fork, “what?”

“I said I was sorry.” I shot him a questioning look. “I shouldn't have said what I did to Josh last night, it wasn’t my place, no matter how much I think it is.”

“Oh,” I considered his apology for a moment but grinning knowingly. “Mary gave you crap for it, didn’t she?” He started to protest which made me laugh. “She did! You caught crap from your wife last night! And you are in the doghouse, aren’t you?”

“No,” he shook his head.

“Oh really?” He shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘yeah really’. “Hmmm?” I reached across the table to grab the notepad paper that sat near his plate but he was too quick for me. I laughed at him. “I’m betting that’s not a love note from Mary.”

“Sure it is,” he glanced at the paper before turning it around to show me. “See? She wrote ‘honey’ up here and down here, she wrote…well,” he turned it back to him. “She left a list of reasons she loves me.”

I gave him a no nonsense look that I learnt from him and held out my hand. “I’m not sure you want to see all these reasons she loved me Anna, some really good stuff here.”

I laughed, “Like change the light in the laundry room?”

“Hey!” He glared at me. “It’s all a code, Mary loves codes.”

“Oh, and here I was going to offer my assistance in your light changing efforts.”

“Really?” He ripped the list in half and handed the bottom half to me. “You can start with those.”

I went back to my sandwich as I read my half of the list and said them out loud, “Mow the lawn, change the light bulb in the laundry room, clean the gutters…” I frowned. “Zack? What is the little smiley face chore?”

He stared at me. “Smiley face?” Dropping his toast, he grabbed for my half of the list, looked at it and grinned. “I’ll just take that one,” he ripped smiley face off and stuffed it in his pocket. “I told you she loved me.”

I watched Zack as smiled while he continued eating his toast. He looked so happy even though he was in the doghouse with Mary. “That’s what it’s supposed to be like isn’t it?” He gave me a questioning look. “Being in love,” I offered. “Even when Mary is upset, she still does little things that let you know she loves you.”

“It’s the little things that matter the most Anna. Yes, Mary is upset with me and yes, the list is her way to making sure I know she’s upset and I’ll do every thing on that list but not because she’s mad.”

“Then why do you do it?”

He shrugged, “Because I love to see her smile.”

“And she ‘rewards’ you for getting the chores done?”

“No!” He said forcefully. “I don’t care if she doesn’t even notice if I fix the squeak in the garage door or change a light bulb! That’s not what it’s all about Anna, it’s about working together to make our relationship the strongest it can be. So what if I have to do stuff I don’t really want to do, she does lots of stuff for me that she doesn’t want to do either. All that matters is that at the end of the day we look into each other’s eyes and still feel the way we did when we first met.”

“I’m sorry if I seemed to insinuate that there was something wrong with your relationship Zack.”

“No worries,” he shrugged it off. “You know all about the little things it takes to make love work.”

“How did you know Zack?”

“I know what?”

“That you were in love with Mary and she was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.”

“Mary told me I loved her and that I had to marry her or she wasn’t sticking around,he chuckled. “I liked having her around so I married her.”

We had a little laugh about that as we finished our food and started on the list Mary left for him. About an hour after we started the chores, the phone rang. “I’ll grab it,” Zack dropped the clothes he had in his hand from the laundry he was putting in the washer. I heard him in the other room as he answered the phone. I wasn’t really pay attention to what he was doing, I continued sorting the laundry for him, so he surprised me when he came back and handed me the phone without saying anything.

“Hello?” I gave him a questioning look as I spoke into the mouthpiece of the phone.

“Anna,” it was Chad. “What’s up with Josh? He just called me to say that Jesse wouldn’t be able to play with Conner tomorrow.”

“What reason did he give?” Was he drunk? I thought spitefully.

“He didn’t give one, he just told me Jess couldn’t play with Conner and said he had to go.” In the background I heard Conner’s sad voice asking Chad if Jesse was sick, if that was why he couldn’t play. “Can Aunt Anna make Jesse better daddy?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on Chad,” I had an idea but I hoped that Josh wasn’t going to be that much of a prick about this. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out. Conner and Jesse are friends and they were looking forward to tomorrow and it’ll happen.”

I hung up from talking with Chad and without stopping to take a breath, I dialled Josh’s cell phone number.