Thank Heaven I'm Done!
Okay here's some more NANO folks and as always the cutline is there to give you a chance to back out now before you get into the smut. For those of you who brave this angst fest, let me know what you think.
Tuesday, September 24, 1980
I hate myself and I think I hate him too. God help me, I cannot say no to him and he doesn’t see that it is killing me inside.
Garret came over again this evening; he and Maggie had another fight and he came to talk to me. He sat on my couch and talked about how his life sucked and how stupid he’d been for marrying her. I listened to him and when he leaned over and kissed me, I should have pushed him away, but I cannot. I never could.
When I was breathless, he pulled back and stood taking me with him to the bedroom, I followed as though I were in a trance. We stopped at the foot of my bed and he began unbuttoning my shirt, I should have stopped him, sent him home but he was so desperate and I’ve never had the strength to turn him down. He pulled my shirt off and quickly followed it with my pants and underwear.
At first, I just stood there, letting him take off my clothes, but not making a move to help him. He stopped, a look of complete desolation in his eyes and turned to go. I reached out for him; I should have let him go, but I stopped him, turned him around and kissed him.
He grabbed me as though he were drowning and kissed me hungrily, his hands roaming all over me, while I undressed him. We fell back on the bed and I kissed my way down his chest and took him in my mouth. I watched him, head thrown back, moaning, his eyes closed. Once he would have watched me, but now he shuts me out; he rarely looks at me when we are in bed anymore.
I used to be his friend and his lover, now; I am his friend outside of this room and somebody he screws inside it. What we do has become what he once thought it was; nothing but sex, just a physical release.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that we were still what we had been. I threw myself into making love to him, while he screwed me. Everything he did made my body scream with pleasure and my heart ache with desperation and pain. Where once I had felt love from him it was now just like any other guy I had slept with; he was still just as gentle, but the feelings were purely physical.
When I came, I wanted to cry for everything we had lost. Everything we had destroyed by dishonesty and deception. I see now that love needs honesty to feed it and keep it healthy. Ours has become sickly and pale with hiding. Afterwards I lay there with him curled up against my back waiting for him to move off the bed. I knew any minute he would get dressed and go back to Maggie.
After he kissed me and left, I lay in the bed alone wishing it would end. I am barely alive until he is here and I die a little more each time he leaves. I love him and I cannot keep doing this, I should leave Boston; if I am not near him, I cannot be weak. I thought I could handle this but it is killing me by inches. I can feel myself fading away a little more every day.
Friday, October 31, 1980
Ten years ago tonight, we made love for the first time. Tonight he’s gone to a party with Maggie and I’m celebrating alone with a bottle of scotch. How did things get this screwed up with my life?
I already know the answer to that. I should have done what Jen suggested and moved to New York after the wedding. I should never have let him back in my life, not even to have lunch with him. I should have walked away completely, started over somewhere else.
Now I have to live with the consequences of my decision, the constant ache in my heart. I could still walk away, move, leave Boston and start over.
Who am I trying to kid, I’ll never leave Garret, I don’t have the courage. My courage is frozen just like my heart. I am numb.
Thursday, August 9, 1984
Well, I am not numb anymore. I do not know if I can describe what I feel. Garret did not even tell me himself, I had to find out on my own. I was walking back from lunch and I saw her, Maggie Warner Macy. She looks about eight months pregnant and the coward didn’t tell me.
Then again, why should he? What am I but just his piece on the side? The one he comes to when he cannot take her anymore, his hobby. It is not as if I matter to his ‘real’ life. He will never let me back inside, not the way I need to be, the way I used to be. I could take the fact that he married her and still came to me and survive barely, but this? I can’t take it.
He has shut me out of his heart and he does not see that it is killing me. I do not care about anything anymore, not work, not friends, nothing. I thought I could not feel, but now I know that I can, because I feel as though my heart is burning away to nothing; nothing matters anymore, I know now that I have lost him completely.
It was not this hard when he first married her and I only saw him for lunch as a friend. Before he came back to my bed, I could at least hold on to the fact that he did love me even if we were not together. Now it is like being his whore, I am there for his physical needs and I cannot even comfort myself by seeing the love in his eyes because he will not look at me.
He did not care enough to tell me himself. If he had told me, I could have adjusted to the fact that he is really gone. I know she will never let him go no matter how much they fight because she will not want to raise the kid by herself.
This is agony, a raw and bleeding wound that I do not know how to bandage; I wonder how long it takes to die if you just sit and wait for it.
Saturday, August 18, 1984
I had not left the house in days and today Jeannette showed up, pounding on my door. I did not get up, hoping she would go away, but she just jimmied the lock and came in. I did not really listen to what she said, but she dragged me to the shower, made me eat and put me in bed. When she thought I was asleep, she left the room, I heard her on the phone with someone and about thirty minutes later, I heard Garret’s voice in the living room.
They were arguing about me, she told him he was killing me and he told her we were fine. He does not see it, does not see that loving him the way I do is killing me. Does not see that the lie that we have become has cut into me like broken glass.
Jeannette told him he was a fool and that he had to choose, Maggie or me or he’d have the choice taken away because if I were pushed much further I would break. I could hear them continue to argue, but I couldn’t make out the words, but I can tell her what his choice would be; he cannot leave her now, leave his child. He came into the room and stretched out on the bed behind me, pulling me into his arms.
I felt his hand stroking my hair as he spoke, telling me that he was sorry he had hurt me; sorry he did not tell me about the baby, telling me why he had to let me go. Finally, he leaned over, kissed me, whispered, ‘I love you, Jack.’ and left.
He said it. He finally said what I had wanted to hear for so long; now, when it cannot do anything but hurt. Instead of being happy to hear it all I could do was cry, he loves me, but not enough.
Not enough to stay and risk people finding out he’s in love with another man. Not enough to be here for me the way I’ve always been there for him. Not enough to stay and see things through, but enough to get into my heart and under my skin. Enough to kill me by degrees by not staying away and now finally enough to shatter what is left of my heart by leaving.
I wish I could hate him, I wish that I had some drug or surgery that would remove him from my heart, that chemo could kill the cancer this love is becoming. I wish that there were some way to erase it all.
Most of all I wish he would come back.
Monday, September 17, 1984
Jeannette has finally gone back to New York and today is the first day I have been back to work. No one seems to know why I was gone. The story seems to be that I had a very nasty strep infection, so no one is questioning the fact that I look like a walking corpse.
No pitying looks, no sympathy, just ‘Hi Dr. Slokum’ and ‘Welcome back Jack’, Thank God no one knows, I don’t think I could take the whispers, the conversations that die when you walk in the room, the knowledge that the entire world knows you are dying inside.
I put on a brave front for Jen, but the truth is, I wish I could just curl up in a corner and die. I cannot live with this pain anymore, every morning I wake up and wait to see of it’s faded but there it sits, like a ravenous wolf in my chest gnawing at my heart and soul. I wish there were someway that I could stop loving him, stop this constant pain of knowing that I love a man who will never be mine.
I love him and I cannot go on without him, I do not think I can stand anymore. I want to die. I just wish I had the courage to do it. It would not be that difficult, just take some morphine from the lock box at work and by the time the count turned up wrong, I would be dead. No more pain, no nothing.
No, I might not succeed with the morphine; people survive attempts all the time. I need a surefire plan that will take me out before anyone can find me. I will come up with something, I am a smart guy.
Thursday, October 31 1984
After what I have seen today, I am ready. I saw Abigail Macy, the living, breathing proof that he will never come back to me. That Maggie will never let him go. So this is it, tonight I will do it; I finally worked it out. I will inject the morphine and then slit my wrists. Between the two, I should be successful. Finally, it will be over, so I suppose this is my suicide note.
Jen, I am sorry, I could not take it, sorry to leave you. Please do not blame yourself, you did everything you could, but I cannot live without him no matter how hard I try. I love you Jeannette, you are the best friend I ever had.
‘Brose, I don’t know what to say to you. I know you’ll probably have some acerbic comment about fools and death. I really do know what I’m doing and I have thought it through. I’ve even contemplated what my last words should be. I think I choose: He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
On the other hand, perhaps this one is better: Who knows what true loneliness is -- not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. That one doesn’t really ring true because I would have to say now ‘Brose that my illusions are dead.
Garret, baby, I am sorry. I cannot do it without you. I cannot feel anything but pain, I lay awake for hours missing you, but sleeping is worse, I dream of you every night. We talk, laugh, and make love for hours in those dreams and then I wake, reaching out to hold you only to find an empty bed, an empty life. A life where you are with her and I am alone.
I spent all that time lying to myself, telling myself that I would make it somehow when you were gone. See I was not that self-deluded, baby. I knew almost from the first that you would leave me. I realized it the day we moved into the apartment, long before I realized that you did love me, but could not say it. When I realized how you felt, I still knew that you would go someday, that you could not live openly with me and would not hide forever.
It is not your fault, please do not think that it is, it is me; I am the one who is weak. I cannot make it any further, I am done, Garret. I have nothing left inside of me except the pain. Please do not be sorry, that is not what this is about; this is about me, not having the strength to face the years ahead without you. I love you more than there are words to express and I cannot go on without you. I love you; please remember that always.
I loved you the first time I saw you standing outside the Arts Center; God, you were so beautiful. Every time you smiled at me I melted, I could not stay away from you. You were wonderful and beautiful and I was completely in love with you.
I was so happy to be with you, to know you loved me. The trip to New York was one of the happiest times of my life and I have never forgotten the feeling of dancing with you that first time, of having you hold me in front of other people. And when you told Jeannette and the other girl that you were not going to share your boyfriend, I could have walked on air. To have you claim me as yours was so wonderful. You know Garret, I was yours and I still am; I have never loved anyone else.
The summer on Fire Island was magic; to be free to touch you and kiss you in front of everyone was beautiful. I go through those memories every night. Making love with you whenever we wanted to, kissing and touching without being afraid of who might see us. To see you playing music again, so happy and so full of passion again. I wish we had stayed on the Island. I want you to have the painting Ambrose did of us, I love to sit and look at it, it takes me back to Fire Island and that summer.
I even remember the few fights we had fondly. I loved you even then. Even the time I wanted to smother you with your pillow, I still loved you. I never stopped loving you.
Even when it was bad, when you were coming to me behind Maggie’s back, as much as it hurt, I loved you and did not want to let you go. I heard you that night in my room, I heard every word you said and I understood why you could not stay. And baby, thank you for finally saying that you loved me. I needed to hear it just one time. I love you too, Garret. No matter what else please remember I love you and please do not blame yourself.
I never regretted a single moment of the time we had. The only regret I have is that it was too short. A lifetime would be too short. Ambrose once told me, ‘Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity’. Our eternity was not long enough, Garret. I do not think forever would have been long enough.
I need to tell you one more thing. Walk away from Maggie; she is destroying you a little more everyday, get away from her and Boston.
Go back to your music; find a band and play. Let the rest of the world think what it wants to, but enjoy your life. If there is something else after this, some kind of afterlife, I will be watching and loving you from there and I want to see you happy, the way you once were.
Goodbye baby, I will always love you. And if you do not take the fucking money I left you in my will, I am going to haunt your ass forever. Use it to put Abby through school or better yet, fund your music career with it. Do not even think of refusing it.
Tuesday, September 24, 1980
I hate myself and I think I hate him too. God help me, I cannot say no to him and he doesn’t see that it is killing me inside.
Garret came over again this evening; he and Maggie had another fight and he came to talk to me. He sat on my couch and talked about how his life sucked and how stupid he’d been for marrying her. I listened to him and when he leaned over and kissed me, I should have pushed him away, but I cannot. I never could.
When I was breathless, he pulled back and stood taking me with him to the bedroom, I followed as though I were in a trance. We stopped at the foot of my bed and he began unbuttoning my shirt, I should have stopped him, sent him home but he was so desperate and I’ve never had the strength to turn him down. He pulled my shirt off and quickly followed it with my pants and underwear.
At first, I just stood there, letting him take off my clothes, but not making a move to help him. He stopped, a look of complete desolation in his eyes and turned to go. I reached out for him; I should have let him go, but I stopped him, turned him around and kissed him.
He grabbed me as though he were drowning and kissed me hungrily, his hands roaming all over me, while I undressed him. We fell back on the bed and I kissed my way down his chest and took him in my mouth. I watched him, head thrown back, moaning, his eyes closed. Once he would have watched me, but now he shuts me out; he rarely looks at me when we are in bed anymore.
I used to be his friend and his lover, now; I am his friend outside of this room and somebody he screws inside it. What we do has become what he once thought it was; nothing but sex, just a physical release.
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that we were still what we had been. I threw myself into making love to him, while he screwed me. Everything he did made my body scream with pleasure and my heart ache with desperation and pain. Where once I had felt love from him it was now just like any other guy I had slept with; he was still just as gentle, but the feelings were purely physical.
When I came, I wanted to cry for everything we had lost. Everything we had destroyed by dishonesty and deception. I see now that love needs honesty to feed it and keep it healthy. Ours has become sickly and pale with hiding. Afterwards I lay there with him curled up against my back waiting for him to move off the bed. I knew any minute he would get dressed and go back to Maggie.
After he kissed me and left, I lay in the bed alone wishing it would end. I am barely alive until he is here and I die a little more each time he leaves. I love him and I cannot keep doing this, I should leave Boston; if I am not near him, I cannot be weak. I thought I could handle this but it is killing me by inches. I can feel myself fading away a little more every day.
Friday, October 31, 1980
Ten years ago tonight, we made love for the first time. Tonight he’s gone to a party with Maggie and I’m celebrating alone with a bottle of scotch. How did things get this screwed up with my life?
I already know the answer to that. I should have done what Jen suggested and moved to New York after the wedding. I should never have let him back in my life, not even to have lunch with him. I should have walked away completely, started over somewhere else.
Now I have to live with the consequences of my decision, the constant ache in my heart. I could still walk away, move, leave Boston and start over.
Who am I trying to kid, I’ll never leave Garret, I don’t have the courage. My courage is frozen just like my heart. I am numb.
Thursday, August 9, 1984
Well, I am not numb anymore. I do not know if I can describe what I feel. Garret did not even tell me himself, I had to find out on my own. I was walking back from lunch and I saw her, Maggie Warner Macy. She looks about eight months pregnant and the coward didn’t tell me.
Then again, why should he? What am I but just his piece on the side? The one he comes to when he cannot take her anymore, his hobby. It is not as if I matter to his ‘real’ life. He will never let me back inside, not the way I need to be, the way I used to be. I could take the fact that he married her and still came to me and survive barely, but this? I can’t take it.
He has shut me out of his heart and he does not see that it is killing me. I do not care about anything anymore, not work, not friends, nothing. I thought I could not feel, but now I know that I can, because I feel as though my heart is burning away to nothing; nothing matters anymore, I know now that I have lost him completely.
It was not this hard when he first married her and I only saw him for lunch as a friend. Before he came back to my bed, I could at least hold on to the fact that he did love me even if we were not together. Now it is like being his whore, I am there for his physical needs and I cannot even comfort myself by seeing the love in his eyes because he will not look at me.
He did not care enough to tell me himself. If he had told me, I could have adjusted to the fact that he is really gone. I know she will never let him go no matter how much they fight because she will not want to raise the kid by herself.
This is agony, a raw and bleeding wound that I do not know how to bandage; I wonder how long it takes to die if you just sit and wait for it.
Saturday, August 18, 1984
I had not left the house in days and today Jeannette showed up, pounding on my door. I did not get up, hoping she would go away, but she just jimmied the lock and came in. I did not really listen to what she said, but she dragged me to the shower, made me eat and put me in bed. When she thought I was asleep, she left the room, I heard her on the phone with someone and about thirty minutes later, I heard Garret’s voice in the living room.
They were arguing about me, she told him he was killing me and he told her we were fine. He does not see it, does not see that loving him the way I do is killing me. Does not see that the lie that we have become has cut into me like broken glass.
Jeannette told him he was a fool and that he had to choose, Maggie or me or he’d have the choice taken away because if I were pushed much further I would break. I could hear them continue to argue, but I couldn’t make out the words, but I can tell her what his choice would be; he cannot leave her now, leave his child. He came into the room and stretched out on the bed behind me, pulling me into his arms.
I felt his hand stroking my hair as he spoke, telling me that he was sorry he had hurt me; sorry he did not tell me about the baby, telling me why he had to let me go. Finally, he leaned over, kissed me, whispered, ‘I love you, Jack.’ and left.
He said it. He finally said what I had wanted to hear for so long; now, when it cannot do anything but hurt. Instead of being happy to hear it all I could do was cry, he loves me, but not enough.
Not enough to stay and risk people finding out he’s in love with another man. Not enough to be here for me the way I’ve always been there for him. Not enough to stay and see things through, but enough to get into my heart and under my skin. Enough to kill me by degrees by not staying away and now finally enough to shatter what is left of my heart by leaving.
I wish I could hate him, I wish that I had some drug or surgery that would remove him from my heart, that chemo could kill the cancer this love is becoming. I wish that there were some way to erase it all.
Most of all I wish he would come back.
Monday, September 17, 1984
Jeannette has finally gone back to New York and today is the first day I have been back to work. No one seems to know why I was gone. The story seems to be that I had a very nasty strep infection, so no one is questioning the fact that I look like a walking corpse.
No pitying looks, no sympathy, just ‘Hi Dr. Slokum’ and ‘Welcome back Jack’, Thank God no one knows, I don’t think I could take the whispers, the conversations that die when you walk in the room, the knowledge that the entire world knows you are dying inside.
I put on a brave front for Jen, but the truth is, I wish I could just curl up in a corner and die. I cannot live with this pain anymore, every morning I wake up and wait to see of it’s faded but there it sits, like a ravenous wolf in my chest gnawing at my heart and soul. I wish there were someway that I could stop loving him, stop this constant pain of knowing that I love a man who will never be mine.
I love him and I cannot go on without him, I do not think I can stand anymore. I want to die. I just wish I had the courage to do it. It would not be that difficult, just take some morphine from the lock box at work and by the time the count turned up wrong, I would be dead. No more pain, no nothing.
No, I might not succeed with the morphine; people survive attempts all the time. I need a surefire plan that will take me out before anyone can find me. I will come up with something, I am a smart guy.
Thursday, October 31 1984
After what I have seen today, I am ready. I saw Abigail Macy, the living, breathing proof that he will never come back to me. That Maggie will never let him go. So this is it, tonight I will do it; I finally worked it out. I will inject the morphine and then slit my wrists. Between the two, I should be successful. Finally, it will be over, so I suppose this is my suicide note.
Jen, I am sorry, I could not take it, sorry to leave you. Please do not blame yourself, you did everything you could, but I cannot live without him no matter how hard I try. I love you Jeannette, you are the best friend I ever had.
‘Brose, I don’t know what to say to you. I know you’ll probably have some acerbic comment about fools and death. I really do know what I’m doing and I have thought it through. I’ve even contemplated what my last words should be. I think I choose: He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
On the other hand, perhaps this one is better: Who knows what true loneliness is -- not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. That one doesn’t really ring true because I would have to say now ‘Brose that my illusions are dead.
Garret, baby, I am sorry. I cannot do it without you. I cannot feel anything but pain, I lay awake for hours missing you, but sleeping is worse, I dream of you every night. We talk, laugh, and make love for hours in those dreams and then I wake, reaching out to hold you only to find an empty bed, an empty life. A life where you are with her and I am alone.
I spent all that time lying to myself, telling myself that I would make it somehow when you were gone. See I was not that self-deluded, baby. I knew almost from the first that you would leave me. I realized it the day we moved into the apartment, long before I realized that you did love me, but could not say it. When I realized how you felt, I still knew that you would go someday, that you could not live openly with me and would not hide forever.
It is not your fault, please do not think that it is, it is me; I am the one who is weak. I cannot make it any further, I am done, Garret. I have nothing left inside of me except the pain. Please do not be sorry, that is not what this is about; this is about me, not having the strength to face the years ahead without you. I love you more than there are words to express and I cannot go on without you. I love you; please remember that always.
I loved you the first time I saw you standing outside the Arts Center; God, you were so beautiful. Every time you smiled at me I melted, I could not stay away from you. You were wonderful and beautiful and I was completely in love with you.
I was so happy to be with you, to know you loved me. The trip to New York was one of the happiest times of my life and I have never forgotten the feeling of dancing with you that first time, of having you hold me in front of other people. And when you told Jeannette and the other girl that you were not going to share your boyfriend, I could have walked on air. To have you claim me as yours was so wonderful. You know Garret, I was yours and I still am; I have never loved anyone else.
The summer on Fire Island was magic; to be free to touch you and kiss you in front of everyone was beautiful. I go through those memories every night. Making love with you whenever we wanted to, kissing and touching without being afraid of who might see us. To see you playing music again, so happy and so full of passion again. I wish we had stayed on the Island. I want you to have the painting Ambrose did of us, I love to sit and look at it, it takes me back to Fire Island and that summer.
I even remember the few fights we had fondly. I loved you even then. Even the time I wanted to smother you with your pillow, I still loved you. I never stopped loving you.
Even when it was bad, when you were coming to me behind Maggie’s back, as much as it hurt, I loved you and did not want to let you go. I heard you that night in my room, I heard every word you said and I understood why you could not stay. And baby, thank you for finally saying that you loved me. I needed to hear it just one time. I love you too, Garret. No matter what else please remember I love you and please do not blame yourself.
I never regretted a single moment of the time we had. The only regret I have is that it was too short. A lifetime would be too short. Ambrose once told me, ‘Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity’. Our eternity was not long enough, Garret. I do not think forever would have been long enough.
I need to tell you one more thing. Walk away from Maggie; she is destroying you a little more everyday, get away from her and Boston.
Go back to your music; find a band and play. Let the rest of the world think what it wants to, but enjoy your life. If there is something else after this, some kind of afterlife, I will be watching and loving you from there and I want to see you happy, the way you once were.
Goodbye baby, I will always love you. And if you do not take the fucking money I left you in my will, I am going to haunt your ass forever. Use it to put Abby through school or better yet, fund your music career with it. Do not even think of refusing it.