Keep Going On

Kait shook her head as the caller id showed her a blocked number. Her gut told her who it was and for a moment she was tempted to answer. She stood there, her eyes out of focus as it continued to ring and she touched the key labeled “TALK” then jammed it back down again, severing the connection. Later she called the few people that might have called from a private number and none of them had attempted to contact her. It could only have been him.

She went out to the bar that night, too afraid that the silence at home would tempt her. She ordered a coke and turned seeking any familiar face. Michelle and Carol were sitting at a corner booth and she joined them. They weren’t really friends, not in her mind, but they were people and that was enough. She stayed until it grew late then she returned home to her dark apartment and curled up in her bed alone with only a pillow to cradle her.

She dreamed about him again, about the last time he’d been back. He’d called her pleading for her to get him out of his parent’s house, he couldn’t stand it anymore. When they’d reached town he couldn’t think of a destination and she’d taken him back home.

“I want to change, I want to have a better life,” he’d said. He’d asked her to help him, said she was the only one that could. He’d begged her to be with him again, said she was the best thing in his life and he couldn’t stand to lose her. In the end she’d given in on the condition that he had to try.

“I can only help you if you try,” she’s whispered through a throat tightened with all the sadness of the last four years. “And you couldn’t talk to your family, they only bring you down.” That had been the big one. If he talked to his family, more specifically his mother, everything would fall apart and back into the cycle it had followed for the last four years. “It has nothing to do with my feelings for them, I have nothing against any of them.  It’s just the only way things will change because they won’t let you be anything more then you are now.”

He’d agreed and she’d given him another chance. The next day everything was perfect. She went to work and back home to him and they’d gone walking in the quiet streets. She’d been planning to go to the fair but had previously regected the idea, deciding that it was better to spend the money on more practical things. Then he’d told her he’d never been and so they packed up and left as soon as she got off of work. They spent the drive laughing together, he sang with the radio just a little off key with those songs too high for his range.

They got to the fair in the early afternoon, spent time browsing the stalls. She bought him several souiveneers, including matching rings, and they went to her favorite annual show. The day was perfect and sunny and beautiful. When it began to get more and more crowded he began to get nervous and they left.

A few days later he left in the afternoon saying he was only going for a walk. He came back to report that he’d stopped to visit his father where he worked. Cold fear swam through her veins but she let it go saying only that he should stay away from his mother. In her heart she knew it would lead to that, eventually.

The next day she’d gone out to get cigarrettes and she’d come home to find him on the phone with his brothers. Afterward he’d said he’d had to, they were his brothers and that his mother didn’t know he’d called. Again she’d let it pass but she began to brace herself for what she knew was to come.

He’d out the following day while she still slept, saying he was going to apply for another job. He returned to report that he’d visited with his mother. He said it in an offhand way as he joined her on the couch to watch the movie that she’d been playing.

She wasn’t surprised the next day when she returned to find him packing his bag. He said he was going to his parents house for the weekend, he’d be back Monday. All the while she was silent and by the time she’d resolved herself to do what she had to do he’d already been out the door. She picked up her phone as she went in the bathroom to find throw her ring in the cabinet only to find it’s twin already there. It had continued to ring only to meet the answering machine. She kept trying, needing to say it before she lost her resolve.

Finally he’d called her. The minute she had answered he’d said simply “I moved out.” He started to argue against the argument he expected before she could even speak and she repeated his name over and over only for him to say “No ‘David’ it’s over get over it.” She said his name one last time and this time before he could interupt her she said. “That’s fine I was calling to tell you not to come back. Don’t ever come back. You come over or call me I will get a restraining order.” But he still didn’t hear her, still argued against the begging she wasn’t doing and finally she hung up. Later she’d  called his parents house and told his brother to tell him to stay away from her and not to call her.

She woke up from the dream in a cold sweat, turning her head into her pillow and crying herself back to sleep. The next morning she got up and went to work and kept going.  A few times she started to dial his number and each time she’d put the phone back on the cradel and gone on with whatever she’d been doing.

She went out nearly every night, sometimes leaving early when a certain song would trigger that depression. She stopped calling her friends, spending time only with those she ran into at the bar. She didn’t drink away the pain, only ordered soda’s at the bar. She went for the company and the noise not the booze.

Then she started talking to someone she’d been “close” friends with during the time before he’d come back that last time. She didn’t expect his forgiveness only said “We weren’t dating but I still shouldn’t have done what I did.”

They started spending time together again, spending nights together again. Eventually it was he that asked to put labels on things. For a month or so that had gone well, though she still thought of David often. He even broached the topic of her moving in to his house but she only shook her head and said “We said we wouldn’t take things fast.”

Then there time together began to lessen, it began to get harder to get him on the phone. Finally she couldn’t get him on the phone at all. She called his roommate because his phone was off, a roommate that didn’t know they were officially together.

“He went to pick up Elizabeth, he should have been back by now.”

Elizabeth, his ex. Kait shook her head, wondering if she’d heard right. “Why’d he do that?”

“She went to bingo, he went to go pick her up because she doesn’t have a car.”

Kait asked why he was picking her up, she thought she was out of town.

Apparently Elizabeth had moved back in a couple of days before, she and her son had needed somewhere to stay. “Where are they staying? There aren’t that many rooms there.”

“He set up the weight room and she’s in his room with him.”

He’d gotten back with his ex without even telling her. Without even breaking up with her first.

She made plans to go pick up her things from his place and return his jacket. When he answered the door she held out her hand and said simply. “My housekey, now.” He started to talk but she only repeated herself, somewhat louder then the first time, meeting his gaze with cold blue eyes. He handed her his copy of her apartment key and she handed him his coat, her arms bared to the cold autumn air. She grabbed the rest of her things without a word then asked his roommate if she’d like to join her for coffee. While she waited for his roommate she stood outside and lit a cigarrette. He came out to smoke then put his cigarrette out and went back inside. She wandered around, waiting for his roommate only to find him on the other side of the house, his cigarrette relit.

She smirked at the fact that he couldn’t stand to be within her sight and returned to the other side. She barely felt the cold of the wind, so hot was the rage that burned inside her. She hadn’t loved him, though she’d begun to have feelings for him. In the end it was mostly the betrayal, cowardice and loneliness ahead that had bothered her.

A few weeks later she dated someone else but that too lasted no more then a couple of months. Ending with him claiming that things between them were more like friendship. Anger that he called her taking his virginity meer friendship brought bitterness but that was all. She’d made herself believe that she loved him but again it had only been her need not to be alone.

         She kept going out, needing to be around people and away from her lonely apartment. She got up every day, went to work, went out and went home. Sometimes she’d see missed private calls and always she knew it was David but as long as that wasn’t an absolute certainty she wouldn’t get the promised restraining order.

         She went to bar one night only to find it relatively dead. Only three other patrons sat at the counter. One younger man sat alone on one side nursing a beer, an older gentlemen and a familiar face. Kait smiled at the familiar man, a more or less homeless guy. She asked him where he was staying that night and offered her couch.

         Kait ordered a soda and stared at the ice in her glass for a moment then looked up to see the younger man watching her. She smiled a forced smile and said hi. They began to talk and eventually he joined her on the other side of the bar, ordering her a drink. The bartender called last call and Kait bit her lip, making a split second decision.

         “Would you like to come over and watch a movie? My friend over there is staying too… And it would just be a movie I’m not looking for anything…. I just want some company.”

         So they walked back to her house and her friend went to crash in her room while they sat out on the couch with a movie playing. They really didn’t watch the movie, they simply sat there talking. Finally he asked if she’d be his girlfriend and, after a moment of surprise, she said yes.

         Everything was a whirl wind. He hadn’t left after that night, had his brother bring some things over and gone to get his other belongings from the place he’d been staying. He lied to her about some things in the beginning but she knew he was lying and why and eventually he began to tell the truth as if they lie had never existed.

         He started to make her feel like something precious, something amazing. Then she something reminded her of a time with David and she suddenly realized she was struggling to remember his name. It was only Kyle. Only Kyle filled her thoughts. The freedom of knowing that made her want to laugh out loud and dance and sing.

         Then hint after hint told her he was going to ask her to marry him. As it became more and more iminent suddenly it came crashing down. She was in the other room dozing. He had been watching a show that didn’t interest her so she’d gone to the other room to watch one of her own shows and dozed off, for how long she didn’t know. A knock on the door woke her up and she answered it to find two men with handcuffs on their belts.

         One of the men introduced himself as Kyle’s probation officer. He asked if Kyle was home. She shook her head, remembering that he’d been planning to go out to apply for a different job. The officer asked if he could come in and look and she agreed, thinking Kyle wasn’t at home. In the end it turned out he was still in the room. They tested him right there for drugs and he failed. They took him out in handcuffs, treating Kait as if she’d deliberately lied. She cried and kissed him before they left, promising she’d visit him soon.

         Months passed and still they didn’t know how long he was going to be gone. Eventually he admitted that he had been planning on asking him to marry her but told her he didn’t want to ask her through glass, that he’d do it the right way when he got out.

         After seven months news came that his brother and his brother in law were in dire health and they finally let him out on third party to his dad. Kait’s mother drove her to the house as soon as she got off of work. He stood outside waiting for her and she was out of the car before it could even stop moving, her mother yelling a reprimand. She fell into his arms and began to cry, clinging to him as if he might disapear any second. He held her and told her not to cry, holding her nearly as tight as she clung to him. She turned her face to kiss him, tears streaking down her cheeks as she whispered “I love you.”

         Her mother took him aside for a moment before leaving them to spend some time together. He asked her out onto the deck that looked out over a small lake. The sun shone down and rabbits ran through the grass. He held her close and said he loved her then dropped to his knees, holding her hands in his. He told her he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and asked her then to marry him. She gave him a tearful nod as he slipped the ring her mother had given him onto her finger and then he lifted her in his arms, hugging her tightly and kissing her.

         For days she went out to his dad’s house every chance she could get, spending some nights there and making up for the lost months. Eventually she was added as a second third party and he was able to spend some nights at home with her as long as she didn’t have to work. Then she started to get hungry more frequently, and tired earlier. Cramps indicated she was going to start her cycle but they continued on for a week with no blood and finally she took a pregnancy test, the night before his sentencing hearing.

         She stood there in shock for a moment before stumbling into the other room, the test still clutched in her hand. She looked up at him and told him he was going to be a daddy. They both started making phone calls, telling people the news. It was hours before they finally went to sleep. She curled close in his arms, still filled with a million different feelings. The next day it was all she could do to keep from shaking as he went before the judge. In the end he was sentenced with just so much time that he would be home just in time for the birth of the baby and he wouldn’t remand until a week later.

         They spent the next week together as much as they could. Their last night they both fought tears. He didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stay and take care of her but they both knew he couldn’t do that, especially now. With heavy hearts they rushed to the courthouse because she’d overslept. As she watched him walk away in hand cuffs again tears that she’d managed to hold back for the last week fell in streams down her cheeks.

         She didn’t want to spend the next several months without him, having to see him through glass again and unable to feel his arms around her. She was afraid, afraid the baby would  come early and she’d have to have it alone, or worse that she might lose it. She knew if the latter happened it would destroy him and he’d blame himself because he couldn’t be there for her.

         The rest of that day and the next she stayed alone at the apartment, breaking  calls quickly with the lie that she was fine and she didn’t feel well or was watching a movie.  The months without him stood before her, foreboding and threatening to break her to pieces but she kept going because there was nothing else she could do. Her only comfort was the life growing inside of her and the knowledge that time would pass and they would be together again soon and getting married.