Page 23 of Tear Me to Pieces
Unfortunately, I was never quite able to figure it out. I still don’t know what happened. Why Lenore did what she did. The reasons she gave were so contradictory I could never line them up in a way that gave me any sort of clarity. Was I too good for her or too overbearing? Was it really the people around me? because I offered to give it all up and that wasn’t enough.
Making me think it wasn’t what was around me at all. It was just me she couldn’t stand.
“But is it something you can do forever?” Christian’s tone softens. “I know you’re young and healthy now, but…”
The reminder dampens a little of the good mood completing the drywall brought on. “I’m not that fucking young.”
I never thought I’d be staring down my mid-thirties as a single man. Like the rest of my brothers, I want what I’ve never had. The house, the wife, the kid. Stability, security.
Love. Acceptance. Understanding. It’s what I want to give and what I want to receive.
A decade ago I thought I had it. Believed I would be the first one in our hodgepodge of a family to prove we could stop the cycle.
Instead, I’m the last man standing alone.
“I know you well enough to know you’ve got a plan.” Christian angles a brow at me. “Or five.”
I chuckle in spite of the seriousness and sadness the conversation carries. “You’re not wrong.” I pick up the scraps of drywall strewn across the subfloor and begin tossing them into the large plastic can sitting in the center of the room. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and when the time comes, I’ll probably do what you did and start my own business. Train people to do what I do and contract them out across the country.”
Like Christian guessed, I’ve planned for a handful of scenarios and a range of extremes. I can keep the business small and simple, or expand. Get to the point where I provide everything. Equipment. Housing. The whole nine yards. It would be a huge undertaking, but if I didn’t have to tackle it alone...
“You got an ETA on that?” Christian picks up the shop broom and works it across the floor. “Because you know we’d love for you to be around more often.”
Iwantedthe ETA to be years ago, but it still hasn’t happened. “Just waiting for a reason to settle down.”
I don’t tell him that could have happened anywhere. I love my brothers, but if I found what I was looking for on the other side of the country, that’s where I would have put my future. Atone point I was hoping that was what would happen. Memphis doesn’t hold the best memories for me, and walking away from it entirely had a certain amount of appeal. Especially in those first years after Lenore and I split.
And I would still do that. Still go wherever I need to. But I’m no longer hoping it won’t be Memphis. It doesn’t haunt me the way it used to. I don’t get a pit in my stomach when I see the exit on the highway, and I’m no longer in as much of a rush to race away when it’s time to leave. This month is evidence of that.
Christian claps me on the shoulder, his hand resting firm as he gives it a gentle squeeze. “It’ll happen. And when it does, everything that came before will have been worth it.”
His words hit me like a sledgehammer. Knock the wind from my lungs with a discovery I haven’t yet made. They take years of struggle and frustration and narrow them to a point so small it could fit on the tip of a pencil.
The reason I’ve been so desperate to find what I’m looking for is because I want everything to matter. For all I went through to make sense. To have a purpose. And right now, it doesn’t. Right now it’s just pointless pain. Suffering for the sake of suffering.
Part of me expects the realization to be painful. Another layer of hurt to add to the ache I always carry.
But it’s motivating. Renews my determination to get what I’m after. To have what I want.
But what I want isn’t going to be easy to obtain. It will take a particular set of skills. A level of understanding and patience most men don’t have.
But I do. If everything I’ve been through has a purpose—which I want to believe it does—it’s turned me into what I need to be for the person I’m meant to be with. And from where I’m standing, there’s a person whose needs seem to align with all I bring to the table.
“I recognize that look on your face.” Christian shakes his head. “You’re planning something.”
“I’m always planning something.” It’s a deflection. One I hope keeps him from thinking too hard or trying to assemble any of the clues I’ve inadvertently dropped.
I don’t want him to see what I’m thinking. What I’m planning. What I’m feeling.
Havebeenfeeling.
These past six months have been different. They weren’t me running away from my past or myself. I was running awayforsomeone else. Forcing myself to keep my distance because I knew I couldn’t be trusted. I knew I would overstep and overwhelm.
And I might still do that. It’s possible there will soon be a second woman saying I’m the problem. That what I have to offer is too much. That what I want in return isn’t something they’re willing to give.
And if that’s what happens, I’ll have to leave Memphis again. But this time it will be for good. I won’t be able to come back. And I’ll be okay with that. Myra needs the people here more than I do.
“That is a fair point.” Christian doesn’t seem suspicious, and I relax a little.
