She’s drifting, and I don’t know why.
It was sudden at first, a quick change, a fast drop. But now she’s on a slow descent, slipping even further away from me.
I’m hanging on to her as best I can. Although I feel as if I’m failing a little more every single day.
It’s been over a month, and she barely talks to me anymore, at least not about anything of importance. Our conversations are superficial at best. I listen to her talk about school while she plasters on a brittle smile to fool me into believing what she is telling me is the truth. I don’t dare question her because all I’ll get in return is her dodging them and negating all my concerns, making me feel as if I were the one pushing her away with my inquisitions, but she’s the one pushing away. She hides inside of herself, even though she’ll deny it. I see right through her, though. The dark circles under her eyes tells me she isn’t sleeping, her bones that have become more prevalent tells me she isn’t eating. She’s fading away, and I don’t know how to bring her back.
My mouth stays shut now. No longer do I pressure her to talk to me, because it doesn’t do any good. All that ever comes from it is her erecting yet another wall to keep me on the outside when I used to be so deeply embedded in her heart. That heart is now isolated, and it kills me, because that heart is mine. Mine to care for and to protect. Mine to love. Mine to carry when the weight becomes too much for her, which it is. Clearly, there’s something going on. I’m not a fucking idiot.
At the same time, maybe I am. I should know what’s causing her to be so afflicted. Yet, I don’t, and I’m stupefied by it all.
Do I push?
I probably should, but I’m torn. Pushing her runs the risk of losing her, and that I can’t do. As much as I need her, she needs me even more. Of course, she won’t admit that and has thrown it in my face a couple of times that she doesn’t. Arguments turn her defensive.
“Stop needling me all the time as if I’m something broken you need to fix,” she shouted my way when I asked her why she was always sleeping during the days instead of going to her classes. “I don’t need fixing, and I don’t need you constantly checking up on me.”
“You expect me to believe that you’re okay on your own. You’re barely functioning.”
“Maybe I would be better on my own. At least then I wouldn’t have to deal with your constant interrogations.”
Fights spark nasty words that inflict deep wounds I refuse to show her. Never have I needed to be as strong as I need to be now—for her. And even though she does her best to push me away, I’m not one who would ever turn my back on her. She’s dealt with enough abandonment in her life from her father.
“I’m not giving up on you, Adaline.”
“Why?” she asked, chin quivering slightly, exposing a crack in her fictitious strength.
I stepped over to her, and that time, she didn’t back away from me. She bit her bottom lip to keep herself from crying, but I saw the tears bleeding from the inside. I felt the ache in her bones. “Because you’re my everything.”
She fell into my arms, clung to me as if I were the very oxygen she needed for survival. But it didn’t matter how close I held her to me, willing the heavy beating of my heart to awaken hers, she eventually pulled away and forced me out of her dorm room.
She thought I left. She thought she was alone, but I stood on the other side of that door for nearly a half hour while she cried. I didn’t leave until she stopped because I couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone in agony. And if I couldn’t be inside that room with her, holding her, then I would be there for her the only way she’d allow. So, I stood against her door and listened to her helpless sobs, each one ripping away chunks of my heart. It was hopelessness at its worst.
“Kason?”
I look up to find Cheryl standing in front of my desk.
“Everything okay?”
I give her an unconvincing nod and then look to see it’s already past nine in the evening.
“Why are you still here?”
I start shutting down my computer and gathering a few files that I need to review. “Guess I lost track of time.”
“Pack up. You can walk me out to my car,” she says with a hint of a smile.
I’ve thought about talking to her about Adaline, but it feels like it would be a betrayal if I did, so I haven’t mentioned anything about her daughter’s strange behavior. Still, I wonder if I’m the only one she’s acting this way toward. I know Adaline sees her mother every week, so I would have to assume that, if Cheryl were witnessing what I am, she would’ve already said something to me.
Over the past year and a half, Cheryl and I have grown close. She treats me as if I’m part of the family and not just as her daughter’s boyfriend. She’s been that maternal figure my own mother could never be, doing what she can to guide me and support me. She’s given me this amazing job, and even though she’s my boss, it hasn’t gotten in the way of our relationship. It’s only bonded us closer, and I’m so very thankful to have someone like her in my life.
We walk out into the hot, humid night with air so thick I can feel its weight.
“I missed seeing you Sunday night,” she says as we approach her SUV.
“Sunday night?”
“Ady said you couldn’t join us for dinner because of some paper you had to write.”
There was no paper that I needed to write. In fact, I wanted to spend Sunday evening with her, but she told me that she had to write a paper. Again, another lie.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I shrug.
“No big deal. Are you coming over tomorrow night? I haven’t heard back from Ady, so I’m not sure if she mentioned it to you yet.”
Wanting so desperately to bridge the gap Adaline is forcing between us, I respond, “I’ll be there.”
She opens the door and slips in behind the wheel. “Good. It’s been too long since the three of us have sat down for a meal together.”
We say our good nights, and when she drives off, I hop into my Camaro and head home. I call Adaline, but she sends me straight to voice mail, so I flick on the radio, but nothing is enough to drown out the million questions that flood me. The same questions I’ve had for the past month. Questions to which I have no answers.
Lonely and stressed to the max, I walk into the apartment and toss my work files onto my dresser before falling on top of my mattress. I stare at the ceiling as my muscles begin to constrict in need. It was only a couple of hours ago that I jerked off in one of the bathroom stalls up at the office. This tension between Adaline and me does nothing but feed my impulses, though.
Everything is worse. Everything is a thousand times stronger. I’ve spent so much time and energy focusing on Adaline that my own cravings have become too much. Too overpowering. I’m starved for the attention she used to give me, the attention she now deprives me of. She hardly touches me anymore, and I’m not just talking about sex. Every time I try to hold her hand, she pulls away, and every time I hold her in my arms, she tenses up as if my touch inflicts pain upon her.
This constant anxiety that I can’t shake has only triggered my need for more gratification. My body is in so much pain. Adaline rarely touches me anymore, and when she does, there’s repulsion written all over her, so I wind up pushing her away. I can’t allow her to force herself into doing something she clearly doesn’t want to do. I want to say something, but I don’t feel safe talking to her about this, so I keep it bottled up, having to resort to my own measures to take care of myself. Temptation to stray over to Krista’s apartment runs rampant, and I’m constantly fighting against old habits. But sex, or even a blow job, would allow me to get off without having to experience the amount of pain I’ve forced my body into. The contact is much softer with those two options than the pressure of my hand. Every time I masturbate, the friction of my palm wrapped around my sore dick hurts. But I need the release so badly that I endure the pain just to get my next fix.
I grab my phone, open a porn site, and scroll through video after video, trying to find something that I haven’t already gotten off to so many times that I’m now desensitized to the images. In a flash of irritation, I flick my finger against the screen so that it flies right past the next page button to an advertisement at the bottom of the screen for live interactive sex cams.
I stare at the freeze frame that shows a girl sitting on a bed and curiosity ignites. I click on the ad, and it takes me to a screen filled with thumbnails that feature all the girls who are live right now. I scan through them as excitement trills through my bloodstream and straight to my dick, which is straining against my pants. My head drifts into a euphoric fog that stimulates a multitude of sensations, and when I tap on one of the thumbnails and it asks me for my credit card information, I don’t think twice. Grabbing my wallet, I pull out my bankcard and then switch my phone for my laptop. I type in the website and click on the live cam tab. I don’t scan through the girls very long—I honestly don’t care—before I select one, punch in my bankcard information, and hit enter. A moment later, the chat connects and the girl appears, wearing nothing but a bra and panties.
“What’s your name?” she asks, staring into the camera.
“Kason.” My voice is sheepish as my nerves start to cut through.
She sits up on her knees to give me a better view of her body, and I unzip my pants. Taking my erection in my hand, I watch as she runs her hands over the bra covering her fake tits.
“Kason,” she says slowly. “That’s a sexy name.” She slips the straps down her arms and exposes her breasts, pinching her hard nipples as she moans. “You like these?”
“Yeah.” I lightly stroke myself, cautious of my grip so that I can get more pleasure than pain out of this.
“So, what are you into, Kason? I can be a good girl . . . or I can be very naughty.”
I know exactly what I’m into, and the moment she mentions it, all I see is Adaline. Good, sweet, innocent Adaline. Guilt splashes like corrosive toxins. My stomach coils in disgust, and I quickly shut the lid to the laptop.
“What the fuck am I doing?”
Balling my fists, I pound them into my mattress before yanking my pants back up in a storm of self-hatred.
Why am I doing this? Why the hell am I like this?
My chest seizes, and I hate that I’m so goddamn weak. That I’m constantly warped by this need I can’t escape. That the absence of the girl I fucking love so damn much makes it so damn worse.
I grab my phone and call her, only for her to reject me once again. Her voice mail picks up, and by the time it beeps, my heart is catapulting itself against my lungs, making it near impossible to breathe. Somehow, desperate pleas start to spill out of me with no control. “Adaline, please. I miss you, and I need you. I can’t live like this, without you with me. I’m fucking falling apart over here, and you . . . God, babe, I’m losing you, and I don’t know how to stop it.” I choke up as the pain of my fears rips through me. “I can’t lose you. I fucking love you, and I swear, whatever this is, I’ll fix it. Just tell me what it is, and I’ll make it right, because I need you. I just fucking need you so bad, Adal—”
Another beep cuts me off, ending the recording, and I’m too worked up, too close to a goddamn breakdown. My dick screams at me along with every one of my sinful cravings. With tear-blurred vision, I pace across the room and yank my pants down. With one hand braced against my dresser and the other fisting my erection, I stare at the photo of the two of us that Adaline framed for me and jerk myself off, biting back the aching pain that fires through my dick. I’m a violent wave of pleasure and fear and fucking heartbreak as I beat off, looking into the paper eyes that hold the other half of my desolate heart.
I’m so alone, so miserable, so damn pathetic.
Shameful, uncontrollable, and possibly even unlovable.
Maybe it just took her this long to realize it.