15
I'd broken our vows as far as I was concerned. I never went any further than a kiss with that guy, but at that point, it didn't matter. I was disgusted with myself in every possible way.
The hardest part was coming back to an empty apartment. Everything was gone. The only thing he'd left me was that plant, Sasha, and a pair of underwear hanging from the shower.
I'm not ashamed to admit; I kept that underwear. I cried into that underwear and took them with me everywhere. I didn’t do it out of some perverted instinct, but because it was all that I had left of Edward and I wanted a piece of him. Any piece would do.
I felt weak at the knees as I walked through the empty apartment. It was silent like I had never heard it before. Every creak on the old floorboard vibrated through the house as if announcing my loneliness. Even the buzz from the broken heating unit was gone.
Unable to stand any longer, I sat down at the kitchen table he begged me to fix. That's when I noticed his wedding ring. Right in the center of the table.
That's what crushed me most. Up until then, I had been able to convince myself that we weren’t broken yet. But seeing that ring sitting there, signaled just how Edward saw us. Over.
And the whole thing was my fault. The macho part of me wanted to say forget him, that I didn’t need anyone else in my life; that I was too strong for that. If he didn't want to hear me out and let me explain, then what good was he?
It was stupid, I know, but that's how I could be. It was the only way that I could get myself through the hard times. And even that barely worked.
Most guys are dumb, hiding our emotions when we should share them. Our ego gets in the way, telling us that we can’t be seen to be vulnerable. But the truth is that we're more sensitive than even women. All of what I was thinking, or trying to convince myself of, was only macho crap because what I wanted more than anything was to have Edward back in my arms.
I wanted to comfort his broken heart and to assure him I'd never hurt him again.
I was willing to earn his trust again, one day at a time, one minute at a time until I'd healed him. I was willing to do literally anything it took, no matter how long it took, to get him back.
I would wear that wedding ring around my neck every day for good luck and for the hope that when I found him, he'd see how much he meant to me and that he’d let me put it back on.
I stared down the phone, telling myself not to call. That I was stronger than that. That he would call me. But after less than fifteen minutes I was reaching for it like my life depended on it. Each punch of the keypad was harder than the next.
The phone rang, and of course, as expected, it went directly to voicemail. "Babe, it's me… I… I need to talk to you. I have no excuse for what I did, none at all. I don't blame you for hating me, but we can talk about this."
I was still in my macho mode then, not ready to beg or plead. I still had my pride.
But by the twentieth call, sometime after 2 A.M., my mask was fading. I just needed to hear his voice.
"Yo, baby. It's okay if you want to tell me to 'fuck off.' That's cool, but can you just at least answer the phone so I know you're all right? I'm worried about you. I can't sleep and I … I need to hear your voice. You're all I got."
I didn't want to sound desperate or broken, but I kept imagining him wandering the streets at night, alone, someone taking advantage of him. My stomach twisted every time those images raged through my head.
That was enough for me to grab my jacket and walk up and down the street, then hop on my bike and ride through the city.
I didn't know where I was going or where I'd been, but if anything ever happened to him, I'd kill myself.
I thought and hoped that maybe my love would guide me to him. It happened in the movies so why not in real life? Our love was strong enough to get through this.
After hours of searching, I could barely keep my eyes open. I pulled up in a nearby park and told myself I’d park for a few minutes for a quick nap, but when I woke back up my bike was long gone.
I kept hoping that maybe it'd been towed away, but that was crap. I'd been jacked.
I don't think I even had enough in my pocket for bus fare, but rather than trying to make my way home, I kept walking, searching for him, calling. I could always buy another bike, or at least one day I’d be able to. I would never be able to find another Edward though.
I tried his job, but they said that he'd called in. I even tried his grandma, but she didn't answer.
I had to find him. I even considered going to the police station and filing a missing person's report but realized that might not work.
I was desperate and out of options.
Edward, where are you?
~~~
I don't know what led me to the garage that next day.
Maybe I was desperate, and needed someone to talk to? Maybe it was my way of doing what my husband told me to do in hopes that it would lead to getting him back. Whatever it was, Aaron welcomed me back with open arms.
"I knew you'd come back," he told me with a smug smile on his face. Then, he stepped back, taking a long look at me. "What's wrong?"
I guess he could tell from the way I was staring at the floor, or how puffy and red my eyes were. For Aaron to ask about anyone else other than himself, self-absorbed as he was, I had to be looking pretty bad.
"You haven't heard from Edward, have you?" I grumbled, shuffling in and taking a seat at the keyboard, the same keyboard Edward had sat at when I first met him.
"What? No, why?" He turned off some of the equipment.
I breathed. "Man."
"What happened?" he asked, finally walking over to me.
"I messed up, man… with him. Edward's gone." I shook my head in disbelief.
I couldn’t even look at him, sure that my best friend was hiding his smile, happy at the news, as he said, "I'm sorry man."
Deep down inside, I wondered if Aaron enjoyed my suffering. He went on to say, "I'm sorry it didn't work out man. But you'll get someone else."
My voice cracked. "I don't want anybody else, Aaron. I want him."
Aaron had never seen me like that before. I was always the tough one. The one who told everyone else to buck up. But then again, I'd never been in love before.
For that, I couldn’t blame him for changing the conversation the only way he knew how. He put his arms around me, hugging me and asked, "Want back in the band?"
~~~
Three weeks of searching for Edward and I was going out of my mind with worry.
I'd made as many rehearsals as I could, trying to show Aaron how serious I was about the band, but he was getting increasingly irritated at my tardiness. Every spare minute that I had went towards searching for Edward and although I told Aaron that I was all in when it came to the band, the truth was that Edward still came first.
I couldn't sleep either. Between that and working nonstop, not only at my janitor's job but back at Aaron's dad's mechanic shop, I was an absolute wreck.
There was only one thing left for me to do. I had to call Edward's grandma. If anyone, she'd be the one who would know something. I had tried calling her when we first broke up, and she had rightly ignored my calls. I only hoped that now enough time had passed that she’d at least answer and let me know that Edward was fine. That was all I wanted.
My cell phone was out of power, so I had to use a pay phone.
And of course, it was pouring rain when I called her. The heavens were lit up by cracks of lighting as buckets of water soaked me to the bone. It was as if even God was punishing me. But I didn’t care I just had to know.
The phone rang and rang and rang. And I waited and waited and waited. Finally, I got through.
"I have no idea," his grandmother said, curt and swift when I asked her if she knew where Edward was.
"Come on. He must have called you." I couldn't keep the whine from my voice. "Can you at least pass along a message?"
"Do you think I'm a secretary?"
"No ma'am, but this is real important."
"You should have thought about that before you hurt my grandson."
"So, have you heard from him?"
"Of course, I've heard from him, and I warned you—I know people."
"Can you just do this? Please. Next time you talk to him, tell him that I'm sorry, that I'll never hurt him again. Tell him that every time I breathe, it hurts ‘cause he's my air, that my heart is empty cause he's the one that made it beat, that I want to be happy and I should be, but I can't 'cause he's not in my arms."
There was a pause long enough to make me wonder if she was still there.
"Hello?" I said.
"So, I got that you're going on tour," his grandmother said.
"Never mind. Just tell him 'I love you.'" I was about to hang up. She was being intentionally difficult, and it was really beginning to annoy me. I didn’t want to get suddenly get angry and be on her bad side either.
"Wait, Cody."
"Yeah?"
"He's going to kill me for this. You have a pen? Write this address down, and I'm only going to say it once."
"Yes, one second—"
"I'm getting older by the second here."
"Ms. Lohan, have I told you how much I love you?"
"Yeah, yeah, save it for him, lover boy."