CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mommy and Daddy Issues…
Later that evening…
“You got my other text after that though, right?”
“Yes, the first one when you asked me to listen and have an open mind and then, a bit later, the second one arrived. Therefore, my question to you now is, are you some sort of psychic?” the woman asked, seeming unnerved. Aiden lounged back in his bed, not sure how to respond.
“What do you mean?”
“You sent me a text that said: I’m glad you asked your father for the money. It’s a great idea. One day you may have kids of your own, and they’ll ask for money too, LOL. I laughed at that initially, but then literally less than five minutes after you sent it, my father was telling me about one day I will have children, and then I’ll understand his and my mother’s position better. I rarely see my dad cry, Aiden. It was… hard. Today was so hard. I can’t even explain to you how hard it was!”
He sat up. The woman was downright choked up, emotionally bothered and bursting at the seams.
“I take it you two had a much-needed heart to heart, huh? That’s good.”
“Yes… and it was not what I expected. I owed him a big apology. I still felt left behind, but I totally got where he was coming from. It had never sunk in before today, probably because I was in the damn sunken place with Daniel the asshole! How could I have been so stupid?! You were right; most people would kill for a family like mine, Aiden. I was so blinded by whatever the hell was going on, I totally lost focus. After all of that, I handed him his check back.”
“What?”
“Yes. My apology to him will be me making this work on my own. I was wrong, point blank, period, Aiden. I am taking full responsibility for my part in this. I don’t get to play victim anymore. I chose the wrong motherfucker to marry.” He couldn’t help but smile at her words. What an amazing woman. “Time to own it and stop blaming everyone else. I knew deep down Daniel wasn’t a good match for me, but I was hell-bent on forcing it, making it work. The man for me would be a good person. He’d be kind, considerate, faithful. He’d make me laugh. He’d never come between me and my family. He’d never intentionally hurt me, either.” Aiden slid his hand behind his head, aching for her. He wished she were right there with him. Maybe through a hug and kiss, he could ease her pain. “Aiden…”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me about your parents.” He sat up, totally thrown off his game.
“Why?”
“Because you told me the other day that people would bend over backwards to have parents like mine, and the look in your eyes let me know that you experienced something different than me as a child and adolescent. Not only that, you told me when we first met that you grew up in Roxhill. That had to have been rough.”
He now regretted that confession…
He’d just gotten home from his mother’s apartment less than an hour ago. She hadn’t been completely sloshed, but tipsy, and he had to hear how horrible her life was, how no one was there for her, the whole nine. Emotionally winded, he’d stormed out, leaving her to her own devices. She was his burden, his private problem. Mom was no one’s business but his and Perry’s…
“I, uh, okay, I see. Well, we can discuss it later.”
“Why?”
“Because I really don’t want to talk about this.” A wave of embarrassment at the memories of his youth swelled within. Memories of the lies he’d told to teachers as to why the signature on his field trip slips looked forged, why she’d never come to parent-teacher conferences, and them demanding an explanation for him and Perry not having enough lunch money and borrowing from other students… “Just let it go, okay?”
“Oh? Okay. Sure.” He was shocked by how Addison was simply willing to accept his answer and not push him to explain. Regardless, he was hell-bent on not looking a gift horse in the mouth. He sighed with relief.
“Okay, well, I need to get some more of these boxes unpacked. I will call you later, okay?”
“Oh… all right.”
The woman’s abruptness said it all. Nope. She wasn’t pleased with him, not one tiny bit. Before he could say another word, she ended the call. He glanced at his phone, shook his head, and set it on his nightstand. Minutes later, he was sitting in bed, watching a rerun of ‘Big Brother’, with a bowl of popcorn on his lap and a large bottle of diet coke on the nightstand.
“Fuck!” He jumped at the sound of pounding on his front door, the kind of knock that sounded threatening, like the police needed in and they had a damn warrant. Getting to his feet, he opened his bedroom door and headed down the hall towards the front of his condo.
Please don’t let this be Mom or Perry about Mom. Not that the woman ever visited him at his place.
Looking out the peephole, he couldn’t believe his damn eyes. Addison stood there, donning an oversized white puffer coat, black leggings, and white Reebok sneakers. Her short curls were pinned back on one side with a silver barrette and she looked pissed the hell off.
Fucking great.
He swung the door open as anger rose within him, ready to demand an explanation for this unplanned visit.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming by, Addison?” She barged past him, leaving him there looking at nothing but her disappearing act. Slamming the door behind her, he turned towards his living room but didn’t see her. She was long gone, like Speedy Gonzales. Addison was barreling towards his bedroom, the only spot in the place where the light was on, sound poured through, and proof of life existed. He chased after her, his rage building like Legos.
“Addison! What do you think you’re doing? Are you crazy?!” He barged into his bedroom and found her sitting on the edge of his bed, her chest heaving, her coat tossed onto the bed.
“Let me explain a little something to you, Mr. Summers. I have had one of the most emotional, insane days of my damn life. Do you hear me?! I just discovered that not only do I have poor taste in men, I’m a spoiled fucking brat! That’s right, I’m a brat.” She pointed to her chest. “I made my father cry… because I felt entitled enough to believe, after all of these damn years, that they should’ve accepted a maniac I had brought into the family, even though he proved a million times over that he wasn’t shit.”
“What does that have to do with—”
“I saw the hurt I put in that man’s heart! The anguish by ignoring his and my mother’s calls after everything went to hell. I have been fighting my way back from the damn grave, the one I am partially responsible for burying myself in. It is time for me to take some responsibility. I called myself stupid, but I have to learn from my mistakes or I’ll keep repeating them. I had completely lost myself behind a man who didn’t give two shits about me. He just liked how I looked, dug my family’s status because, of course, he being who he was—a White man dating some lowly Black girl—I had to be from the lap of luxury, right? If I’d been poor he probably wouldn’t have dealt with me at all, quite honestly. He didn’t know me; in fact, he never even tried to get to know me, either. It was all just surface stuff. To this day, he could probably not even tell you my favorite color!”
It’s blue…. But he kept the thought to himself.
“He couldn’t tell you what high school I went to, my favorite food, and the movie I hate most of all.”
Privett Academy, eggplant parmesan, and you hated ‘Jersey Girl.’…
“No one owes me anything, Aiden, and that includes my parents. No one owes me a leg up or a leg in! You owe me nothing, either. You don’t owe me a guaranteed promise of a job, kind words, nothing… but you did it. You pretty much have assured me I am as good as hired with Golden Farms. Do you know that they called me and said you wrote a letter of recommendation? You’re the natural care-giver. You make everything right but if someone gets too close to you, tries to wiggle their way inside your private little world, you shut down. You are kind to me, you’re good to me, and you make me laugh. You’re an awesome listener, but your face tells lies!”
“What?!”
“You heard me, Aiden. You smile when you are crushed, and you smile when you’re dying on the inside. No more! Guess what? I am pulling the wool off your little charade and exposing you. I want to know who I am dating. I want to know who I am sharing my body and my heart with, Aiden. I deserve to know where you came from, what you really think, who broke your heart, what your dreams are that have yet to be achieved. You’re an emotional liar. You tell everyone what they need to know about everything, except anything about you.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You do know who I am! Furthermore, I’m a vocational counselor. Getting you a job is what I am supposed to do! You know what? This was a mistake.” He waved his hands frantically about, his head about to explode. “I want you to leave, please.” His heart beat out of his chest as he looked down at her sitting there. Her big eyes were so full of sorrow, it tore his heart apart.
“I’ll leave, but not until I get what I came here for. I asked you one question—about your family. We’re seeing each other. You asked me if I wanted to be exclusive and I jumped at the chance because you’re a great guy! No one said I was your woman or you were my man until Valentine’s Day and, more importantly, your birthday. But we have something special that ties us together, beyond all of this. It wasn’t just my body that you wanted. You liked the pain I was in… because you could identify with it.”
“Our circumstances are nothing alike.”
“No, you hadn’t been married to a loser, but someone in your life made you lose yourself, too. I’ve done dumb shit.” She laughed dismally, “But I’m far from stupid. We both hurt and assigned blame. I blamed everyone else, you blamed yourself! But you know what, Aiden? We both were wrong! You like to fix people’s lives but there is someone you can’t fix, Aiden, no matter how hard you’ve tried. And since you can’t fix it, you hide it. You said you don’t hit on your clients and you know what? I don’t know why, but I believed you right from the start. You took a chance because you could feel the attraction, on a deeper level. I was the first and I’m sure, after this, I’ll be the last.”
“You’ve got that right. Now I’m asking you for the last time to leave, Addison, before I put you out.” He pointed towards the door, hoping and praying she’d just walk away.
She got to her feet and glared at him. “I thought at the very least, Aiden, we could be friends, but how can I be friends with someone who is comfortable with pretending all day, playing dress up? Playtime is over. I don’t play games when it comes to my heart.”
“What are you talking about, huh? You’ve had a messed-up day and now you’re taking it out on me! Haven’t I been good to you, just like you said?”
“Yes, Aiden. In fact, you’re probably the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.
“Then what did I do to deserve this? I take you out, we talk all the time, I drop everything to be with you. I try to show you how much I care. I send you flowers, I hear all of your problems, and I bust my ass to make sure you get the job you deserve, damn it! They’re very interested in you thanks to me and I negotiated a higher salary. In fact, Carl already told me you are as good as hired. They are just going through the motions and this is the thanks I get!”
“Going through the motions? That sounds like someone I don’t know. Hello, Aiden, you’re the humanitarian who doesn’t trust himself or me enough to be a little transparent, a bit human with himself, too!”
“Oh my God.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I don’t need this shit! Tim was right. I should have just stayed away. I knew better than this… but I just couldn’t resist. Now I’m paying the damn price.”
“Because I ask to know who you are, you’re paying the price? You’re really something!”
“I’m not closed off from you. We’ve shared all sorts of things.”
“Not true. I have shared all sorts of things, Aiden. Do you want to know what I see?”
“No, but I’m sure that’s not going to stop you from telling me.” He rolled his eyes.
“On one hand you’re thoughtful; on the other, you’re unemotional and detached. You are there but not there… you’re like a ghost of yourself. Yes, you are standing before me, but not here! How can you care so deeply about people and then have this huge brick wall between us? But I’m in the wrong, right? You’re unreal!”
Aiden couldn’t believe how his evening was going from bad to worse in a nanosecond. There seemed to be nothing he could do to stop the train wreck coming down the pike.
“I don’t believe you’d ever be satisfied. I don’t know what more you want from me, Addison.”
“My questions were simple. I ask you about your childhood, I get nothing! I ask you about your dad, I get nothing! I ask you about your dreams, I get nothing! I ask you about your mom, I get nothing, nothing, nothing!”
“We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of months. I don’t owe you my life history! Why can’t you just let things unfold naturally? I owe you nothing, Addison, but what I consent to! Everything else is cream.”
“You’re right. You don’t owe me anything, Aiden, but you owe yourself a hell of a lot. Matter of fact, you owe yourself so damn much that you’ll never break even. Funny how you are more than willing to dish up the dirt on everyone else, help a friend in need, damsel in distress, you name it, but when it comes to you and whatever it is you’ve got going on, well hell, we can all forget it! You’re too damn good, right?”
“I never said I was too good, Addison.”
“Then why won’t you let me see you naked?! Not without clothes, but without the wall, the fence, the moat, the cement partition, the bricks piled high, the crocodile infested river, the ocean and everything else you can find to put between us?! I want to know who you are, Aiden!” She stomped her foot so hard, the sound jarred him. “I want to know how you came into the world, who created this man I have fallen so damn hard in love with! Can’t you see? I care about you enough to demand answers!!!”
She grabbed him close, put her arms around him and squeezed. He fell into a panic, but then his muscles relaxed in her grip as he shook, his world crumbling so fast and hard, he didn’t know what hit him. Slowly, so very slowly, he wrapped his arms around her. He couldn’t stop shaking in her embrace…
No one had ever confronted him this way. Hell, he had no idea he was hiding anything at all. It was simply his nature to keep his business to himself, even with ex-girlfriends he’d been with in the past. No one had ever forced or prodded too deep. He’d confided in Tim and his brother from time to time. Those were the two people who truly knew his heart, his history, and the pain deep within, but even they didn’t have every piece of the puzzle. Stepping away from her, he pointed to the bed.
“Uh, sit down for a minute, please,” he said, swiping his nose.
She did as requested and he sat next to her, glaring at the television before grabbing the remote control and putting it on mute. Clasping his hands together, he looked straight ahead for the longest, then turned in her direction.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Tell me about your parents, Aiden.”
“My… my mother is a drunk.” He swallowed, briefly closed his eyes and began again. “My father? I don’t know him… I’ve never even said hello to him. He’s never been in my life. We’ve never talked on the phone. He’s never sent a birthday card, a Christmas gift, or taken me to a baseball game.”
“Does this man know you exist?” Addison asked in almost a whisper before crossing her legs.
“My mom said she told him when I was born, that he was with her most of her pregnancy but left before she had me. She said he came to the hospital and held me but then that was it. He’d never returned and ignored her calls and letters. Now here we are, thirty-two years later. I could have walked past him in the street a dozen times and not known it,” He shrugged. “Who knows?” They were quiet for a spell, and his stomach churned with horrible anxiety, but even through that pain, he was willing to forge on.
“How did that make you feel?”
“Like shit… like nobody wanted me. He didn’t love me enough to come back and Mom didn’t love me enough to stay sober.” He smiled. And at that moment, he was finally aware that he was smiling. The woman beside him was right. The grin slowly faded from his face and he looked down at his bare feet. When she rested her hand on his thigh, he wished he were inside her, pushing the bad recollections away, the memories of a man who’d never been a memory but a mere mirage…
Perhaps if he could bring their bodies pleasure, it would take the temporary sting of his imploding mind and heart away. But that was just it; his vices were always temporary. Addison demanded permanence. She no longer wanted to view his performances, she’d made that clear. There would be no warm pussy to slide in and conquer, so he could forget all of his troubles. There would be no limelight on another so he could once again escape into the shadows, hidden and safely tucked away. He was out in the open, emotionally naked for her eyes only.
“Tell me some things about your teen years that no one knows, Aiden.”
At least a minute passed before he spoke again.
“When I was fourteen, I tried to kill myself by taking a bunch of my mom’s pills. When I was sixteen, I saved my brother from being beaten to death by a guy my mom was seeing, but she was passed out and didn’t know what had happened until it was too late. I had to fight a grown man, get his ass off my little brother, all because Perry had accidentally spilled some soda on the floor. My brother was in ICU for five weeks. He was only thirteen and his heart had stopped twice.” Addison squeezed his hand, her gaze lowered. “I love my mother very much, Addison. She used to be a good person, but I haven’t seen that person since I was a kid. A part of me hates her, but I’ve never really allowed myself to go that far, you know, to admit it.
“I resent having to take care of her for something she’s doing to herself. It’s not like she broken ’er leg or something that was beyond her control. Nope.” He shook his head in disgust. “She blacks out, she acts out, she ruins everything. I understand it’s an addiction, but it begins with a choice. She makes the choice to drink. And then I have to make choices to keep everything together, even at my own expense sometimes. I think I’m actually making it worse. Shit.” He grimaced. “Maybe I’m the problem.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I accuse Perry of being the enabler, but I’m a fucking hypocrite. I’m an enabler, too. I think that’s the hardest part of all, Addison… that I can’t just let her die. If I… if I don’t help her… shit!” She reached around him and held him. He felt the wetness on his face but didn’t want to fully acknowledge it was there. “I keep holding on to the mom I had when I was three, or four, or five… I keep thinking that,” he said, another tear falling, “If I just help ’er this one last time, she’ll turn into that woman again and then… then everything can go back to normal.”
“But you know it won’t. Something is eating at your mother, making her do these things, Aiden, and it’s not your fault.”
“I know it’s not my fault, but if something happens to her then I sometimes worry that it will be.”
“Tell me about a dream you had that went up in smoke.”
“I put myself through college and was determined to make it, no matter what. I didn’t want to end up like some of my friends. It seemed everyone around me was falling back in life. I graduated from Drexel University as you know.”
“Yes.”
“College life was great because I was away from everyone. I had new, motivated friends and I was away from her. But then Perry told me Mom was getting worse so instead of staying in Pennsylvania, I made plans to leave. As soon as I graduated, I came back home. Reluctantly. And well, now here I am.”
He drew silent for a spell, needing a break from all this emotion. Their fingers intertwined, time ticked on by. He lost track of how long until her voice broke the silence.
“What about your past relationships?”
“Women?” He looked at her with a raised brow.
“Yes.”
“Wow. Well, I’ve had a slew of fucked up relationships… women who didn’t give a shit about me or I didn’t give a shit about them.” He shrugged dismissively. “It was always something. I like to make people feel good whether it’s through encouragement, advice, sex, whatever. It makes me feel better if someone is smiling because of me… I don’t know why.” He sighed. “It just does.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that about you. Do you know what I think is driving that?”
“What?”
“Because as long as you’re focusing on other people, Aiden, then you don’t have to focus on you.”
He looked at her for a spell, wondering if her assessments were true.
Of course they were.
“I always said when a relationship went bad that I never wanted to settle down in the first place, but actually, in retrospect, I think that was a lie I was telling myself, Addison. Honestly, I just pick the wrong women… women who need to be fixed, or women like my mother. If a woman has her shit together it seems I don’t want her. So, I guess you were right.” The truth hit him like a ton of bricks. His wall crumbled and the remnants lay at his feet. “I saw that you needed someone… you were vulnerable, and it attracted me towards you. Not like in a predator type of way, but, you know, wanting to help. I found you physically attractive too, beautiful actually, and so, when we got to talking, something started to happen because I liked the things you were saying, and how you said them.
“Then, as we got to know each other better, I realized you weren’t as helpless as I thought. You’re strong. Real strong.” He hung his head. “And I thought to myself, ‘I really like her. What’s going to happen when she no longer needs me?’ But, I was willing to take that chance, because that’s always the name of the game for me, you know? I like to help people get on their feet then see them fly. With you… I’ve had some of the best conversations ever.” He smiled sadly. “Some of the best sex of my entire life…” He didn’t miss her smile. “Some of the best dates, everything. So many times I would get ready to answer you, open up, but I just couldn’t.”
“Why not?” She ran her hand along his arm.
“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t like what you saw.” Addison’s fingers brushed softly against his cheek and he pressed into them, the warmth of her touch soothing him.
“I loved what I saw, Aiden. That’s the reason I’m here right now. You had nothing to fear.”
“But that’s not what was in my mind, you know? To me, it was like I couldn’t be the knight in shining armor for you if I’m flawed and messed up. Then it’s not the same, now is it?”
“Aiden.” She shook her head and softened her gaze. “We’re all flawed and messed up. There’s just degrees to this mess.”
He nodded in understanding. “It’s not that I think I’m better, Addison; it’s that I want everyone else to be better because that makes me feel better, too. But… some things, just like you said, I can’t fix.” He kept on fighting the tears welling in his eyes. “Like the fact that I have to let go of this, and when I do, my mother is going to die…”
“Oh, baby.” Addison held him close, her perfume giving comfort to his tattered soul. Her warm breath drew close to his ear. “It’s all right. It’s not your job to fix everything, Aiden. You’ve got to remember to take care of yourself, too, baby. Give some personal training to your heart and put all this weight on your shoulders on a diet, my love. Humanitarians have feelings and needs, too…”