Page 57 of ‘Til You Came Along

“I packed a bag,” She admits softly.

Silence. Heart wrenching silence. My breathing falters before I glance at her. There are tears streaming down her face now.

“What?” I breathe.

“I packed a bag yesterday. This morning, I was going to tell you that I was going to stay with my parents…but then…” She sputters.

“Then I forced you to go on this date,” I say through gritted teeth, trying to keep my voice even. We are on our street now.

“You didn’t force me. I chose to go. But I was ready to be done. I came today because I thought, ‘what do we have to lose?’” She takes a breath before continuing, “It has just felt like you had given up on us—” She starts but I interject.

“I’ve given up?” I say incredulously. “Madeline, I’ve been losing my damn mind trying to hold our marriage together with my bare hands!” We pull into our driveway. I harshly put the car into park. “My every thought is about you, about how I can help you or what I can do for you!”

“But you’ve been walking on eggshells around me and treating me like I’m a fragile and broken thing!” She yells. I don’t think we’ve ever had a fight escalate like this. My heart is racing and not the good kind at all.

“I hate to break it to you, baby, but you are fragile and broken right now!” I spit through my teeth. She scoffs and glares at me with anger that I’ve never seen in her eyes before. “I watched your broken and lifeless body on a hospital bed for days before you woke up. And when you finally woke up, you looked at me with disgust. You were injured so badly. You’re fragile right now, and that’s okay. Your memories are broken, that’s okay. I’m trying to do whatever I can to help you…but you won’t let me!”

“And there it is,” She says with a deadly calm, anger lighting her eyes.

“There what is?”

“The disappointment,” She snaps before opening her door and leaving the car. She stomps up the steps to the house. I get out and slam my door, following her into the house.

“No, we don’t deal with arguments this way. We’re not that couple,” I say firmly. She spins around to face me when she reaches the kitchen.

“We are not any kind of couple, Elliot! We’re ‘playing house’!” She yells. “We are nothing!”

My mouth opens in shock, in heartbreak. “Please…please don’t say that,” I say softly.

“You tell me bits and pieces over these weeks about how good we used to be, how much you love me and how much I used to love you, about how…‘everything you are today is because of me’. But yet you go weeks and weeks with ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ and nothing else,” She says and looks up at the ceiling exasperated.

But you haven’t been the man she fell in love with, either. Ana’s words come back to me.

“I’ve been trying to give you your space!” I exclaim. “You made it perfectly clear from the moment you opened your eyes that I was an inconvenience to you! That you didn’t want anything to do with me!”

“That’s not true,” She protests, half-heartedly.

“That’s how you made me feel,” I admit honestly. I rub my jaw angrily. “But what kind of man am I if I say that to the woman who was in this life-altering accident that almost killed her? What kind of man am I to tell my wife who lost her memories, how sad I am? What kind of selfish asshole would I be if I demanded more attention and affection from my wife who hates me?”

“The kind of man who fights for someone he loves when she needs him the most!” She cries, throwing her arms wide.

You stopped fighting for each other.

“You didn’t fight either, Madeline,” I say carefully. She turns her face to me, eyes wide. “I stopped bringing up memories because I was tired of being shut down and humiliated when you would fake a laugh or give me a pity smile.”

She doesn’t respond but she glares at me. We look at each other for many painful minutes without speaking.

“All I can remember of you is the asshole you used to be in high school. I stayed because I trusted my parents and Ana when they said that we were in love and you changed. But I come to this house I don’t know, with a man I don’t know…and the only thing that gets me is awkward silences with someone who barely speaks to me,” She seethes.

“I tried to talk to you!” I protest.

“I know.” She closes her eyes, putting a hand over her face. “But it’s not that easy…I didn’t know how to talk to you.” My heart breaks a little more. “I still don’t.”

“What about today?” I breathe.

She looks at me, her expression holds no trace of the girl who loved me.

“We…we talked today, like we used to,” I say quietly. “It…it felt…like it used to.” She doesn’t say anything. “I’m sorry, Mads. I’m sorry for the silence. I never meant to make you feel like I was putting pressure on you,” I say in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry.”

---