Page 16 of Broken By It

Without saying anything else or allowing the attorney a chance to reply, he turns and walks out of the office like he was never here to begin with.

Well, this is one way to start the damn workday.

SIX

DILLON

“Anna,I’m not doing this shit with you right now.” I enter my house unsure if I’m angry or hurt by her actions. How much more can I endure? It isn’t supposed to be like this. “I’m gonna talk and you’re gonna listen for once in your fuckin’ life.”

She lets out a cocky humph. “Don’t tell me what the fuck I’m gonna do. I told you what needs to happen. You’re the one complicating shit. Listening to you and all your big dreams is what got me stuck right the fuck here!” She screams waving her arms wildly.

Fury builds inside me. “And if I don’t do it your way?” I challenge.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep this shit up. For months, I’ve been sleeping in my truck. I don’t want to be away from Hollis, so I’ve crashed in my vehicle parked in the yard to the side of the house. Sharing the same house with her is no longer possible for my sanity. The anger continues to build inside me no matter how much I try to push it down.

Yes, I bought a crew cab Chevy truck specifically so I can keep a car seat ready for my son since from day to day I don’t know where I need to pick him up from since she never seems to keep him home anymore. Turns out its dual purpose because now, Isleep in the back bench seat. At six feet five inches, the space is cramped, but it beats being inside and having Anna screaming at me making Hollis nervous. The tension isn’t healthy for him. Being here, I’m close if he needs me and the nights she goes out, I stay in his room with him until she returns. What I won’t do is share space with her any more than necessary. We are toxic to each other. I can’t blame it all on her. We clearly have lost ourselves along the way. I gave up and checked out long ago. That isn’t fair to her. We don’t have a healthy marriage and if I get real with myself, we probably never did. We are two broken people who tried to fit our pieces together only to shatter what was left of each other in the process. There is no healing for me with her or her with me.

Today, though, today takes the cake. I told her last night I was taking Hollis to the new water slides in Emerald Isle. I even offered for her to join us when I decided this would be Hollis’s first trip there. I will do anything to have this family with her, but no matter how hard I try, she refuses. I can’t make her love me. I can’t make her want this life with me. She makes it clear day in and out, us being a family is not her future. How much more can I try just to be hit with a brick wall named Anna? She doesn’t want things to be easy between us. It has to be her way or not at all. Life doesn’t work that way for anyone. I thought with this being Hollis’ first time at a big water slide, she wouldn’t want to miss it. I know I certainly wouldn’t miss it for anything if the roles were reversed.

I was wrong.

How much longer do I hold onto hope that she will be the mom I know she’s capable of being? The woman I fell in love with seems a lifetime away. The caring, compassionate, supportive girl I adored is gone. Did I have blinders on when we were teens? Did I imagine she was this kind person? I can’t even remember the good times. How did we get here? The years passand nothing improves, only this hole we have dug is now a full-on trench keeping us separated. The woman I’m left with is self-centered, miserable, and hateful like I never thought possible. I know she loves Hollis, but it’s in her way. And her way means Anna comes first not our son.

He has begged to do this for a while. If I had to miss it, I would be devastated. Yet, the woman who carried him and birthed him isn’t concerned with his experience. She’s standing here having a pissing match with me. It wasn’t her idea, therefore she’s ready to sabotage it any way she can including ruining my mood. Even though she knows he loves water and has begged for a day spent at the slides, she is solely focused on herself.

Last summer, Maritza signed Hollis up for swim lessons and my boy is a damn fish it seems. He loves all things swimming. Every time we drive by, he wants to go to the Salty Pirate Water Slides. The way they are up so high they can’t be missed especially since they aren’t far off the main highway. I finally have a day off with sunshine, no rain, and nothing that is pressing to do around the house. It is the perfect window of opportunity, and I won’t let it pass me up.

Adulting is hard because there is always a job that needs doing, but he’s only little once. The jobs will wait, giving my son my time and attention is far more important. I think being a parent only makes my childhood experience a little harder to understand. I can’t imagine missing time with Hollis. Yet, my mother walked away and never looked back. I struggle to see how Anna can disconnect from our son like she does.

It’s funny how as children we can’t wait to grow up, then we grow up and find out it comes with huge responsibilities, especially when you have kids. Those responsibilities are sometimes like the weight of the world. Nothing is simple anymore as you get older. Days like today, I want to have theeasy moments and make the memories. The bills will still come, the tasks will still wait, and the fights with Anna I’m sure will continue even if I check out to do this with my kid.

Hollis is worth it and today is going to be a day I remember for my lifetime. I’m sorry she’s going to miss it. That is on her, though, and it’s a decision she has to live with. I can’t continue to push and worry over what her journey as a mother is. All I can do is give my son all of me. I can’t make up for her short comings, but I can still give him experiences.

If only his mother could see how short time is. Sometimes I wonder if she sees it, but she’s so consumed in herself she doesn’t know how to change anything. I don’t know where she got lost. I feel like we were on this road together. A ride, so to speak, and the pavement changed. I rode through the bumps and somewhere along the way, I left her behind. She got stuck and couldn’t get out of the muck of life. There have been times wasted trying to pull her to me. I give up and I can’t even say we are on the same path anymore.

Maybe that’s why we seem to be on this hamster wheel of misery tearing each other apart.

I woke up this morning to find a text from Maritza informing me that Anna dropped Hollis off at her condo. The text came in at five in the morning. It’s one thing that Anna needs time for herself during the day, but to wake my son up to take him off when I’m in the damn truck parked in the side yard is uncalled for. All she had to do was wake me up if she didn’t want to deal with him getting up. I would have come inside and be there for him to wake up on his own. Instead, she wakes him, taking him off half asleep so she can go do God knows what with God knows who. I guess I’m going to have to put the baby monitor back up in his room and the receiver in my truck. There was no reason for her to take him to Maritza today. I told her I was off and had these plans.

I’ve literally been waiting for her to come home since I got the text. I left long enough to take Hollis breakfast and coffee for Maritza. I promised him donuts. I dropped them with her before he woke up, so he still gets everything we planned today. I came back here, and I have been waiting on her return. Once her car pulled in, I got out of the truck and came inside not two minutes after her. I could have waited inside the house for her, but honestly being in this house no longer feels like home. Instead it’s become a prison of sorts. I’m already angry. I know myself well enough to know if I sat in here, my anger would only climb.

“Dillon, we need to come this agreement. I don’t want to be married any more than you do, but we have to think of Hollis.” Anna says the same shit she’s been saying for four fucking days. Ever since her legal representative showed up at my work, this is all she wants to talk about. Not that she had the nerve to mention it before Mr. Owens so kindly informed me of her intentions. The whole thing is fucking absurd. Her first pitch was a post-nuptial agreement. It’s like a prenuptial agreement but one entered into after a couple is indeed married. Well, that is the stupidest shit I have ever heard of since we don’t have assets that need to be protected. If she wants the house, I’m not going to fight her. I’ll always take care of my son. We don’t have millions; we don’t even have a hundred thousand in the bank to try to protect. Money means shit to me if I can have my son out of this turmoil. When Mr. Owens realized the post- nuptial agreement was getting nowhere with me, he changed tactics. A fucking contract to continue our marriage … a marriage that is dead.

“I am not going to have a contract marriage. Anna, we didn’t get married under some agreement for benefits and a paycheck. We got married because we loved each other and wanted to build a family. Regardless of that fact that shit doesn’t work, I’m not going back on how we began. I don’t understand. How canyou propose this?” Which is exactly what I told her attorney. We didn’t get married as part of some mutually beneficial arrangement. We committed to one another out of love. The love is gone and so is the marriage.

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “We were young and dumb. We didn’t know what love was, not really. I’ve heard of lots of people deciding to have contracts for their relationships. Consider it like guidelines. Our marriage won’t end, but we don’t have to concern ourselves with what the other person may or may not be doing outside of these walls.”

“I know this may sound crazy, but Anna I got married to be a couple. I don’t want a contract marriage where we are legally married so you have benefits and can be entitled to my paycheck. I have made peace with the fact that we shouldn’t be together anymore. It’s been a hard road to go down, but we have both changed. We have grown apart. And we need to cut ties, not come up with an agreement on how to stay together without being together. I’m only staying here for Hollis until we can work out a joint custody agreement. North Carolina is very clear cut in the law, if I live, I’m giving up my rights until there is a court order in place for me to get my belongings and see my son. If you would sign the papers my attorney drafted, I would move out and we could get this process going a little bit quicker. We don’t work, Anna.”

She blinks at me with this blank stare like I have eight heads. “I disagree.”

Well, there is no shock there. Of course she does. She wants this contract thing because it benefits her. She keeps me paying for her insurance, she keeps access to my bank account, I pay all the bills, and she can go about her life fucking around and doing whatever she wants. All while I take care of her. What’s in it for me? Not a damn thing.

“Anna, this is my day off. A day I have planned to spend with my son. I get up to find you took him to Maritza at work before telling me. I came here to pick up his swim stuff and have a brief conversation with you about taking him to Maritza when I’m literally in the fuckin’ yard. Since that is not the conversation you are willing to have, I’m done talking. He’s waiting. In case you haven’t figured it out, or I didn’t make it clear enough, I’m done having this conversation. Not today, not tomorrow, not ten years from now. There is no need to bring up a contract again.”

She throws her hands up wildly, “because the almighty Dillon Jacoby says he’s done the conversation is over. Well, no. I am not done talking to you and about this! You will stop and listen to me.”

Keeping my temper at bay is a greater challenge by the minute. “Anna,” I warn.

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