Page 34 of Kayden: The Past
13
It Doesn’t Only Happen in the Movies - Danielle
I walkedout of the county jail around noon. Three days felt like an eternity stuck in a small cell eating bologna sandwiches and staring at a plain yellow wall. The one thing that jail was great for was thinking and self-evaluation. Danielle leaving the courtroom, without so much as a last look, was an eye-opener. I needed to change my ways. I needed to get my shit together for the sake of my future, our future.
I looked around the parking lot, but I didn’t see her or our car. My stomach twisted at the realization that she wasn’t there to get me. A car pulled up slowly in front of me, and it was one of the guys from work. He rolled down the window, and I knew I looked totally confused.
“Dude, I’m here to get you,” Derek said. Derek and I had lived together when I first moved to St. Louis and went through training together. He was in his work vehicle and didn’t look entirely happy to be picking me up. We became friends during the couple of months I’d been in St. Louis. When you were new to a city, you gravitated to those you knew and became friends quickly.
“Where’s Danielle?” I asked, still looking around the parking lot.
“She said she had to work and couldn’t get out of it. She gave me twenty bucks to come get your sorry ass and bring you home.” I didn’t like the feeling of the entire situation. Noon wasn’t a peak hour in the bar. She could’ve easily taken an hour off to pick me up and bring me home. My heart hurt. She was still punishing me. I knew I’d fucked up, but my indiscretion wasn’t worth all this suffering she’d been inflicting on me.
“It’s fine, man. Thanks for getting me. I can’t wait to get home.”
“Get in, let’s roll. I have a couple jobs to get to this afternoon.”
I climbed in his truck, and we chatted on the way home. “Does Don still want me back at work?” I asked.
“Fuck yeah, man. We’re slammed and shorthanded. You’re on the schedule tomorrow.”
Thank God for little miracles. “Good. I was worried that I wouldn’t have a job to come back to. I’ll give him a call when I get home.”
Derek dropped me at the curb, and I climbed the stairs to our apartment. I unlocked the door and walked into an empty space. I hoped that Danielle would be there waiting for me, that Derek was just a diversion. I had dreams of her waiting for me in a little teddy at the door, but my daydream was just that, a fantasy.
An envelope caught my eye on the kitchen table. “Kayden” was written in cursive, and it wasn’t sealed. I opened it and withdrew the single white sheet of paper.
Kayden,
I can’t do this anymore… I can’t do us. We’re two different people, and it doesn’t work for me anymore. I think it’s time for us to move on with our lives and go our separate ways. I didn’t know how else to tell you.
We only married because of the baby, and I don’t see a reason to move forward in this relationship. I don’t feel I’m your number one—the thing you can’t live without. I’ve always come second to alcohol. Losing the baby destroyed me and made me look at our life together. We weren’t right for each other then, and we aren’t now. I’ve felt detached from you since losing our baby.
I’ve met someone, and he’s helped me realize that we aren’t meant to be. I can’t devote my life and my heart to someone I don’t love anymore. I thought my heart shattered and died months ago, but I realize it was only temporarily frozen. When I’m with you, all I can think of is what should’ve been but will never be.
I’ve taken my stuff home and will be moving in with my mother. We started speaking after you left for St. Louis. She flew here and helped me gather my things, and we left yesterday.
Thank you for the memories and the chance to have a family. We just weren’t meant to be.
-D
The letter slipped from my fingers and drifted to the floor. I stood there with my heart beating out of my chest. My body was frozen in place.She left me?I knew that things weren’t great, but I never expected this.She met someone?It was her idea that I go ahead and get settled, and she’d meet me when the time was right. I left her alone in her grief just long enough to find someone else to love.
Someone without all the painful memories.
I sat down at the kitchen table and stared out the window. My mind still hadn’t processed the finality of the situation. Could she really leave me with a Dear John type letter? I thought that shit only happened in the movies, not in real life.
I didn’t cry. I sat there in shock for what felt like hours. The loss of our child had been gut-wrenching, but the loss of Danielle had felt earth-shattering. I held my shit together with the loss of our baby because I had to be strong for her. Who did I have now? I was alone.
Using alcohol as an excuse was bullshit. Danielle was every bit as much of an addict as me, but it was a cop-out. I picked up my phone and called her, but it went right to voice mail. She took the easy way out with the letter, the coward’s way.
I went on a bender. I don’t know exactly how much time passed after coming home to an empty house and waking up on the couch. Days probably, it’s all a haze to me today. I consumed all the alcohol I could find in the apartment—which is more than I’d like to admit. I woke up smelling like shit, sweaty, and in the same outfit I walked out of jail in. I lost time…days which I’ll never get back. How could she walk away from me? I never made her feel like my number two, but in her eyes, the booze always came first. Drinking ruined my life, or at least, it was the reason that was used. But what else did I have in my life?
I crawled off the couch and needed a shower. I needed to rid myself of the funk and clean up my act. I needed to get the fuck out of this place.
My phone rang, and my heart leapt. Danielle wanted me back. The time away made her realize she was wrong. I looked down at the screen, but it was my mom.
“Hey, Mom.”
