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Before: Always Love


Ashley

I sat in Patrick's living room, looking around as he went and got drinks. He came back with orange juice and a bowl of popcorn, which he put on the coffee table in front of me. I'd picked up the picture from the prom and was holding it in my hands. He nodded toward it as he setteled down on the couch a couple feet from me. "That was 1968," he said. "Twelve years before you were born."

I stared down at the picture. "You went to prom together."

"Actually, that was home coming," he said. "Our freshman year. You mom found that dress at a thrift store and fixed it up..." he smiled. "We looked way more like hippies by the time we graduated."

"My mom was a hippie?" I looked up.

Patrick laughed, "The hippies were a dying breed in the 70s, taken over by disco queens, but yes, your mother was a hippie. As much as one could be in the 70s, anyway."

I laughed. "What was she like? My mom?" I asked.

Patrick's face was sad. "She was perfect," he said. A tear slipped across his cheek and he swipe at it with his fist. "God, I can't even think of her without crying," he said. He took a deep breath. "She was one of those people whose personality just... fills a room. You know what I mean? Like you can't ignore them, they're everywhere. They're like fire."

I thought of Nick. I nodded.

"She could make magic, I swear it. She'd walk into a room and it'd suddenly seem brighter, and her laugh --" he chuckled, "Oh boy, her laughter could've made anyone laugh at any thing. And she loved to laugh. She loved jokes. The dirtier the better. She loved dirty poetry. She loved Sylvia Plath."

I laughed.

Patrick rubbed his beard. "She used to go dancing outside when it rained. She would wear these big ugly rain boots that belonged to her dad and she'd spin around in the puddles. She had a Chia pet named Earl."

"A chia pet?"

"Yeah," Patrick laughed. "She made me baby sit it once when her family went on vacation. She didn't want Earl to die."

"Were you always close?"

Patrick sighed, "Well, yes and no. I met her in middle school. She transferred to the private school I was going to because they couldn't keep her in public school. She cut more classes than she went to. Her parents thought private school would help. It wasn't that Monica wasn't smart, she was. She just.. hated school. She could've wowed them, could've done solid A's in every class if she'd just applied herself."

"I used to be a teacher," I said, "I've seen those kids."

Patrick laughed, "Monica's daughter, a teacher. My God, the irony."

"How did you end up together?"

Patrick took a deep breath, "Well, really, in that picture," he gestured at the homecoming photo in my hands, "We weren't together, persay. We went together as friends. That's all she ever wanted to be was friends. She was like a wild horse. She was too free. She never wanted to be bogged down by love, she said all the time. I loved her, I felt like a prisoner, I loved her so much." Patrick shook his head. "I think that's what appealed to her so much about Henry."

"What?"

"Henry drove a truck, he was always coming and going, in and out of town. She liked the freedom, how he could just get in his truck and go and see the whole coastal route. She liked the way he told stories about his buddies and the people he met. She thought it was all so glamourous..." Patrick frowned. "She'd disappear for weeks at a time, riding along with him on his route. She'd come back with fantastic stories and subtle changes in her personality. Little bits at a time she changed. In little ways. There wasn't nothing blatantly huge or obvious, it was just little things... Like the way she spoke, the way she stopped rambling when she talked. She wore different clothes, did her hair differenty. Then one day she stopped calling. Her visits home became less and less frequent... and one day, she just stopped coming home altogether."

I thought about how Chris had gotten the year before, leading up to our marriage. How he'd wanted to be involved in everything, but how his being involved had slowly isolated me from my friends. I'd once had so many friends I couldn't count them. Then Chris happened and it seemed overnight everything changed and now I could count my friends on one hand.

Patrick's eyes softened suddenly, "When she came home next it was to me. To this very apartment..." He looked at the door, as though he expected her to burst through it. As though he expected it to happen all again. "She was broken then," he said, "Tired from driving two days straight, starving half to death. Thin as a rail." He shook his head. "She told me he was beating her, showed me the bruises. She was afraid of everything, every noise, every move I made. Cowered." He looked away from the door. "It broke my heart," he said, "To see her like that. Afraid. If there was one thing Monica never was, it was afraid. She was the bravest woman I ever knew." He took a deep breath, "She was married to a beast."

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks.

"She stayed here," Patrick said, rubbing his palms on his ripped jeans. "She stayed with me because I swore to keep her safe. It took a long time for her to dare to trust me, to leave the apartment even to go to the store. But time passed and she started to open up, started to return to who she'd been before Henry was in her life. I started to recognize her again." He closed his eyes, "They were the best three months of my life," he whispered. "The time I had with her. I wanted to be her everything since the moment I laid eyes on her, I loved her so much, I just wanted to keep her safe, to be loved by her..." When he opened his eyes again, he said, "And she did love me for those three months. She did. She promised to marry me, promised she'd get a divorce from Henry, we made plans. We were going to move to Cape Cod." He smiled sadly. "But then she just went back to him."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Patrick replied. "I don't know."

I looked down at my hands.

"I kept trying to call her, to tell her to come back, to beg her to come back," he continued, "But he would intercept the calls. He would scream at me to never call again, to leave them alone. It scared me that no matter what time of day I called she was never the one to pick up, it was always only him there. I was truly afraid for her." Patrick drew a deep breath, "So I wrote to her."

I looked up. This was something that Henry had not told me in his letter. This was new.

"It took a long time, but when she wrote back all she'd put on the page was," he cleared his throat, "I'm pregnant. I will always love you. Monica."

The tone he spoke the words in I knew it was a letter that he'd read and cherished for years. My hands shook as I reached for his hand. I put my tiny fingers gently over his own large hands. He had hands like a lumberjack, big and calloused and rough.

"I left her alone. I thought it was better. But I read that letter everyday. Then I did the math." He looked at me. "She was with me for three months," he said quietly, "And depending how pregnant she was... So I went to her. I wanted to know. I had to know. It was consuming me, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I sat in my car on the curb in front of the house and waited until I saw Henry leave, and I sprinted to the door and when she answered... she had you in her arms."

"Was the timing... right?"

Patrick nodded. "Either she was pregnant when she came to me three months before and didn't know it, or..." he paused. "You know."

I nodded.

"She denied that, she denied it was even possible you were mine. She denied ever loving me, ever needing me. She told me that she'd lied about Henry hurting her, and she told me to go, to leave, and to never come back. She told me she hated me. I showed her the letter. The one where she said she would always love me. And she ripped it from my hands, she tore it up, threw the pieces to the wind. I told her if she changed her mind to come to me, and that I'd stay for a week so that she had time to think. She slammed the door." He reached for the picture frame in my hand, pulled it open from the back. "This was the only piece I was able to catch before they blew away..."

Laying on the backside of the photo was a yellowed piece of notebook paper. The only words on it were always love in a scripty, messy handwriting that I'd never seen before. My mother's handwriting.

"I never saw her alive again," he choked the words, his voice hardly came out, "When I saw the news... that he shot her..." The anguish in Patrick's face was so deep... "He told me later that it was an accident, but that's bullshit. It's bullshit. I knew it was bullshit when I looked at his eyes. He pulled the trigger because he couldn't stand the idea that she could love someone else more than him."

It was terrifying, how similar my mother's story was to my own, and it made my stomach curl and twist at the thought of Christopher out there somehere, free. Free to pull a trigger because, by admission, he couldn't stand the idea of me loving something more than him, either.

The door buzzer broke the tension in the room, ringing out loudly, repeatedly. Patrick stood up, swiping the tears from his face with the back of that big old hand of his, and walked swiftly to the door. "Hello?" he asked into the intercom.

"Let me up," it was Nick. He was gasping, like he'd just run a mile.

"Nick?" I looked up.

Patrick buzzed him up.

Patrick and I both went out to the steps. Nick was charging up them, his arms wrapped protectively around the knapsack that held Zoey, who was crying. Nick's feet thundered. "Brian.. Brian..." he gasped, and I saw panic in his eyes, "Chris beat the fuck out of Brian," he gasped as he nearly fell on the last couple steps.

Panic ripped through my veins.

Patrick looked between Nick and I, "Who is Brian? Who is Chris?"

I took Zoey from Nick's pouch. "Brian is Nick's best friend... and..." I hated that I had to tell Patrick this story, hated that he had to know how history was repeating itself. "...Chris is my husband."

Patrick looked down at Nick, then back up at me. "Oh Ashley," he whispered, putting it all together.




Nick

I'd run from the T stop to Patrick's apartment pellmell through all the game goers, my heart had throbbed every step of the way. Zoey was crying. What if Brian died? that was all I could think. What if he was dead and it as because of me, because I hadn't been clear enough, because I'd asked him to serve the papers in the first place? How could I ever forgive myself if I lost my best friend because he was doing a favor for me?

I needed Ashley. I needed her touch, her arms, her scent. Which was why I was running. I thought I might go crazy if I didn't have her, if I couldn't feel her touch.

After Patrick buzzed me in, I ran up the stairs. I saw her waiting, my focus only on her, I ran all the harder to get to her, closing the gap. "Brian," I gasped, "Brian. Chris beat the fuck out of Brian." I saw the fear register in her eyes, and she took Zoey. I wanted nothing more than to curl up and have her wrap around me like a blanket, like a shield, like she could keep the hurt from reaching me. I pictured Brian laying in a hospital bed, pictured him on oxygen, pictured him dying.

"Who is Brian?" Patrick asked, "Who is Chris?"

"Brian is Nick's best friend," Ashley replied, "And Chris is my husband."

"Oh Ashley," Patrick whispered.

He ushered us quickly into the apartment. Patrick went to get a drink for me, and Ashley turned to me, "Nick, what can I do?"

"Hug me," I whispered.

Ashley put Zoey into her carrier and set me down on the couch and held out her arms. I leaned into her, pressed my face into her brought my arms around her waist. She put hers around my shoulders, and she laid her face against my cheek. It was like being reenergized, like a battery recharging. I needed her like that.

"AJ called me," I choked into the folds of her shirt, "He said Brian's real bad, he said he's in ICU."

I heard Patrick come back into the living room, heard a glass clink on the table in front of Ashley and I, but I didn't move from her embrace. "What happened exactly?" he asked.

"Nick? What happened?" Ashley asked after I'd been quiet a moment without answering.

Reluctantly, I pulled away from her. "He tried to serve the annullment forms," I said, "And... I don't really know from there, that's all AJ knew, that he got beat up. I don't know what happened. I just know he's in ICU now."

"Is this situation... what I think it is?" Patrick asked quietly.

Ashley looked over at him. She nodded.