Untamed

Seven years had come and gone since Julia and Aidan had been divorced; seven years had come and gone that Julia spent living her life in such a way that pushed Aidan away into a corner, where she could ignore the past. They never fought and they both lived together wonderfully, for years on end Julia thought the perfect world they built with each other would never come to an end. All of it had happened so suddenly, so fast that it made her head spin and made her world a little more tilted than the natural axis of Earth. There, on the table, under the set of house keys that Aidan owned to their house, was a letter in his handwriting.

“My darling wife, Julia,

I am sorry that I must do this to you, for I could not think of a better way to deal with the things that my heart causes me to feel, the things that my mind tells me not to believe, only to find myself weak. We have spent fourteen happy years together, and I truly did believe that you would be the person whom the remainder of my life would be shared with. Many days passed, with my heart only beating to the sound of you, and yet I find myself unable to understand many things in life. You always did everything that a man could ever want from a lifetime partner, even some of the things that surprised me and found that I loved immensely.

Something cannot fill this void – not even you. I’m sorry.

Love,

Aidan.”

Everything in their home was untouched, nothing was missing, there was no sign of change between them – even his tie was still hanging over the back of the wooden chair in the dining room. Yet, on the table where the letter had sat, were signed divorce papers that awaited her signature. The paper was slightly discoloured, a little different in small patches than it normally would be; those abnormalities were his tears that had fallen onto reality and dried. Feelings ripped at her heart, at her insides like a serrated blade whilst her mind froze, incapacitated from the ability to think, to comprehend.

She lowered herself to the couch, holding one hand over her mouth in attempt to shut her feeling off, to hold back tears that were so ready to overflow the barrier while the other hand clenched the letter with so much emotion, almost crushing it. Soft, slow notes of a piano filled the room, before a voice said mourningly, “Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong and everything you think you had, baby, is gone.” Julia’s eyes scanned the room, with hope and desperation that it may have been Aidan who had turned the stereo on, that the letter, the divorce papers were all her imagination or at least now a change of his mind.

There was no sight of him, no explanation for why the speakers had turned themselves on – that is, until she realised that it was her who turned the music on, when she had accidentally sat on the remote. Still, the sound filled the room, putting Julia’s reality in her face more than she would have liked, “Certain things turn ugly when you think too hard, and nagging little thoughts change into things you can’t turn off. Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong.” Tears spilled from her eyes, causing her perfectly placed eye liner to run down her cheeks, in the path of every salty, wet streak.

It was difficult for her to decide what hurt more – the letter, and the divorce papers or the fact that everything seemed to be pushing those two facts into her face, into her conscience. Anger filled her, as she tossed her wedding and engagement rings across the room; Julia wasn’t Aidan’s first love, and she thought perhaps that was the reason why any of this was happening; she cursed his first love for tainting everything they would ever have. Instantly, a feeling of panic rushed over her as she fell to her knees and scrambled over to the abandoned rings, sliding them back on the finger that felt naked without them.

Seven years had passed, and Aidan never did return to Julia; in fact, she hadn’t even heard from him since. He never called her, never visited their home to collect his belongings and take what was his, and he never messaged her phone. The first few years were difficult for Julia, yet her life was the same as it was before Aidan left – great job, fantastic income, and beautiful home. Nothing felt the same now as it did then, no one else had entered her life since, and she didn’t plan on letting anyone get close enough to her to try.

Julia never thought much about Aidan these days; she simply shut it out of her mind. It wasn’t until she was sitting at a café that her eyes happened to notice that her wedding and engagement rings were sitting on their usual finger. At no point did she ever recall putting them back on, and she remembered removing them shortly after having the divorce finalised. The café’s music felt familiar to her, although she hadn’t been concentrating on it all that much, “If I could I would, I’d change everything ‘cause I can’t forget you though you don’t believe me. Now I can’t walk back, I can’t leave behind. Where does it go, all the light that we had?

Everything you think you know, baby, is wrong and everything you think you had, baby, is gone.” She hadn’t heard those words, that song in seven years and with that, she reached into her bag and felt around until her hands wrapped around cold, hard metal; a pistol was held in her hand, as Julia pulled it out of her bag and shot herself in the head. The truth really was that Julia never removed the rings from her finger at all; instead she convinced herself that she had and she would never wake up from her dream to realise it.

I have to admit that I did not have the courage to talk about our “relationship” with him when he walked in the door several minutes after I woke up, this morning. I couldn’t think of where to begin, how to start talking about it – what would I say? I figured that a shower would buy me some time, where I could spend a few minutes to myself to come up with a way to ease into the conversation; five minutes passed and then ten, with me still struggling to think of how to put it. By the time I had gotten out, dried off and put some clothes on, he had left and I stood there, annoyed at myself for not jumping to the opportunity earlier.

I knew what it was that I wanted to say, by then and I had planned to make him angry. Now that I think about it, I wasn’t even sure what his anger would have achieved, but I just wanted to vent at him, get what I needed to say out into the open. I couldn’t understand his reasoning, his intentions with me – where did he want this all to go in the end? I wasn’t allowed to call him at home, yet it was perfectly fine for him to stroll into my home whenever he saw fit, it seemed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given him a key, or told him that I usually leave the back door unlocked when I’m home.

There is no way for me to figure him out, to read him even when we have sex. I want to make deal about how he never makes any sound or any movement but I don’t want to confess that I enjoy it. I know that it feels good, when he tells me later, but some part of me would appreciate a bit of noise, a bit of breath to help me figure it out. It baffles me that he can say how much he wants to be with me, to be ‘in my pants’, only to close his eyes for the entire time that he finds himself exactly where he claims he wants to be. Every night that he closes his eyes feels like another night that I’ve been shut out, another night that I’m being used because he can’t find what I give elsewhere.

It only makes me question myself.

Lance and I are just friends, and nothing more; well, friends who had casual sex with each other and nothing more. So why am I so interested in making this discussion with him? I thought about this for longer than I should have while I ate my breakfast; I figured that if anyone would know best about this, it would be my ex. My ex saw more of him than I ever did, and we have all been friends for more years than I can remember, more years than I can count on my two hands. I started this entire ‘casual sex as friends’ with him whilst we were all living together and when my ex was spending several years in prison for grand theft auto.

I found out today, in my visit, that he had thought Lance and I were having sex together when we all were living together. I wondered what made Lance so easily detectable yet the other men that I had over remained completely unknown to him. Lance has heard it too, so if he was going to find out anything it would have been by his mouth. I would get teased later, every time that Lance had overheard the sounds of me and some other man fucking in the next room. He always acted disgusted, whenever he’d talk about it, but I could see by the twinkle in his eye that he liked listening. I could tell that he made an effort to be around to hear it, without letting on that he was interested. Sometimes I think I put a bit of extra effort in the sounds I made, into the performance he heard, just for him.

I took a guy to a hotel one night and fucked him repeatedly, but it just wasn’t the same without Lance listening to it all in the next room, or outside the door. Sex felt like nothing more than a cigarette for me, but one we shared together that was a little messier and more enjoyable. Despite our connection, I didn’t get why I could feel so emotionally detached from Lance, from our nights of sex, even when they were amazingly good. I yearned for a friend, someone who would listen and make no judgements when I poured my heart and soul to them. Perhaps if I sniffled, someone would hand me a tissue, and someone would be my friend.

Most people don’t see the part of me who wants a hug, who wants to be loved and held. Instead, they see a woman of twenty-nine who seemingly makes sex her entire life. Yet there is a part of me who wants to find someone to invite over to stay forever, someone who is comfortable to cuddle after sex. So I lay here tonight and decide to stop whatever I have going with Lance; he isn’t the one who makes me feel any of these things, and it weighs on my soul. The constant meaningless sex makes me feel worthless, and yet it is all because I allow it to happen, all because I do it to myself.

No amount of masturbation can replace the sex, though and that fact alone makes me feel ugly both inside and out.

If there was ever a time that I would use the word ‘hate,’ it would be for this – for this that grips me in my chest, for this that makes my heart feel as though it is beating randomly, sometimes skipping a beat and other times doubling a beat. For this that forces me to recall the wanton of it all, for this that tugs at my sleeve and his, for this that reduces me to tears. A hollowed memory of what used to exist and what will never change, regardless of how much effort and emotion is ever poured into it. My voice is stifled by the absence but always continues to desire an outburst, to yell, for the first time in over a year. ‘That’s not going to change anything, and you know it,’ the voice of reason told me and it was right – I do know it.

Perhaps, foolishly, I despise him for the way that a feeling will slowly seep in through that hollowed memory. Despise him for being able to fill that hollow successfully, in the face of my own attempts to do anything to it myself. Yet I wonder if it really is all down to me, with the blame resting firmly on my own shoulders. My face remained dry whilst his was soaked with several hours’ worth of tears, even days later. It was difficult to understand how I could sit there and remain detached, and how I could simply walk away without saying much at all. It made perfect sense to me back then, but now, when I find myself flicking through a book and changing the meaning of “flicking through” to “stoping and reading,” it is difficult for me to understand.

I enter a conundrum, an infinite loop that will only continue when it is solved with the simple solution that on first glance doesn’t seem so simple at all. I don’t want to be caught on the things that appear to relate, I don’t want to stop every so often in the middle of life’s road and feel as though I’m about to cry. I don’t want to think that what he did is a most likely possibility to happen again, I don’t want to let the latter be purely because I’ve been made slightly paranoid, guarded and cautious. I don’t want to feel annoyed every time it interferes with my life, with us, when I don’t want it to. Most of all, I don’t want to let him feel as though anything he does is a comparison, or as though he can’t be believed or trusted by me.

A simple solution that I know must be done.

I take my time playing with the small golden balls that are threaded on some wire along the frame of a small box, which ironically is just the right size. Letting them go forever is something that I would much rather do, but for some reason I find myself unable to go through with it. Instead I sit there, aligning the golden balls in perfect symmetry to each other and finally place the book inside, closing the copper-framed lid. “I’m hopeless at keeping secrets from you,” were the words of the past trying to make one last attempt to stop me from implementing the simple solution.

‘It’s never going to not have happened,’ and with that, I put the past away and left it there.

I was twelve when my mother died; a young lad who was about to enter his years of becoming a man. The presence of her lingers in my memory to this day, and I suspect it always will – of course, that feels as though I would rather that it never did. In all actuality, things couldn’t be far from the opposite; the death of my mother resides deep within me and shamefully, as a man of thirty-seven, I still cry sometimes. There will be moments where I will be reduced to nothing more than staring at her picture and silently crying.

I can still remember her as though it was just yesterday that I kissed her cheek and hugged her she said goodbye to me at the schoolyard gate. She wore her favourite brown dress with the vanilla cream piece at the bust; that dress hugged her body beautifully – an anniversary gift from her husband. It matched her mahogany brown hair that was always pulled loosely to the back of her head elegantly, a few curls tangled through the otherwise straight hair.

My mother would always smell of sweet rose and lilac, a scent that always seemed to follow her wherever she went; a scent that I remembered ever since I was an infant. It was always her who would help me fix my school tie…

“Mother, mother, I cannot do this myself,” I said as I walked into her room, struggling with the tedious black tie that the school insisted we wore as part of our uniform. There she sat in her parlour, fixing her hair into the same style she wore every year of her life since she was twenty.

Her eyes looked at me in the mirror before she turned to me with the lightest smile on her face. “Always with the tie, isn’t it, dear?” she asked with the softest voice, a voice which Angels themselves wished to have; I could see why my father was intensely in love with her. Within seconds she was patting out the wrinkles of my shirt and pressing the collar into place before making a final adjustment to my tie and hair, “You look just like your father.”

To this day I still smile to myself every time those words enter my mind. Every time that I turn to the mirror, my reflection reminds me more of my mother than my father ever did. Her death almost destroyed him, he really didn’t want to go on – he started drinking excessively, had little concern about his own wellbeing or his job and he had a fear of even going near or looking at my mother’s parlour room. Eventually his curse of a weak heart and spirit ravished at his soul and mind, and every Thursday I take an hour and a half to visit him at the mental institution.

I would be lucky if he even remembers who I am; on some days he simply has no recollection that he has a son or that he had a wife. The doctors tell me that his mind has deteriorated to a point where the people he normally would remember are simply non-existent; it is their theory that when mama died, he entered a deep state of denial. His mind refused to accept the truth, and so he entered a world of his own, where her death didn’t exist, where nothing ever happened. No wife, no death, no son. The part that breaks my heart the most is that they believe he will never recover.

At times I wonder if being so young made it easier for me to cope with the things that happened, protected and sheltered me from allowing myself to become like my father. Though my life doesn’t consist of much more than writing – mostly plays but sometimes the odd story or two – I suppose plays are stories in themselves, really, just expressed a little differently. Mother always wanted me to be successful and I remember fondly the many a time that she would set me on her lap, in front of her parlour mirror and ask me to tell her a story.

“You are a very creative young boy, please don’t let this talent go to waste,” she would tell me, the same soft smile on her face as always, while she kissed my head. The night before her death, she had handed me a book with a leather cover that had two buckle straps on it for decoration, each page as empty as the next. “Use it,” she told me, “write your many stories and tell them to as many people as you can. Entice and captivate their imaginations as wonderfully and colourfully as you do with my own. You make me so proud, and you shall always make me proud.”

“Oh, mother, but I can’t write,” would always be my immediate protest every time the subject of storytelling arose. Truly, I did not believe there was a single creative bone within my body and I absolutely detested anything that I attempted to create. Yet every time, her delicate hand would caress my cheek as she would assure me that I was wrong, as she would promise me that my future would be bright, if only I would allow myself to open up to my gift. Of course, now I understand completely how she feels, being that I eventually did listen to her – she was right, as always.

I came home to find my father rocking back and forth on the floor of their bedroom, holding his wife in his arms, his face wet with hours of tears, his eyes red and tired. No single word had to be exchanged between us, when I saw the blood that had been seeping from her mouth; it wasn’t the first time that I had seen it, but never as bad as it were then. We would always insist that she visited the hospital, yet she would refuse and say that it was nothing more than a little cold, like a nosebleed but slightly different.

There were many tissues on her dresser, on the floor near her and on the bed, each of them covered with blood that she had been coughing. Her funeral was held the next day and many people, even some who I didn’t know or recognise paid my father and me visits, telling me that I would be okay. School was never the same again and I began using the book she gave me the very night after her funeral – I wasn’t sure about what I was going to write, but there was something telling me that it was what she would have wanted.

It was then that I began writing my first play, after deciding to stop writing small stories that would be told to my mother; that was too painful to do at the time. My play was dedicated to her, and performed in front of my school, with several friends of my mother attending with their children to see it. I told a story of a rose, that despite the weather always changing and always attempting to make the roses survival impossible, it continued to bloom, more brilliantly than the days before. It didn’t make much sense, considering it was a play written by a twelve-year-old, but then again, life doesn’t seem to make much sense sometimes…