The festering essay

Sitting down to write for thirty minutes timed.. time to start again.. maybe if I do write…all that is rotting with this constant onslaught of Sheila will subside. I don’t like the person I have become; worrying, insecure and needy.

That woman just makes my skin crawl with distaste. Now that is a good first line of a story. So I shall write a story.

The woman just makes my skin crawl with distaste. I’m harboring a festering stomach wound because of that sly, snarky and completely distasteful woman.  I’m shocked by my level of hate, distaste and rage this woman makes me feel. She is this year’s Karen Dardis. The only other woman in the world, I hate as much.

Last night I guiltily checked his texts again, standing in the dark of the kitchen at the counter. Actually I have to turn his phone on first as it lays there charging. Me I’m charged with guilt, resentment and a neediness that makes me feel like a worm. But again; I’m not shocked to find three from her and as I read one. “I want you in my bed again, it was lovely.” And the next “miss you.” My gut just dropped to the floor in agony and then I was so coldly pissed. Covered in chills and hit with a rage so deep I could envision myself lighting her business on fire or shooting out a window or what I so badly want to do is come up on her in an alley some night while she is drunk and toss a bag over her head and run her face down a brick wall.

I cannot stand this woman. She is like no one I have ever come across with her mean personality, buying and bullying friends and belittling them as she does it all.

I could not sleep and when I did it was fitful. A storm rolled through and I thought my heart would break with the dark thoughts of not having in him my life anymore, not sharing the summer storms we love so much. I love this man. I got up and took the soft blanket with me, wrapping it around me while I rolled a cigarette and then went outside to sit on the porch in the dark.

Waiting for the lightning.

Waiting for the thunder.

Alone. Wishing he was sharing this storm with me, but so sad that it might never happen again. Beating myself up over and over about why he would be with me if he is having sex with her. When was he doing it, why? How often? The questions raged through me, but always returning to why? I have given him so many chances to be with her if he wants to, why does he stay and act like he cares, if he is fucking her? Tears start in my eyes and raindrops hit my face and the blanket. I reach down to move the blanket out of the rain a bit. The dark Prussian western sky lights up with a searing piece of lightning, making me blink in shock and blindness. A wind brings goosebumps to my arms, I rub the rain off them as well.  The lightning, It is followed slowly by thunder in the mountains. I put out my cigarette and wipe my face, moving tears and rain away and go back to bed. I had texted him previously. “Shouldn’t go to bed early and leave your cell phone laying around dirtbag. This you will get in the morning right after her lovely bed comment. You are such a lying piece of shit.” Then later I sent another. “Fuck you.” All night I warred with myself about what to do and say to him. One minute I wanted to throw cold water on him, the next, hoping beyond anything we were even and that he would pick me. I must of fell asleep because he woke me, walking past the guest room where I was sleeping. I wished he could hear how much I needed him to be the man I need him to be.

As the sun came up, I finally got up and took a shower and dressed. Hoping to get the pain fullest of days started. How could he deny it now? How could he keep lying to my face about it? I glanced down at him with resentment, he was sleeping so peacefully and he looked so sweet as I put on yesterday’s pants and tank tops.  I went to the couch and tried to read, wrote some in my diary and tried to sleep yet again. I give up.

Tossing the phone on the bed and waking him. I say “You better read your messages, because I would like to get this day over with.”

He reads them and I carefully watch his blue green eyes taking in the tan of his skin as he lays tangled in sheets. Looking more sexy than a man should be allowed first thing in the morning. His blue eyes they are clear of alcohol, they are clear of guilt and he says abruptly “I’m not fucking her, I swear I’m not. I have never been in her bed.”

“Then why does she say this shit, why does she keep texting this shit?”

“I don’t know. I told her to stop.”

“I want to believe you, but why would she say this stuff.”

He pulls me into bed with him, and I want to believe in him so very badly it makes me want to cry in fear, lack of trust and hope. He wraps his arms around me and he smells my hair.“Did you shower, already?”

“I couldn’t sleep because that woman is eating me alive.” I lay there and we are both silent for a long time. Finally I say,“there was a storm last night.”

“I know I watched it, when I woke up at four to pee and smoke. It was raining so hard. I woke up and put my hand to where you were supposed to be and you weren’t there.” I smile at the dresser as I stare across the room lying in his arms, his body heat taking the sting out of the night. Wondering if he wished I had been awake for the storm with him at the same time, just like I had earlier missed him.

He says into my hair and neck, “why did you sleep in the other room?”

“You were hogging the bed and snoring like a freight train, again.”

He pulls me tighter into him, his breath comes over my shoulder and then his voice. “I turned my phone off last night.”

“I know,” I say guiltily, “it’s making me crazy that she texts you and I just could not help myself.”

I sigh and roll over to put my head on his chest, glad that he is here and yet still my heart is so heavy.