Make Me Regret Chapters 1 & 2

          “You don’t have to believe in anything I say, Robert. But the truth has always been there. I never hid anything from you. I’m an open book,” Daniella Rubard said as she began stuffing polka dotted blouses into her suitcase. The bed was littered with a mixture of colored clothing and upturned shoes. The ray of the afternoon sun was pouring into their small stuffy one-bedroom apartment and Robert Rubard stood there watching as his wife of 16 years continued packing. He was at a loss of words; nothing could be said how he felt at this moment. There was an emptiness in his heart that seemed to swallow him up by the minute and he was drowning. Yet, no tears came to him and he stood frigid, afraid to speak, to move.

          Daniella looked up and a lock of brown hair fell over her eye. She shoved it back and let out a long-exhausted sigh. “Can you say something, so I know you’re hearing me?”

          Robert swallowed down the lump in his throat and moved to sit in the small chair in the corner of the room. He leaned forward on his knees and laced his hands together. Staring at his old aged hands, he realized how much he’d aged and how he’d let himself go over the years. Too many years of not loving who he was and giving everything to a woman who took advantage of him. He looked up with his sad blue eyes and watched as Daniella stood, waiting for something from him.

          “What do you want me to say?” he asked.

          She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “I don’t know! How about why?! At least ask me that so I know you’re human for crying out loud.”

          He straightened his posture and cleared his throat. “Fine, why?”

          She opened her eyes wider at his question and did as any woman did in a situation where she was faced with questions she didn’t want to answer. She began to busy herself again and ignored him. “Forget it.”

          Robert stood up. “Why are you ignoring me now? You were the one who gestured for me to ask that question. And I did. So now answer it.”

          Daniella stopped and looked up at him. “You really want to know why?”

          “Beats the hell out of me guessing and getting a headache.”

          She laughed. “You’re such a loser, Robert.”

          That did it. Pain, anger, torture blew up inside him and he slammed his fist into the wall. The action caused Daniella to jump backward and the suitcase she’d been stuffing fell over, everything spilling out. His shoulders heaved up and down, his nostrils flared and his hands in fists.

          “Why?! For 16 years, all I’ve ever done was love you, Daniella! I gave you my entire life and look at me now. I’m a sad, overweight, balding man with no future in sight because I gave my whole world to you. And today, you stand here and dare to call me a loser! After everything I did for you? Why?!” he cried.

          Daniella stepped forward and crossed her arms. “Robert, you stopped seeing me. You’re so lost in your own world that I’m invisible to you. When you stopped loving yourself, you stopped loving me. I saw how you drove yourself into your own little cave day in and day out and you forgot about me. I’m flesh and blood, not a machine where you can just shove into the back burner and expect to not quit on you. I need you to touch me! I need you to love me like I mean something to you.”

          “But I do love you…in my own way, I do. And you’re right, I did lose myself but that was because I was giving in to your every need.”

          “My every need? What every need? You haven’t met any of my needs in a long time.”

          Robert ran a hand through his hair. “16 years?”

          “It’s just a number, Robert. It didn’t hold any meaning to me. We grew apart and there’s nothing I can do to bring us back. You lost yourself, I lost me. In between, is just an idea of the perfect us and we use that to the public and it’s killing me inside. It’s not real. When I return home and I see your empty eyes, I know that it’s not worth faking it to the world.”

          “Is there someone else?” he whispered quietly.

          She looked away and then picked up her suitcase. “It doesn’t make a difference if there is or not.”

          “That’s a lie and you know it. You wouldn’t be leaving me if there wasn’t someone better than me. I know you too well, Daniella.”

          Shrugging, she replied, “If it makes you feel any better, then yes, there is someone else. And he’s someone who sees me. I’m visible to him.”

          “And what I’m blind to you?”

          “Yes, you are. You’re even blind to yourself. I can’t help you be what you’re not, Robert. I’m done being second best.”  

 

 

          The soft echo of the radio fluttered through his ear drums as Robert’s eyes slowly tried to pry open. He was lying on his belly over his black leather couch with an empty Jack Daniels bottle on the table. His throat was hoarse and he felt as if he’d been hit by a bat. The sunlight coming in hurt his eyes and he groaned. Slowly pushing himself up on his elbows, he stared at the clock on the wall. It was mid-afternoon and he couldn’t remember what had happened. His brain was fogged, and clarity was 0% as he wiped the drool from his lips. The walls hummed a tune of wailing pain, his pain, as he came to a sitting position.  

          The shrill ringing of the phone made his ears hurt and he searched through his pockets for his phone and came up empty. He stumbled through the apartment searching for the sound. He found it lying on the kitchen table and saw the name Ben Rubard with his brother’s handsome face appearing on the screen.

          “What’s up?” Robert said with thick phlegm in his throat.

          “Good to hear from you too, brother. Since you’re answering me, I assume you’re fighting a huge headache today.”

          Robert rubbed his temples and frowned, reaching for a chair to sit down. “What the hell happened?”

          “You mean, what didn’t happen?”

          “I’m confused.”

          “Let’s just say you’ve been banned from every single bar in town. You’re a mean drunk.”

          Robert coughed and cleared his throat. He groaned as he scratched his head and yawned. “I can’t control myself when I’m with Jack Daniels.”

          “Brother, it wasn’t just Jack Daniels that you partied with. You had the entire neighborhood from Jack to Johnny to Jose to Jager. You might want to check yourself out just in case you blew an intestine with the amount of alcohol you took.”

          Robert put the phone down and hit the speaker button. He got up and poured himself a glass of water. “Was she there?”

          “Why are you doing this, Robert?”

          “Is that why I got piss drunk?”

          “You don’t remember anything, do you?”

          Robert took a long drink. “No. And since you’re on my phone talking about how I’m banned from bars, you might as well refresh my memory about what started it.”

          A long sigh and then it sounded like Ben got out of a car and began walking. “We were all fine until Daniella showed up…with him. You were licking your wounds and she happened to throw salt over it. It’s a good thing the security guys are not pressing charges. Where did you learn to fight like that?”

          Robert sat down. “What? I knocked out the security guys?”

          Laughing, Ben replied, “No, but it was a good lie.”

          “Ben,” Robert said with an impatient groan.

          “All right, all right. It wasn’t a whole lie. You were having a good time up until she came. She brought him along and you were drinking your pain away with every glance her way. I tried to get you to leave but you wouldn’t. Robert, the things she said to you, I’m so glad you’re messed up not to remember every word. I wanted to hit her; I swear it. She was really asking for it. I’ve always loved Daniella but last night, she made herself into my number one enemy real fast.”

          “I want to know what she said…word for word.”

          Ben groaned. “I knew you’d say that. Buddy, you don’t need to know. Just forget it, let her go and move on. She’s not worth your pain and tears. Seriously, you do not need that kind of woman in your life. I just can’t believe I let you waste 16 years of your life with her. If I had known that this was going to be the outcome of your marriage, I’d never let you marry her in the first place.”

          “I love her.”

          “Love? Robert, she spat in your face last night in front of a huge crowd. Why are you still mooning over here like some lost dog? She’s let you go and has moved on to finer pasture as she so puts it.”

          “What do you recommend?”

          Ben laughed. “I recommend to you my older brother, get back in shape, get some tender loving care to you and show her that a when a wrong woman walks away, the real man underneath appears.”

          The man in the mirror showed an aging, overweight, balding man with no future in sight. No wonder Daniella had left. He’d forgotten who he was and buried both her and him into his pain. He stared at the unknown man looking back at him and saw the aged eyes, the wrinkles, the sagging face and realized this wasn’t the man who was inside of him. The man inside of him was young, energetic, full of life, jubilant and willing to make the woman of his life forget about any other man. But how could he reach this guy inside of him? Daniella had spent the past 16 years reminding him what a loser he had been and he’d believed her so much that he became exactly what she scolded him: a loser. He blinked back the hurt and the reality of the pain. He leaned forward on the sink with his hands and stared hard at the face returning his glare. His brother was right, of course he was. If he wanted Daniella to regret leaving him, to regret throwing him away, he needed to prove that the man inside of him could be found. He had to prove he could recover from a wound as deep as this and not let it rule over him. The time for change was now.

 

6 years later

          Megan Dunst had a plan for her life. She wanted to marry at age 30, pop out 4 kids by the time she was 36, wanted to own a beautiful two-story home by the golf course and drive a black BMW while working at the top advertising company making six figures a year. That was the plan she’d written in her diary when she was 16.

          Reality and dreams…that was the difference when it came to life. Nothing had happened as she had wished. She was 40 years old, single, no kids, lived in a one-bedroom apartment above a grocery store with a shower that gave out when you had shampoo in your hair. She drove a beat-up Ford Fusion that had no air conditioner and she worked as the receptionist for an insurance company making thirty thousand a year.

          Life didn’t go as planned. Today was another one of those days. It was a Saturday and the neighbor down the hall was at it again. Yes, she knew her neighbor was a hottie and could hook up with any man she wanted, but did she have to scream out her pleasures so loud that people like her who were getting nothing would envy? She hadn’t had a date in six years and the last man she went out with had a tendency to spit while he talked. It wasn’t pretty especially when you were chewing food.

          Groaning, Megan got out of bed and dragged her sorry self to the bathroom where when she flicked on the light, saw two cockroaches scatter away. She shuddered and banged her head on the door. Where did life go wrong for her? She had done everything by the book. Maybe it was time she threw the book out the window and started living life on the fast lane…like her neighbor who was now singing at a high note.

          Saturday meant brunch with her best friend Daniella. She met Daniella six years ago when the two collided in a grocery store after a two-year-old threw a temper and destroyed the paper towels on display. Beneath the fifty rolls was Daniella lying halfway across Megan. Daniella was divorced and was now married to her second husband, Ryan, who worked as a site manager. They were struggling for children and although Megan knew it, Daniella always pretended to say they weren’t ready for children.

          Daniella was your pure American girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, skin like milk and a body that was to die for. She had a very curvy body and a brain that sparked the greatest conversations ever. Megan, on the other hand, had dark, long hair and deep green eyes with a rounder body than Daniella. She wasn’t as tall and definitely was not as pretty. But Daniella had taken her under her wing and Megan was grateful for a friend.

          Today they met at Sports Café, a brand new grill that recently opened in town. The Minnesota weather was always unpredictable even in spring so Megan opted for a black sweater dress with boots and arrived to find Daniella already sipping on a long island while waiting for her.

          “You’re early,” Megan said.

          Without looking up, Daniella replied, “I’m not early. You’re late.”

          “I’m not late. I’m on time.”

          Daniella laughed and gave her a hug. “I like that. Is it new?”

Megan stared down at her outfit and shrugged. “Not really, no. I just never wore it before.”

“I don’t get why you don’t flaunt yourself when you’re single and have all the hot items as a woman. If I were you, I’d go about painting the town red and owning all the guys.”

Megan laughed. “Well, you’re not me and be thankful you’re not me. I’m so boring that every Saturday I’m eavesdropping on my neighbor’s lovemaking singalong sounds.”

Daniella made a face. “Eww, gross.”

“Exactly.”