Page 43 of Legally Yours

Pat’s great. She never pries. But the stay well part speaks volumes.

I can’t fake it anymore. The smiles. The upbeat banter. I’m wrecked. I know I am. I got what I wanted from Liam. A divorce. And it’s killing me slowly.

From the moment I wake until I go to bed, all I see in my mind’s eye is Liam. All I feel is heartache. I miss him so badly I can taste the longing for him in my mouth. Bitter, sour longing.

I walk around Leslie’s condo like a ghost.

She says I can stay with her until I figure things out. Once Liam handed me the divorce papers, I knew I had to move everything out of our place that night. And so I did all of it before he got home from work.

I never get out of my pajamas. What’s the use? It’s not like I have a reason to be a part of the living. I breathe. I walk. I talk only if I have to. I’m alive, but I’m not living.

I wake up and when I do, I rue my waking. I pad to the kitchen to guzzle coffee, hoping it will fill me with energy to start my day. All it does is work like a sleeping pill, and I get back to bed. I lie there, staring up at the ceiling. The stucco design looks like the surface of the moon – desolate, without life. I am the ceiling.

I’ll still be lying there when Leslie finally comes home. I see her looking at me. I see her lips move. I feel in my soul she’s trying to get me going, get me back to life.

“Come on, Cassandra. This isn’t you. You’re the agency’s Eveready Bunny. Look at you now. Is ruining your life worth it? Get dressed. We can get a bite to eat.”

I hear myself talk, but I’m not in my body when I do. “I don’t want to. Please, don’t make me go.”

I watch myself. I’ve disassociated from my body. I hear the words and see the expression on my face. Tears flow.

“Oh, girl, this is no good. No good at all.” Leslie hugs me. I see her hugging me. I feel nothing.

She leaves me be. I curl up and fall back to sleep, my pillow wet from quiet tears. No overt sobbing anymore. The fight in me is gone. My eyes just haven’t got the memo yet.

* * *

The next morning,I wake. Again, I rue the waking.

I pad out to the kitchen. Leslie is there, drinking coffee. She gets up and hands me a cup.

“What are you doing here? Aren’t you working?” I ask groggily.

“I’m dead worried about you, so I feigned a sick day. I need to make you better. I don’t know how to do it, but I need to do it somehow. I hope you work with me today to try to make it happen.”

“Oh, Leslie. Look at what I’ve done,” I sob. Overnight, I must have gathered up enough energy to sob again.

Leslie guides me to her couch. She gets me a throw, and I curl up on it. Leslie sits at my feet. She rubs them, desperate to make me feel something, anything but torment and heartbreak.

“Cassandra, please talk with me. Tell me what’s going on inside that head of yours? It’s obvious whatever mind game you’re playing on yourself isn’t working. You need to talk. I’m here. Let me in.”

I sit up a bit. I hug one of the throw cushions. And in between gulps of air, as my emotions make it hard for me to breathe, I talk. Leslie is right. I know I have to.

“Leslie. I’m a coward. That’s all this is. David hurt me so badly. Now, I fear that kind of hurt again, and I’ll do anything not to get back there and suffer.”

“Suffer? Look at yourself, Cass. You’re suffering now. Your fear is realized regardless of a man in your life. You’re shutting down from fearing fear itself.”

I sigh. Tears flow. Leslie gets up and fetches a box of tissues. Lucky for me, it’s those man-sized ones which can take a beating. I accept the box and offer a meek smile in return.

I wipe my eyes. I blow my nose.Leslie is right. Why am I fearing fear when I’m already there in the suffering of it? Why didn’t I fight for Liam? To hear him talk, maybe it wouldn’t have been much of a fight.

I remember his mother being in the mix, and my questions are answered. I blow hard into a second tissue, praying my brains will come out. If I don’t think, I can’t feel, and I don’t want to feel at all.

I mumble. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

“Right!”

“It’s a quote. President Roosevelt.”