CHAPTER ELEVEN
Blair
Now
Sometimes, everything was… blank. Just dark. But other times I was haunted by the story of Scott and me, the memories rushing over me so powerfully it felt like I was really there, living the whole thing all over again.
Sometimes I heard voices and beeping, but it was like the sound came from a great distance. I was sure they were my kids’ voices sometimes, and I tried so hard to hear what they were saying. But I couldn’t. It was all soft whispers and sounds.
Then there was the touching. I could feel the people touching me.
Every now and then I could feel someone’s hand in mine, squeezing.
I knew it was Scott. He and I had a secret ‘squeeze’ message we sent each other when nervous or happy or in love.
We would squeeze three times, meaning I.
Love. You. At least, that’s what it had started as.
It had evolved to different meanings over the years depending on what was going on around us.
Once at a dental conference, I gave him the squeeze signal right before he stepped to the podium to give his speech.
Then it meant, ‘you’ve got this,’ and I knew Scott understood that.
Feeling it now, I wanted so badly to squeeze his in return. Not because I loved him so much. No, not at all for that reason. I wanted to be able to do it so that it would show him I was still in here. That I could feel his touch.
Then I’d like to ball my hand into a fist and punch him right in the nose. Or maybe the mouth. Either way, I’d then yell, “I want a divorce,” and flounce out dramatically.
I’d practiced this several times in my head.
But most of the time, my mind drifted. It drifted back in time like a bittersweet movie that showed the demise of a marriage; the decoupling of the main characters. It was a movie no one wanted to watch, but I was re-living it constantly in my head.
Maybe this was hell. Seeing all my mistakes play out on loop.