Chapter 33
Magnolia
“How is your foot feeling? Do you want to take it from the assemblé?” Raymond stands with his hands on his hips, chest heaving in and out. A bead of sweat drips from his forehead, and I reach for a towel, tossing it at him as I grab one for myself.
“Foot is holding up. I’d like to do it at least once more, if that’s alright with you.” Dabbing the sweat from my face and chest, I toss the towel on my bag and reach for my bottle of water. With a spin of the cap, I bring the bottle to my lips, hands trembling.
“You know I’ll help you out anyway I can, girl, but look at you.” When I turn to face him, he nods to my shaking hands. “You just got cleared to dance again, there’s no need to rush back into it.”
I playfully roll my eyes at him as I cap my water, tossing the bottle next to my sweat-soaked towel.
“I know you like to play the big brother card to all of us, but I promise, I feel fine.” Looking over his shoulder, my eyes glance up to check the time.
Through the sweat and exhaustion, I can barely make out the blurry face of the clock, telling me it’s nearly two in the morning.
“Shit. Is Ronaldo going to be mad that you’re out this late? ”
Raymond cocks a hip at that. “Just because we’re married now, do you think that means I’m suddenly going to let a man tell me what to do?”
I giggle at that, pointing to the music player in the corner. “Then get your tush over there and restart with me on the staccato footwork.”
He sticks out his tongue at me, and I’m about to spin to stand a few paces away from the mirror when the faint ring of a phone sounds through the music.
“Uh, oh, speak of the devil,” I tease, arching my arms above my head in fifth position, but Raymond grabs his phone, showing me the black screen.
“It’s not mine.”
I rush to my bag, rifling through it to pull out my phone, my heart only sinking a notch when I see it’s Lukas.
“Lukas,” I answer a little breathlessly.
“Who else would it be?” he barks, and my entire body tenses with fear. I hate when he calls like this. Either drunk or angry, usually both, and I’m the one left to deal with it.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just surprised you’re calling so late.”
“I’m surprised you’re awake. I was just going to leave a voicemail.”
“Oh…” I pause, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t. Raymond stops the music and comes over to stand next to me. I briefly turn to face him, and the look on his face is one I’ve seen many times before—a little pity, mixed with confusion.
“Everything okay?” Raymond whispers, and I force a smile, nodding politely to him.
“Who the fuck is there?” Lukas snaps, and I inhale sharply through my nose. He’s drunk again, and the drunk version of Lukas is someone I don’t like.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked who you’re with in the middle of the night, Magnolia. Did your boyfriend bust you fucking around?”
Raymond walks past me, squeezing my shoulder softly. When I turn to follow his steps, he gestures with a thumb over his shoulder that he will be in the hall. I wait until the door is closed behind him before I spin, pacing back and forth in front of the barre.
“Fuck you, Lukas.”
I hate this version of me. The one I’ve become every time we talk.
I’m not the sweet, supportive girlfriend anymore.
I’m not his Mags. I’m the bad guy. The one who either nags him that he needs help, or gets mad and hangs up on him.
I’m the one who has to curse him out when he’s being a jerk.
I’m the one who gets the brunt of his attitude; the one who puts up with the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde split personalities that he decides to grace me with.
He’s become the man he swore he would never be, and it’s taken its toll on the both of us.
“You didn’t ask, not politely, anyways, but that was Raymond. Remember, my dance partner, Raymond? The one you met when you came to see me in France? The one that has been by my side through your entire deployment, my injury? That Raymond?”
I pace back and forth, waiting for him to recall Raymond’s name, to muster even a half-assed apology, but when he doesn’t, something snaps in me.
“And screw you for even asking, Lukas. How dare you call me in the middle of the night and accuse me of cheating on you! I would never hurt you like that. We’ve talked about this very thing, and you should know me better than that. ”
But you don’t.
I pause my steps, catching a glance of myself in the wall of mirrors.
I don’t recognize the man on the other end of the phone anymore.
And looking at my thin and exhausted frame staring back at me from the mirror, I don’t recognize the version of myself that I’ve become, either.
More importantly, I don’t like the person I’ve become.
“You don’t ask about me, ever. Do you realize that, Lukas?
We could call each other daily, and still never actually talk.
I don’t tell you what’s going on in my life, and you don’t ask.
You won’t speak a word about your deployment, about what you’ve been through.
So, we don’t talk. I know you’re hurting, and I know you’re going through something.
Or have gone through something, but I can’t do anything about it if you don’t let me help. If you don’t tell me.”
The saddest part of it all is that I’m not sure I want to see the version of him that he’s become.
I don’t want to see what the years of stress, of poor sleep, the months of drinking and smoking have done to the happy person I once knew.
“You’re killing yourself, Lukas.” My voice wavers, and I inhale, my breath catching in my throat.
“I can see it even though I’m halfway across the world.
I don’t know how you don’t see it when you look at yourself in the mirror. ”
“You don’t think I fucking see what’s going on with me?
In the world? Wake the fuck up, Magnolia!
I know what’s going on.” He pauses, and I can hear his ragged breathing over the line.
“There’s so much shit out there in the world that you couldn’t even fathom.
There are real, terrible things happening every day to real families.
Lives are lost every day. You have no idea what I’ve done protect who I can, to do what I can to prevent this from making its way back home. ”
“Then tell me!” I wail. “If I don’t understand, then tell me.
Make me understand. Please, Lukas.” Another sob escapes me at his harsh words, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle it, but it’s no use.
I crumple to the floor, dropping my spare hand to catch me, and I let him hear it.
Every ugly, obnoxious sound that rises from my throat, one right after the other.
He listens to me breakdown without saying a word.
And once I’m done, when I’m lying on my back and hiccuping into the otherwise eerily silent room, I finally say what I’ve been thinking for the last year. “I don’t know you anymore, Lukas … and … and I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I can hear him inhale a drag of a cigarette before blowing it out. I can practically smell the rancid smoke through the phone, thousands of miles away.
A realization washes over me, much like a cold splash of water on a hot summer day. My mind clears, and I think for the first time in a long time, I know what needs to be done. “It means, I think we need a break.”
He’s quiet. Oddly quiet. No exhale from a cigarette. No clink from a bottle. I check my phone once, then twice, making sure he’s still there. And when he talks again, his voice is small. So small that it shatters what’s left of my heart.
“A break?”
“A break … from us. I can’t do this anymore, Lukas.
I can’t live like this. I can’t … Do you know that sometimes when you call, I don’t answer?
I don’t know what version of you I’m going to get.
You don’t know me anymore. You don’t know…
” I drop the phone to the floor and bring my hands to my head, yanking free the mounds of bobby pins that have been poking me all night.
It’s only when my tangled hair falls freely over my face, and I feel some semblance of relief, do I have the guts to continue.
“I have no idea what you’ve lived through for the last two years.
You don’t know what I do, where I’ve been, or how I’ve been.
You don’t know because you don’t ask, and I don’t bother to tell you anymore.
Our phone calls are either fights or apologies for fighting.
This isn’t a relationship, Lukas. This isn’t love. ”
“So, that’s it? I’m less than six months out from discharging, from being done with all this, and you want to take a break?”
“What difference will it make whether you’re in California or Iowa? You won’t come visit me, you won’t tell me when I can come visit you. You’re keeping me at arm’s length. What else am I supposed to do? Maybe if we take a few weeks, a month apart, maybe it’ll—”
“Man up, Magnolia.” His voice is rough, angry. “Let’s call this what it is. A break is a breakup, and if that’s what you want, I’ll give you that.”
“Don’t make this all out to be my fault. I know I haven’t been the best, but you’ve changed, Lukas. We all see it. We’re all terrified for you, yet no one can seem to get through to you.”
“We all? What, you’ve been getting together with my family to gossip about me? Poor Lukas,” he mocks, “can’t handle it when life gets tough.”
I grimace at the thought of that. Of him thinking the people that love him the most would talk about him like that. “Don’t. You know we’d never say that about you.”
“Whatever. Alright. Guess this is goodbye then.”
“Lukas, don’t—”
“Don’t worry about it. I get it. People change, ya know?
” I hear him pause, and it sounds like he lights up another cigarette.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from breaking down, but it doesn’t help.
“We were just kids when we got together. Things were different. We’re adults now.
We’ve experienced real life, and I guess we weren’t strong enough to make it. ”
“Don’t lessen what we have.”
“Had,” he corrects.
The door creaks, and Raymond sticks his head in, looking around.
When he sees me on the floor, a crumpled tearful mess, his eyes widen, and he flings the door open, jogging across the dance floor to meet me in the middle.
He falls to his knees, and his hand reaches out to squeeze the one resting in my lap.
“Is this really how it ends?”
What I wouldn’t give to know what he’s doing right now. To see if he’s pacing, running his hands through his hair. To see if he looks as tattered and torn as I feel inside. What I wouldn’t give to have any indication, any inkling that this is killing him as much as it kills me.
“What do you want me to say, Magnolia? I’m not going to fight with you anymore. I’m not going to beg you to be with me if that’s not what you want.”
“I never said that. I just said we need a break.”
“Haven’t the last few years been a break? We don’t see each other, we barely talk as it is.” He pauses and it sounds like he kicks something, or maybe trips over something. A can, a barrel, something loud rolls across the concrete. “You’re right,” he says. “This isn’t worth the fight.”
My lower lip wobbles. “Ten years of us, and this is how it ends?”
“It’s what it sounds like.” His voice is cold, flat. Empty. Nothing like the boy I fell in love with as a teenager. Nothing like the man who spent his last few days before boot camp with me, whispering promises of a life together. The man on the other end of the line is nothing but a stranger.
I look up at Raymond, my eyes pleading with him for help, for an answer.
His eyes water, and he tilts his head to the side, forcing a smile as he squeezes my sweaty palm in his hand. “I think it’s time to say goodbye, honey.”
I nod at that, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth and biting down, forcing myself to say what needs to be said, knowing that the next words that come out of my mouth will be life changing. I’ll enter the next era of my life … the one without Lukas.
“Goodbye, Lukas.”