Prior to meeting Lisa, relationships were only perfunctory exercises, requisite conditions for sex. While the process was tiring, it provided basic life support. Before here, not a single woman had awakened any emotion or warranted consideration. Now things were different.
Finally, Bryan realized his senses were numb from years of atrophy. Blind to a gift given, he did little to build their relationship. Sadly, his senses remained impaired, despite her consistent and fervent attempts to resurrect them. Incapable to acknowledge her worth, Bryan believes he has foolishly squandered an opportunity. Bryan tries to convince Lisa that he is committed. If only she’d let him in one more time, he’d make her life complete. The thought of life without his one is impossible to conceive. Bryan desperately wanted one last chance. Give me the time to prove himself, he thought. He knew exactly what had to be done!
For weeks, Bryan had been secretly building a future for themselves. Something that, in retrospect, they should have shared. Their first task was to turn his home into a place that would be inviting and comforting to her and her children, including new furniture, home repairs, framed pictures of them. Their favorite was the homemade frame that they made for a picture of them and her precious daughter in a loving embrace. Birdhouses, folk art, wooden toys were just a few things that they made for the “littles”.
The most onerous chore was working on himself, his own mental state. She had never really seen him in a fully functional state. They had the misfortune of meeting while Bryan was at my lowest point in his life. He had finally realized that if He wanted a future with this truly special woman, a woman who deserved so much more than He had given her to up this point. There could be no “us” if he did not work on himself first. Without working on myself first, the concept of “us” would be nonexistent.
The sounds of determination and self-reflection still echo through the corridors of their mind. As Bryan navigated through this transformative process, he felt the weight of personal growth lifting from his shoulders, paving the way for a stronger and more fulfilling connection with others. Unfortunately, the feeling was short-lived. She would never see what they had done, never knew how hard he had worked, how committed he had had become to meet her needs.
Bryan finally reached the point of the big reveal when she delivered a shot to the gut. She shocked me via a casual text, sharing her own big reveal. She flippantly reveals she has been sleeping with another man; more about him in later chapters. Not only does this squash any hopes of reconciliation, it forces me to rethink everything that he thought he knew about her. For weeks, she insists she’s only dating. Once emphatically exclaiming that “dating was not fucking”. Bryan thought, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”. Evidently, dating is not fucking until she decided it was. After just a few weeks of dating, she had tracked and bagged her quarry. She wanted “everything or nothing” in an intimate relationship, she once told me. How could he have given her everything without really knowing her? He had not grown to love her children, share her grief, and empathize with her fears. Bryan had. A stranger now lays in Bryan’s place. During some of their most intimate moments, she would say “you’re my person”. Bryan wonders if she tells him the same, given how little that he had meant to her.