When I opened my hand and realized what I was holding my heart fell. I couldn't have moved if I tried. I tried. Every part of me was screaming to get up and go after her but I was completely crippled. My lungs actually seized and I found myself choking on the air I was trying to breathe. My heart literally stopped beating for a moment then decided to start racing. The world around me twisted and turned. I felt like the sky was trying to crush me and the ground was trying to swallow me at precisely the same time. Nothing made sense. Everything was spinning and the world was slowly going dark. I was completely alone and horribly defenseless holding the one thing I never wanted to hold in my hands again. The energy I had from being angry went into just keeping me alive. Rational thought, all thought was gone. I passed out in the grass as a full out anxiety attack hit me and didn't wake up until the night was almost half over.
I woke cold and alone in my backyard holding on to my fiance's engagement ring like it was a life preserver with my mind a chaotic swirl of thought and emotion. I had come home and I wanted to ask her to go away with me. I just wanted to get away from the chaos that was the outside world and focus on us. The outside world was a major distraction. It pulled my focus away from where it needed to be and I couldn't stand that anymore. The outside world and Mark. Mark was the source of ignition for the fire, or was that me? I wanted it to be him, but if I hadn't done all the stupid shit I had done in the past he could not have started that fire in the first place. Fuck! That is a tough nut to swallow. Suddenly, I didn't know. All I knew was that I was alone and cold, vulnerable when I should not have been and that I had a ring in my hand that I had once put on a woman's hand with all the confidence in the world that we could walk through fire and ice together; that nothing could touch us. I was apparently very wrong.
'What the hell did I do to earn that back? I wasn't unfaithful, I hadn't lied about anything, I didn't call her names or hit her. I told her time and time again, over and over, that I loved her. I told her that I wanted to get away from the things that make things difficult for us. I told her I needed a break. Wait? What if she took that the wrong way? Clearly she totally took that a very wrong way. But what if she wanted a break from me? What if she can't deal with my anxiety? What if she is just realizing that she can't handle the broken bits and pieces of the man that I am. There are fundamental things I cannot change about myself. There are fundamental things she can't change either. I guess maybe they do not work. So we just give up? If you're getting married you don't get to take breaks from each other and you don't walk away. You can go to sleep angry but you do it in the same damn bed. You always say goodnight, goodbye and I love you no matter how pissed off you are. Because you never know. Why did she leave me?' I looked up at the house and tried to move. It wasn't going to be easy getting up off the ground after every ounce of energy I had had been sapped from my body, but I had to get up and go find her. She needed to put her ring back on. I knew she didn't mean it. I hoped she didn't. I hoped it was an accident. I really wanted it to be a very bad dream. You don't say yes to each other then take your ring off. If you do -- my heart flipped in my chest and the darkness threatened again -- "No." I got up and made my way into the house. I don't know where I found my strength or any strength at all. It had been depleted. An anxiety attack like that could leave me weak for days. I stumbled like a drunk at first but I eventually got all of my muscles under control. She wasn't in the living room, music room or bathrooms. She wasn't in our room. Was she in the house? Why was she not in OUR room? Panic threatened to set in again. Did she leave? OH God if she left-- I didn't want to believe that she would leave. There was no way. Not because she wouldn't leave me. No. That was not what I was thinking because clearly, she could take off my ring, she could leave. She had her own means, her own money. She could leave. I just didn't want to believe that she would. I hadn't cheated. I hadn't lied. I didn't beat her or abuse her. I didn't take her for granted. Well, maybe I did-- I put the two firing brain cells I had together and used them. The only closed door was the guest room door and that was never closed. She had to be behind that door. I stood in front of it for what seemed like forever and considered just trying the door. What if she locked it, locking me out? Did she want me out of her life? Was I that hard to deal with? Old insecurities started to creep up on me. I could hear the collective voices of girlfriends past screaming my flaws at me. Telling me I was worthless, mean, selfish, that I didn't care, I only cared about myself, a liar. I was none of those things to Lizzie. I knew I wasn't. I knew it. With my heart on my sleeve, broken and tattered, I knocked on the door and called the only name that mattered. "Lizzie?"
