Roman, I Love You

Learning To Live

This chapter will be split up into two parts. We're getting close to the end ;( - Lyse xoxo

21

The next few days were hard. I had to face the reality that I was alive and it was time for me to make an effort to live with it. I had to patch up my life. I did not want to tell my little sister, because even after all these years, I still wanted to protect her from anything bad. I know I had to though.

So, she came over on that Friday, prepared to stay. I sat her down on my couch and I told her everything. I started with the last weekend and then the last, nearly, decade. She cried of course and she blamed herself. In the end, I told her that nothing was her fault. They were my own issues, but now I was going to face them. We slept in the same bed and it was like I was twelve again, but it was not the three of us anymore. I am learning to let that go.

When she left the next day, she asked if I was okay with Nat knowing and I told her that it was fine. He had been a part of my life for a long time, and he would continue to be, and I was happy about it because I did love him, even if it was not how I used to.

A few days after that, Nat asked me to have dinner with him and I knew he wanted to talk about it. As we sat across from each other and finally talked about everything, I could feel the weight of my memory of us lifting from my shoulders. He apologized for what he did and what continued to do all of the years after. I think that having the conversation after everything that happened was probably the best possible time, because I could truly understand how he could let me go for Avery. Without even realizing it, I had let him go for Roman.

As happy as I was to have everything out and talked about, there was a little bit of anger at the fact that it took me almost successfully killing myself for him to come to me. It was not something I wanted to to dwell on.

I asked Avery to keep it away from Jamie, he did not need to know about it just yet. When he got older, and I could explain it to him, I would, but for now he deserved to be a child.

She asked me why I let Roman go and I told her the truth: I loved him. I think she understood.

I went back to work and I focused on it while I went to therapy and group. I still was not sure about medication, but my therapist ensured me that we would just take it day by day to see. I thought that that was fair. I gathered up my blades and I drove to my parents home. My mother and I sat down so that I could tell her everything, too. I held her as she cried and I knew it hurt her like hell to have not only one, but two of her own children try to take their own life. I gave her my box of tools and I asked her to do something with them. She understood and then she told me where my father was.

After that night we all had dinner, she took stock of the life she lived with him and her children, and she realized that she did not want to be with him anymore. She cried, because she knew it was too late for so many things. I could not deny it and not think that maybe Jamie would still be here if she had not done something about it sooner, but we could not change the past. When I left, I felt like I had my mother back, and it was greater than I thought it would be.

I missed Roman constantly, but I knew it was for the best. Even when I woke up after dreaming about him, I knew I should not call him, because it would make it that much harder. And I was doing well, as surprising as it was, I was making progress. I was learning and understanding. I was coming to terms with and letting things go. It was not easy, suicidal thoughts did not just disappear, but I learned to curb them. It was a long exhausting time, but wanting to get better made all of the difference.

I knew that Nat still talked to Roman a lot, but I did not want to hear about him. He respected my growth, and I did the same. I knew it was not easy to spend months with nothing from one another, but it was necessary. After about a week after we broke it off, I had packed up all of Roman's things in my house and asked Nat to give it to him. He agreed and told me that Roman had packed my things, but did not want to let them go. When I told him, a little forcefully, that I did not want to hear anything like that, he dropped it. The next day, Nat gave me a box of my stuff.

The one other thing I did hear was that the company Roman and Nat were working on went through. I was proud of them and I even conceded to going to the launching party. It was the first time that I would see him since that day on the couch.