Call Your Girlfriend

Part 3: In Which Helen Avoids Problems

I walk into the Dam this morning and it's eerily quite. Not too many people about. Certainly not Max.

Last night I don't even know why I became so defensive. All I needed to give him was one answer. An apology. A reason why Lauren's call was important. Why I left. But no. Much like all the times in my life when I feel I'm going to be exposed or vulnerable- I put up my walls and start a fight. I don't want people in. I don't want them to see how weak I really am. Why?

I don't know.

Perhaps it's because I want to be seen as a powerful person or maybe it's because my father always told me to keep my head up even when I'm punched below the belt and cornered. What did I have to be defensive about? Things I can't even explain coherently? Unlikely. Maybe I'm just sabotaging everything like always. The moment I start feeling happy or content with life- I have to go an ruin it before anyone can pierce my heart with Cupid's arrow.

But isn't it a little too late for that? Hasn't Max already worked his way into my inner walls?

Yes...but I won't admit it. Not ever.

Getting to my office, I open the door and do the usual of putting my bag and coat away, setting up my laptop, and going over folders my head nurse has left for me in my box. Nothing too fascinating today. Just two biopsies and one radiation treatment. Boring stuff. Easy stuff.

Knock knock...

I look up from my computer and inwardly sigh.

Max.

He walks in and says nothing. He sets the coffee on my desk and removes himself from my office without uttering a single word or even looking at me. It's Starbucks coffee? Since when? He ran all the way up town to get me Starbucks this morning? Why? Feeling guilty? I look at the cup and it says Munchkin on it. I can't help but smile. He's trying. He doesn't understand why I'm upset and frankly I don't really know either- but he's trying to make it better. Cute. He's cute in an annoying kind of way.

I begin my work for the morning and all I can think about in the back of my head is Max. Why? Why does he harbor my thoughts? Why can't he just dissipate for a little bit? It's hard to work when all I can hear in my head is how he sounded when he saw me in my green dress.

Wow...wow, that's a...that's a dress.

The look of amazement glossed over his eyes momentarily. It felt...wonderful being seen. Being looked at like a rare flower or majestic waterfall. I don't think anyone's ever looked at me like that before. It made my heart skip a beat and my breathe leave my lungs. It was short lived, but it will always replay over and over in my mind. Grrrrr, I need to just move on. Move on, Helen! Move! Get him out of your head! Out of your heart! You let someone in so easily before and look where it put you? Heart broken and numb to happiness. You ran like a stray dog who had turpentine rubbed on its arse with a stick to keep it out of the hen house! You always run, Helen. Always. It's easy. It's very near to painless.

But not fully.

I'll always harbor the pain of losing someone. Whether it's physically or theoretically. I carry that pain around in my baggage. Akash thought my baggage was just me wanting children and not being able to have them. He thought it was just my work that I felt burdened with. But it wasn't. Not all of it. A good portion was Mo's death and the hole in my heart he left. Another bit- I hate to admit- was my feelings for Max. When I first met Max, God I was taken. I was arrogant and snobbish, but I saw him like the fire I had. The intensity of my being and the demand of unprecedented domination I put forth. When I found out he was married with a child on the way- everything halted. I would never come between a man and his wife. I have morals unlike some people I've known. I pushed Max away because of my feelings and what happened? He became angry and depressed and pushed everyone out. He was dying. Stauton was rapidly killing him and he knew and yet he never reached for me. I hurt him. Badly.