Today's Real Life

So my best friends husband has brain cancer. This sucks. And I've asked a thousand times what she needs or what I can do. Obviously I can't cure cancer, but Alex is both of our husband. He married her and I was here first, my name is tattooed on her ass, and so frankly he's married to both of us.

She calls today. Directly after I open my eyes and put on the tea kettle. What are you doing today? Me: Nothing? .. Her.. You don't work? Me: No not that that would matter what do you need me to do?
Her: I have a thousand errands and I want you to go with. Me: I'm in.

So She swoops me, and then makes a joke about how Alex is at home and asking who she is going with and before she can answer he goes... It's Melissa isn't it? She laughs and tells him yes. And asks how did he know. He replies with a... She's the only one you can call and will do anything with you, And she tells him you know what the best best part is? And he asks what? She didn't even ask where we were going and laughs hysterically. His response being... Just don't come back with any tattoos.

I didn't need to ask questions. I didn't care if I was working. It would of been a call off in a heartbeat for her. She is my best friend, our husband has brain cancer, and she needed me. Even without the brain cancer part.. she needed me. That's what friends are for. So I just get home. After running to a thousand doctors and hospitals to get every report to drive it an hour away with her to give it to a completely different hospital who will be taking care of his chemo and radiation. .... Then when we are done we stop for a drink.

She needed to get out. And we were having the time of our lives, like this is seriously my other half, and then drama from Rebecca starts to occur in the middle of our day. I deleted her form Facebook after her sister comes over the the day and tells me everything she's been saying, and it's really only things she could of said, she sends me a message telling me I'm lying about cancer, and being raped, and it's sick, and I'm just manipulating people for drugs.

Let's be clear... This is because I wouldn't give her anymore of my adderall. Or her husband... That's when she stopped talking to me. Starting spreading lies and I got the text messages to prove it. Even worse though she starts texting Benga... and while we have exchanged a limited number of texts since the end of everything, I today had to actually speak to him on the phone and break everything down.

The sound of his voice for the first time in what seems like forever and just yesterday was painful. We don't even know how to talk anymore. This person I shared my life with for so long and we were stammering to find the words. Hesitating taking turns to complete sentences. It wasn't easy. I didn't know if I would ever hear his voice again. It's still messy now. Made more complicated by Rebecca's unnecessary drama. Me trying to figure how he was making sense of listening to her say she wasn't trying to start drama and yet she went out of her way to tell him. How could common sense over look that in the first place. Him and I don't speak. We ended things messy. We don't communicate very well. Why if I  hadn't been in contact with him would he think anything but the truth? Now we have to audibly hear one another. It hurt. Not any of what was going on was his business anyways. This girl who was nothing but chaos, and it's my fault because I knew it, reaching out to the person who broke me. I know he didn't mean to, it wasn't only his fault. I take responsibility. I always did. But he thought that meant I was going to change who I was, that I wanted to be something besides something irrational for love. I didn't. And I still don't.

I yelled and screamed, and fought because he was silent. And I was willing to do anything to break the echoing of nothing between our walls. He couldn't talk about feelings unless he was drinking. And even then we weren't actually together. Friends for 6 years. Moved in with me after he broke up with his ex. I was there, and he wasn't ready. He knew I was in love with him. He would be intimate with me in so many ways, the really important ones, not sex. He provided, held me at night, he listened to me, my hopes, my dreams, my fears. I woke him up when I had a nightmare, at least until we became each others. Then would take other girls to the places that were sacred to us. Or at least me. We lived together in this constant battle for too long. He saw the ugly in me and said it was too much. He hated the person I was. He told me all the time. But then would beg me to do things for him. Go get his food so he didn't have to stop playing his video game. I took care of him when he was sick, or hurt, or needed anything at all. I did his laundry. I cleaned his messes and ran his errands. I did his bidding. And he said I never saw him at the end of it. I never cared about what he wanted. I'm more than happy to say all I saw was him, I told him that and he didn't, he doesn't believe me.... For three years not dating anyone. Staying at home. Waiting on him to hold me. Ready to be there when he was ready. He was hovering in the doorway of life. Never coming or going. I deserved it because I accepted it. And it ruined us. I feel the same way he does. He never saw me. He never in my moments of desperation saw me, fighting him for him. Because he was what I wanted. He knew it, we watched one another cry so many times for both sides of the battle.

What the icing on the cake was for him was I lied. You can always tell the truth after, but you can't take a lie back. Once it's said, it's there, somewhere, deep in the soul of the person you told it to, forever. My lie was embarrassing. A life experience forced on me by no choice of my own. It was my deepest, darkest secret. People have those. I had learned to keep mine locked away with limited exposure. I had been betrayed so many times. The feeling of flush to my face when it was thrown out casually as if it didn't happen to me. As if it was nothing. A joke I was the butt of. It was something I had no warning of. No idea. No parent that said don't put yourself in this situation... No one to look out for me. But I felt if everyone knew, I would always be labeled. Not known, but judged, mocked in secret from the people I tried to know and trust. Never being my name again but just thing that happened to me. Even my mother had used it against me for it. Making jokes. Telling strangers laughably. When I lied to him I hated myself for it. I wish in that moment I had the strength to tell him the truth. I didn't. I was a scared little girl again. Panicked. Fear stricken. I loved him for so long, I didn't want him to hear those words from me that would changed the way he saw me forever. They did anyway. When the truth came out, he threw it my face, I wasn't me anymore. It happened so fast.

With Benga, I was willing. I was always ready. It's fucked me up more than I would like to admit. Even after we moved away from each other and I spent nearly everyday with him. When I finally started to date someone. He looked at me crying at his house telling me his biggest fear was losing me. That when I told him I was seeing someone his heart sank. That's when he wanted to be intimate with me again. When he kissed me back again. And held me. And chose to be kinda open. I just waited 3 years for this? So I was more determined and several time I initiated, and I cheated. I wasn't intimate with my "boyfriend".  Benga would feel bad after, but I hadn't changed. To me it was always him. He was always what I wanted. His heart was unmatched. I was attracted to the guy I had been dating but I knew Benga. Inside and out, in all of his mess, in all of his goodness, and his insides, they were never too ugly for me. And that's not to say he wasn't a hot mess too. He is.

Leaving dirty dishes all of his floor and fast food bags everywhere. Food always on his face. Falling asleep in the middle of anything. Including porn. All the time. He would drink and drive and refused to let me stop him, even one time tried to take my son. His life was work, sleep, eat, video games, do it again. That was his standard. I don't judge him for that. His sexual preferences not always matching my own. But it didn't matter because it turned me on to turn him on. He needed a personal alarm clock, he was mean when he was sleepy. He could have a full on conversation with you and not remember what you said. He said ugly things when he was mad. He would ignore all types of things but get irritated by the small shit..

I can't be with anyone now. This wound even now bleeding, I don't want it to pour all over someone else. Enough damage has been done. I'm okay with being alone. I'm okay with knowing and loving me

But then Rebecca trying to say I wasn't raped I'm just looking for attention. So all these lovely things I try to push down and keep swallowing everyday come to the threshing floor. So here we go... the complicated story of my rape. That until now, only my Melissa best friend has heard the entire truth of. She was the only person I trusted with the inner workings of my brain. Because it is complicated. And I'm still sleeping on my couch nightly instead of my bed trying to make sense of it all. I'm not home in my bed anymore, it gives me panic attacks.

I dated a guy named Devonte. He was a lot younger. I met him at work. Attractive enough. We had similar personalities so when Benga kept encouraging me to move on with my life, I started with him. Still very much in love with Benga. We dated for about two months. We hadn't had sex. I had been celibate for 3 years. From actual sex. Benga and I had done everything but, to the point of  "just the tip" But I'm a recovering sex addict and it was something important, and very scary for me to deal with again.

I picked Devonte up and he came over like many times before. I thought he was cute, but something in me kept trying to get rid of him. My gut knew something was off. Benga told me I was a just afraid of love. This day we were watching TV in my bedroom like many other times and snuggling. My head on his chest legs intertwined. And I was rubbing my leg on his and he made a joke I better stop it. I thought he was playing, and I didn't. I laughed about it. I was just being affectionate, I am very affectionate. He slid his body over and rolled on top of me while forcing me who been on my left side to force my face down into my pillow. Where he held my head down, with one hand and pulled my pants down with his other. I froze. I was catatonic with fear. I couldn't do anything. He inserted himself in me until he finished. Inside me. No condom. It wasn't that long. I didn't know what to do, or say. When he finished he laid on top of me and stared at me.

I didn't want to believe after all this time of actually not going through it, this, this moment just happened. I didn't want to believe the first boyfriend I had in 3 years just raped me. He didn't stay long after. I drove him home. I cried the entire way with him apologizing to me. Saying he was sorry he knew I wanted to wait. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that maybe it was my fault. I'm a grown up. Was it unrealistic to not be having sex? To expect him to lay in bed and wait? This is where it gets complicated. As if it wasn't enough...

I didn't break up with him then. In fact, the next week I allowed him to come over and I had sex with him willingly. I didn't want to admit it was his fault. I put myself and him in that position and I didn't want to be the girl who yelled rape. How would that look? A recovering sex addict invites boyfriend into bedroom alone where we are laying cuddling and then I yell rape? I didn't want to be a bad girlfriend. It's the first relationship with actual labels and everything in God knows how long. I didn't want to ruin this guy's life forever. So I did have sex with him thinking, maybe it would cancel the other occurrence out. Maybe just maybe, even though I had waited that long, I just needed to suck it up and get over it. Maybe this is what I got for laying in bed with Benga, for giving myself, my body to him in such ways that were everything but "sex". Maybe I just needed to let it go.

After that, two days later he dumped me. I knew that it was the goal in the first place. In the moment I had been honest and said I hadn't had sex with anyone in 3 years I became a goal. And when he raped me he was just as scared I would do something as I was in general. So he waited for me to be a willing participate so he could walk away with no worries. Who would believe me? I just had sex with him. I remember texting him and asking if that was the purpose of everything in the first place? That's when he blocked me and that was the last I spoke to him.

The rape happened days after I got the call from the clinic with the results from my pap smear. My cancer was back, and because they were a clinic they had no means of giving me full treatment. I needed to go to an actual gynecologist to discuss options and referrals for all of that.

I knew it was worse this time. The same clinic actually cut it out the first two times. It was a rude awakening. I remember throwing it in Benga's face I was just going to die alone anyways. I felt the pains starting to come back two years ago. I knew it was back. I knew I wasn't doing anything about it. I am a masochist. I wanted him to hold my hand and be my rock, and when he couldn't, and when he wouldn't, I didn't want to deal with it at all. It's fucked up. I know that more and more everyday as I wait for my appointment and stretches of pain keel me over. Some days much worse than others. I didn't want to do it alone. I wanted to ignore it until maybe I gave birth to all of my insides and then fade away. I never saw me making it past 30. Death is but a moment.

Now, regretfully so, I wish I would of dealt with it sooner rather than later, just for the sake of avoiding the physical pain. I'm doing it solo regardless.

Honesty is hard. I always thought I was brave enough to say the hard things. That hasn't always been true. I've hurt people I love. I've lost who I am. I'm only recently, hiding in my house away from people and distractions am started to heal. From everything. And I don't blame Benga. At all. He's just a part of my story that left a hole in my heart. A wound that will leave a scar. A lesson I had to learn. Rebecca, won't change, it's not in her. That's only my problem if I let it be. She will be her regardless. And I, have enough on my plate. And I still have people who love me.