Hard
Authors: Cheryl McIntyre,Dawn Decker
HARD
By Cheryl McIntyre
HARD
Cheryl McIntyre
Copyright Cheryl McIntyre 2015
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without prior written permission by the author except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real persons, events, or places are used fictitiously. The characters are the work of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to persons living or deceased, events, or locales are coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status, as well as ownership of products referred to in this work of fiction. The uses of these trademarks have not been authorized, nor are they associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Cover photo from Shutterstock
Cover design by Ashley Baumann at Ashbee Designs
Edited by Dawn McIntyre Decker
March 2015
Synopsis
I have been staring at her for three months. Watching her. Memorizing her.
For ninety-two days, I’ve looked into those lifeless green eyes.
And for ninety-two days she has inspired me in ways I never knew possible. A muse, unbeknownst to her. Motivating me. Encouraging my darkest desires.
I’m a man who knows what he wants. And what I want is the beautiful and broken Holland Howard.
My name is Jensen Payne—photographer, autocrat, lecher, Scopophiliac. I am who I am and I will not—
cannot
—change.
Please note, due to graphic sexual scenes and language, this book is recommended for adults, 18+.
WARNING: This novel contains possible emotional triggers.
Holland
To understand how I am capable of the things I have done, the actions I have taken, and the decisions I continue to make, I think first, you need to understand why I am the way I am. Then, if you must, you may judge me.
I met my husband, Darren, my freshman year of college. He was a senior, just a few credits shy of graduating. It wasn’t love at first sight. Not for me. I didn’t fall head over heels after our first meeting. Instead, it happened slowly, naturally, and entirely unexpectedly. He became my friend before he was my boyfriend. My confidant before my lover. I always thought he was cute with his shaggy blonde hair and dimples. Sweet and kind. Trustworthy. He had a good head on his shoulders and a plan as to where he wanted to go in life. He always knew how to make me laugh, and he made me laugh often. Before I knew it, I had fallen. On our first official date as an actual couple junior year, he admitted it was a little different for him because he knew the moment he saw me that he wanted to be with me always. I knew right then I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. We were married the week I graduated.
It was a few months later when I received what I thought was the worst possible news I would ever get in my life. My mom—my first and best friend—was dead. I had just spoken with her that very morning. She gave me the family recipe for the Irish coffee cake I wanted to make for my newlywed husband. We laughed about the opulent amount of whiskey involved and how Darren would surely enjoy it. She was fine.
Two hours later, I was sitting at my desk at my new job, quickly scrolling through Facebook, not wanting to miss any important life updates from my friends when I got the phone call. Just like that, an aneurism had taken her life at forty-five years old. She was so young.
Too
young.
My mom was so much more than my mom. She was my father when he was no longer around. She was a shoulder to cry on, the one who dried my tears both in childhood and adulthood. She was the first one I turned to when I had a bad day. The first one I wanted to share good news with. She taught me how to tie my shoes, ride a bike, put on make-up, flirt with boys, cook a meal, change a tire, drive a car… She gave me the courage to move clear across the country to pursue my dreams. She was my counselor, my teacher, my mentor. She gave me life, wisdom, friendship, and love. And she was gone forever in the blink of an eye.
The grief I felt over her loss was insurmountable. I was
certain
there was no worse pain in the world.
I relied on Darren a lot during that time. Too much, maybe. He no longer had the part of husband and companion, he was also forced to take on the sole role of grief counselor. I can’t tell you how many times he came home to find the house dark and me in bed, a mess of snot and tears and heartache. Some days were worse than others. Sometimes I forgot she was gone and it wasn’t until I tried to call her that I would remember. Those days were bad because it stung like fresh loss, and because I couldn’t believe I had actually let myself forget.
How could I forget?
As the months passed I cried less and less. Time making it a little more bearable. And then I received what I am positive is the best possible news I will ever get in my life.
I was pregnant.
I rushed out of the doctor’s office, with phone in hand, excitedly dialing my mom’s number. It wasn’t until I heard the all too familiar recording that I realized what I had done.
Again
.
That night, I cried harder than I ever had before. My mother would never meet her grandchild. Worse, my child would never know what a wonderful grandmother she would have surely been.
She’d miss the first time my baby crawled or talked or walked. She’d miss the first day of Kindergarten, school plays, proms, graduations. She’d miss it all and I would miss her.
What I didn’t expect was for this child to heal so much of my broken heart before he was ever even born. The joy Darren and I felt soon overshadowed the sorrow. With every passing day, the baby grew inside of me, and the ache of no longer having my own parents faded.
My lifelong friend, who made the three-thousand-mile cross-country trip by my side to room with me at college, Alyssa, kept me busy with shopping sprees for maternity and infant clothes. Darren and I spent weekends decorating the nursery, buying infant furniture, and then, even more weekends putting it all together.
Despite being unable to share it all with my mom, I was happy. I still had Darren. I still had Alyssa. And I still had my baby growing bigger and stronger inside of me.
Caleb was born just two weeks after the anniversary of my mother’s death. And he was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Thick blonde hair, large blue eyes, ten fingers, ten toes, and absolutely perfect. I didn’t feel empty once he was no longer inside of me. Instead, I felt the exact opposite. I was overflowing with excitement and love and possibility. Everything was right in the world, everyone had a purpose, and everything happened for a reason.
Darren and I were the typical first-time parents. When he was awake, Caleb hardly ever left the warm shelter of our arms. We attended CPR and first aid classes. We read books and articles, determined that we were going to be the parents that did everything right. I worked from home those first three months and he reduced his hours at the office. I breastfed even when my nipples were sore and cracked and the agony almost seemed like too much. Darren never skipped his turn to get up in the middle of the night for diaper duty. No matter how exhausted we were, we never cut corners. I was proud of him as my husband and as Caleb’s father. I was proud of myself as a wife and as a mother.
I floated around for nearly six months in my blissful bubble before it all went wrong.
They said it was SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It’s what they say when they don’t know why a healthy, happy, strong baby boy just doesn’t wake up one day.
I thought we had finally caught a little break—that Caleb had slept through the night. That maybe he would sleep through the night every night and Darren and I would finally know what it felt like to wake refreshed again.
But when I got to his room, something—some kind of motherly intuition—told me this was wrong. I tiptoed up to his crib, the one Darren and I argued over and laughed about as we spent six hours constructing, and my gaze focused on Caleb’s little chest, covered in his light blue, puppy-dog pajamas. Those pajamas were my favorite because they matched his eyes so well.
I stared hard, waiting to see the rise and fall of his chest. But it never came. I slid my hand over his sternum, and froze, certain I was wrong. So, so wrong.
My baby boy couldn’t be motionless and cool to the touch. Not my baby boy.
Not my baby boy.
I knew, but I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to believe it.
My trembling hands slipped gently under his fragile body and I lifted him to me. I pressed my cheek to his belly, my ear against his heart and lungs. What happened after that is a blur. I know I dialed 911. I know I performed CPR. I know I was still trying to revive my child when the paramedics arrived and took him from my arms. I know that was the last time I held him.
I know none of it did any good.
Caleb was gone. He was with my mother in Heaven, and I…I was still here. And I realized it was never my mother who would miss watching him grow. It was me.
I’d
miss the first time my baby crawled or talked or walked.
I’d
miss the first day of Kindergarten, school plays, proms, graduations.
I’d
miss it all because none of it would ever happen. Caleb’s life was stolen before he got a chance to live it.
A parent should never have to bury their child. It’s unnatural. Especially when that child was so young.
Too young
. And so small. The memory of his tiny white casket being lowered into the ground will haunt me until the day I die.
You’re probably wondering how I possibly went on at that point. How I could find the strength to wake up each morning and go into work. Live my life. Eat, sleep, shower. The truth is, I don’t know.
I don’t really recall much of that year. I mean, I guess I got out of bed each day and I went into work. I must have showered, and eaten, and slept, but I was in a daze.
Anybody who has ever lost someone they love knows the foggy haze of mourning. They know exactly what I mean. That place we go just outside of reality, preoccupied with living in the past. Going over and over the what-ifs. Torturing ourselves with the constant hope that it’s all a dream we’ll wake from, but knowing deep down we aren’t that lucky. Praying for sleep because then we are free of the pain. Dreading waking because then we are forced to remember. Crying until our heads are light, eyes are burning, and throats are raw. Day after day passes and somehow—
somehow
—we’ve made it through just to go through it all over again tomorrow.
There isn’t some magical formula for coping. I don’t know how I did it. I just did. But I do know that with every second that ticked by without Caleb in my arms, I lost more and more of myself.
My husband understood this. He was hurting too, but unlike me, who would rather suffer in silence, he needed someone. He couldn’t turn to me, shut down and stricken with my own agony. He tried.
God
, I know he did. For months and months, he tried to help me. Tried to help himself. Tried to find a way to take just a piece of our unhappiness away. But I didn’t want my unhappiness to go away. I didn’t want to feel better about my baby’s death. I wanted to feel every last bit of that loss. I
needed
to feel it. I wanted to wallow in my agony for as long as I possibly could.
My husband eventually understood this too. And so he did the only thing he could do. He found someone else to console him. Someone to offer a bit of light in our otherwise dark lives.
I was at work—a job I had loved, a job I had known I wanted from the moment I picked up my first magazine at 14 years old and saw the articles written specially for young girls like me, a job I had worked my ass off to get—and I looked around, unable to see what it was that I had ever loved about the position. It was all just so pointless. Who gave a fuck about the proper way to apply make-up or which prom dresses were in that year? Who gave one single fuck about an advice column in a teen magazine? Not me. Definitely not me.
I didn’t give a fuck about
anything
anymore.
With the determination of a woman who no longer gives an actual fuck, I packed up my office and gave my boss my resignation by email. And when I arrived home three hours before I was supposed to, I walked in to find my husband’s bare ass flexing as he thrust into Alyssa, bent over my couch. The same friend who took me shopping for baby clothes. The same friend who was there for most of my firsts, from my first pimple to my first child. The same friend who was my maid of honor. Bowed over the leather sectional Darren and I had bought together.
She saw me first, shock and horror registering on her pretty, perspiration-covered face. Darren didn’t notice the way she stopped moaning. Didn’t notice his wife standing just feet from where he was destroying our marriage. He continued to plunge inside of her with wild abandon, the sound of his wet flesh hitting hers echoing throughout the room. That was the soundtrack to the end of my marriage.
I wasn’t hurt, I couldn’t be. He needed someone and I wasn’t there. Hadn’t been for a year now. But I was
pissed
. I was disgusted by the expression of pleasure on Darren’s face. Livid that he got to feel good. That he
could
feel good. On this day,
of all days
. I was in turmoil, and he was shedding his pain one sloppy pump at a time.
In that moment, I hated him. I hated them both.
I released my box of office supplies, letting it drop to the hardwood floor loudly, breaking everything within—it seemed fitting, after all. And then, I turned around and walked out of my four-bedroom colonial home, away from my husband, my marriage, my life, and my memories.
I stopped at the bank, closing out my personal account. I didn’t touch the joint account Darren and I shared. He could have it. He could have it all. With the clothes on my back and a couple thousand dollars in cash, I drove without destination, only stopping when I needed more gas. Early the next morning, I pulled into a truck stop for a cup of coffee, not ready to sleep yet. Not ready to deal with the pain of remembering once I woke up. So I sat in a booth, sipping my coffee and slicing my credit cards into pieces with a steak knife. I cut them all. My Visa, my MasterCard, my gas card, my rewards cards, hell, I even destroyed my library card. I obliterated every last link to my old life, knowing I would never go back. Knowing I never
could
go back. I wasn’t the same person anymore. That Holland was gone. I was a different person, and so I needed a different life. A fresh start.
When my cup was drained, I got back in my car and continued to drive, releasing pieces of the cut-up plastic cards along the way. When I let the last piece of my life drop from my fingers in a small town in Ohio, that’s when I finally stopped.
So, you see, I had no more attachments. No mother, no father, no husband, no child—no family whatsoever. No real friends. No job. All of the people I loved most in the world had destroyed me. They left me and it ruined everything I was. I had
no one
I had to answer to.
No one
who cared where I was or what I was doing. Most importantly,
I
didn’t care.