Aftermath (570 hits)
Category: RomanceRating: 1.92 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Maddog (View user info) at 2009-05-20 14:31:50 EDT
continuation of http://www.ubersite.com/m/122250
Matt spent the next few days as if in a dream. Routine and repetition kept his body moving. Kept him functioning. Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work. It all blended together in a seemingly endless loop. The voices of people talking to him sounded muffled and unintelligble, like he was underwater. He struggled to maintain a grip on the outside world.
Keep your head in the game, he thought. Think about the task at hand. Pay attention! Matt wrestled with the emotional pain that was now physically manifesting itself with intense stomach cramps. They flared with razor sharp intensity, making him double over, but only when he knew no one could observe him.
Pain. Matt was all too familiar with pain. He had been cut, stabbed, kicked, punched, gouged and bitten over the course of twenty years on the job. He knew he could deal with physical pain. Physical pain was a rite of passage. To show you could take a punch and give better that you got made you a defacto member of the "club". One of the boys. Scars were to be bragged about over beers and whiskey. Stories inflated and memories blurred in an alcoholic haze.
Then there was mental pain. Emotional pain. Matt knew that he could never, ever, tell anyone he worked with about the emotional pain and anguish he was having now. Emotional and mental pain was equated with emotional and mental weakness. It made you a liability in a crisis. Somebody who might lose their shit when things got hairy. No. This was a burden he had to bear himself, and in silence.
Matt had developed "armor" over the years. Armor in the sense that it was a shield to the pain and suffering, the blood, shit, tears and filth that he had witnessed with other people. An empathetic person would go crazy in a month from the depth and breadth of human degradation and suffering that was out there every day.
It was a must, at first. Somthing Matt had to develop to cope, to survive and to function. He could shed it when he came home and become a feeling caring person once again. But gradually, and without even realizing it, the armor began to feel good, to fit better. He wore it all the time and pretty soon, he didn't feel anyones pain. Not his own, not his girls. Nobodys. It made him emotionally cold and dead, numb to any emotional stimuli.
Matt had pried off this armor a bit at a time in his time with Ellen. Slowly but surely, after years with her, he was now "naked". Naked in the sense that he allowed himself to be totally open emotionally. To be vulnerable. But only with Ellen. He still couldn't deal with the outside world without a barrier being up.
He wished he had that armor back now. He wished he didn't feel as much as he did for Ellen. He wished that he didn't love her so much.
Ellen came home as Matt prepared to go outside.
"Hi Matt", she said.
"Uh, hi", he replied, as he attempted to walk around her to the door.
"Can we sit down and talk a minute?", she asked.
"I really need to get that grass cut", Matt replied, shifting his weight back and forth in a nervous way.
"I really need to talk to you", Ellen said.
"Look!", Matt replied, his tone of voice rising. "What do you want to talk about!?? I'm watching my marriage collapse before my eyes and to be honest, it's too damn painful to be around you right now!"
"Please", Ellen said in a soft voice, "Please just talk to me for a minute".
Matt sank into the loveseat, making sure that Ellen had to sit on the couch, giving him some needed distance.
"I need you in my life", she said. "I can't imagine living my life without you."
Matt thought to himself that he should feel more relieved at this news, but curiously he didn't. He still felt wounded and hollow. He was getting his wife back, yet he didn't feel the joy he thought he should at this announcement.
"Do you really?", he asked.
"Yes, I do, really", Ellen replied, "I'm just scared about the future".
Matt breathed heavily. "Hell, I'm scared about the future all the time! You just have to be willing to take a leap of faith sometimes. Can you do that with me? Are you prepared to do that?"
"Yes, I am. I know I am.", Ellen said.
Matt moved over to the couch and they hugged each other as Ellen began to cry. "I am so sorry I hurt you", she said, "So, so, sorry. You deserve a better wife than me".
"You'll do", Matt replied. "I wouldn't trade you."
Matt knew there were no guarantees. No storybook happy endings. He knew that someday Ellen might still leave him. Matt also knew that as long as he was on this realtionship rollercoaster he was going to try and enjoy every second of the ride, for as long as it lasted, and try and have no regrets when it stopped.
FIN
User Reviews
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-06-06 16:42:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I can imagine dude, I'm eSorry that you're going through a shitty time.
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2009-06-06 16:39:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I'm not at my best today.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2009-06-06 16:24:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
An excellent, if painful, series. Unlike the gay you just posted.
Submitted by Lio (user info) at 2009-05-23 18:12:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Maybe its just me, but I loved the ending. Thanks for a great story.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2009-05-22 03:56:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Make sure you keep paying all the bills, pookie.
Submitted by YourNameHere (user info) at 2009-05-21 15:56:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-05-21 14:01:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Shit ending for story purposes but glad it "worked out".
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-05-21 09:02:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Opossums are really scary when you're in a pitch black back-yard, with only a mini-maglight, under a canopy of trees, carrying a .38.
Especially when they jump at you, or make that death-rattling sound.
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2009-05-21 08:35:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2009-05-21 06:16:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2009-05-21 05:19:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-05-21 09:04:33 BST (#)
Ranking: 2
This just goes to show you that decent resolutions of real life make for rubbish endings to stories
--
Agreed
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2009-05-21 04:04:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This just goes to show you that decent resolutions of real life make for rubbish endings to stories.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2009-05-21 00:12:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
these post deserve more attention
i am sorry about the rating on the other post
i think the it moved when i scrolled down
i am so sorry
(this last post really hit home. amour)
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2009-05-20 19:02:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
AWWWWW horseshit.
I wanted some fuckin' bloodshed.
...not really. Glad it all worked out.
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2009-05-20 15:00:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
abrupt.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-05-20 14:41:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Matt knew there were no guarantees. No storybook happy endings. He knew that someday Ellen might still leave him. Matt also knew that as long as he was on this realtionship rollercoaster he was going to try and enjoy every second of the ride, for as long as it lasted, and try and have no regrets when it stopped.
----------------------------
dude
Submitted by Yozz (user info) at 2009-05-20 14:38:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yozz has no comment - except that "leap of faith" has gotten alot of airtime today.