What He's Been Missing

“Ian, don’t do this. Don’t walk away. I didn’t mean to—I was just trying to—follow my heart.”

6

“What She’s Been Missing”

#Wheredobrokenheartsgo? Ian left me standing alone at the Pier. I watched his back for so long, praying he’d turn around and say he was just kidding or he’d changed his mind.

But he never stopped. He never turned around. And soon he was gone.

My heart was suffering. It sank into my toes and I felt every ounce of blood in my body pump toward my eyes to accommodate the outpouring of sad tears that fell once I couldn’t see him anymore. What had I done? How had I misread someone I knew better than anyone else in the world? And the price I was about to pay was so high. I couldn’t show my face again. Not anywhere.

I started wiping my tears and turned around, feeling like someone was watching me. Like someone saw everything. The band was still there playing their upbeat music. The crowd was getting bigger and ready for the night party. Everyone was smiling. Dancing. Having the time of their lives. To them, this was paradise. To me, it was hell.

“Baybee, yah lost?” the old homeless woman with the cup asked. She’d replaced it with a bottle of gin I supposed she’d purchased with her earnings.

“No. I know where I’m at,” I managed.

“Hum . . . Yah take dis. Sip some.” She handed me her bottle. “Yah lak like yah need it more den ole mi.”

“No. I’m fine,” I started and tried to give the bottle back, but she wouldn’t take it.

“Drink, baybee. Yah can bury yah trouble ’til morning,” she said. “Chase it away a lil’ while longer.”

I took a deep breath and snapped my head back. I chugged the gin with my eyes closed.

“Das right, baybee. Wash it all away!” She rubbed my back. “See if Monsieur Gin gon be de marshal on yah trouble.”

I took another chug and finished off the bottle. The gin pushed the rest of the tears out of my eyes and I wrapped my arm around the woman to keep my balance.

“Easy nah, baybee,” she said and so fast her voice started to sound like lyrics over the street music.

I felt like my legs were dancing and I didn’t know if my feet were taking me to the center of the crowd or the back. I needed to sit down. And fast. But my legs were moving. The music got louder and glimpses of the old woman and the bottle came in and out of view.

“You looking for a good time, sugar?” a fat white lady in cowgirl chaps and no underwear asked beneath a sign that read LAISSER LES BONS TEMPS ROULER.

“Huh?” I focused my vision and looked around. I was far from the crowd and the band. The old woman and the bottle were nowhere. I remembered giving her twenty dollars.

“A good time? You need a good time?” The woman pointed at the sign. “I think you do! You look like you do.”

“I just need to sit down,” I said. “Figure this thing out. Why he left me. Why he doesn’t love me. I thought I had it all planned.” I was leaning into the woman. Breathing all the dirty gin in her face.

“Yeah, this is the place for you, sugar. Go in and talk to the pastor. He’ll set you right.”

“Oh, this is a church?” I started crying again. I whispered into the chubby naked club promoter’s ear, “I have sinned. I have coveted my neighbor’s husband. Well, they’re not married yet, but he won’t marry me. He won’t. No one will. You understand now?”

“Sure as hell don’t, sugar,” she said. “But that ain’t my job. See the pastor at the bar. No charge for you tonight.” She opened the door and the next thing I remember I was sitting at the bar and crying into a bottle of bourbon as I told some black man with one dreadlock hanging from the top of his head, a bull ring in his nose, and a priest’s collar around his neck all about Ian and my troubles.

“He was my best friend! My best friend. And I betrayed him!”

“I don’t know, sweetie,” he said, flicking his bar towel over his shoulder. “I kind of feel like you betrayed yourself long before you betrayed him. And maybe you betrayed him because you’ve been betraying yourself for so long.”

The bourbon kept me from understanding anything he was saying. I just wanted forgiveness. For a miracle. For me not to have to walk back into my life and live it without Ian.

“What?”

He took the bottle from me and poured another glass. “You’re looking for love. That’s why you’re acting like you’re acting. How you’re acting. You just want what he has.”

“I do! You’re right. I want love. I want someone to love me!” I looked at an older, gray-haired woman with crossed eyes sitting next to me at the bar smoking a sweet-smelling thin cigarette and told her a little bit about Ian as we passed the cigarette back and forth. My mind started floating away with the puffs of smoke.