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  She did like me but me and only me. I was with that girl for a year and a half and to be nice I’ll say it was interesting. I did develop some pathetic habits like jealousy and lack of confidence. She left me for her manager.

  I acted like an idiot over that girl and she left me for a guy that was a bigger geek than me. That was hard to take. I would like to say that I handled it like a man, but I didn’t. I handled it like a jealous seventeen year old. Three days in a row I visited him at his place of employment, and each time after a confrontation, I was escorted out by security.

  I hear the voices again. I do, whether it’s in my mind or real, I hear them. Do they not want me to write T.B.O.T.E.? Would it be wrong? Is not writing it wrong? The truth I can’t see. I see only the blackness and hear only the whispers in the wind.

  The hand. I feel it and then I feel the second hand touch my other shoulder. I breath deeply cause I know when I turn around there will be nothing. There is nothing there, I yell out loud. Nothing!

  The hands are on my shoulders. I feel the breath on the back of my neck and then I hear a voice. It is a voice that I have never heard before. It is cold and instantly it creates an unknown fear within me. I jump up and focus my thoughts and in the process I lose the words the voice was speaking. I turn around and there is nothing. The light on the ceiling blinks then fades off and my vision darkens. The light from the two bulbs on the other side of the basement along with the computer screen behind me, provide enough vision for me.

  I see nothing. I stare around and see nothing. Maybe I didn’t hear anything. Maybe I didn’t feel anything, but the light did go out when I turned around. That is true and it is still out. I take a deep breath then turn around to my chair and desk behind me.

  For a brief moment, a blink of an eye, I see a gray-black shadowy form, sitting in my chair. The form turns its head toward me and lets out a wind-like roar that fades instantly.

  I yell “no” as I shut my eyes shaking my head and tell myself that was stupid. I open my eyes and see nothing so I walk to the empty chair in front of me. I take my position and spin around to face the computer. I get mad and yell out loud. Then I begin typing. I type page after page of T.B.O.T.E. and I don’t stop for hours.

  When I finish typing, breathing is hard, vision is blurry and my thoughts uncontrolled. I close down all my files and then I turn off the computer. I reach to the radio and turn it off. I know I have to make it up two flights of stairs and I have to get in my bed and sleep. I hear the wind-like roars and I hear the whispers as I walk up the stairs. My vision fades to blackness leaving me only inches of a circle to see the floor as I walk. That’s fine. That’s all I need. I can find my way to my room with that much vision. I walk up the first set of stairs then down the hall to the next. I use the circle of vision as I walk up the second set of stairs up to my room. I see it, my door. I reach out and grab the handle then I enter. I walk to the bed and lay down. I kick my shoes off and stretch out. Seconds later my vision fades to blackness and I begin to dream.

  I like dreaming. I can control my dreams. Anyone can. Don’t listen to those who say you can’t. Discipline and confidence is all that is required for the majority of things in life.

  There are some dreams though that I do not interfere with. I never interfere with dreams about the story.

  I wake the next day and it is no longer morning. My breathing is fine and my vision is clear. It’s not over though. I know that, but what I don’t know is: will it ever be over? Can I end this battle?

  I sit up and reach for my shoes. I put one on then the other before I stand. I know what I have to do.

  Ten minutes later I am sitting in front of my computer staring at the blank screen. I have my supplies and I’m ready for the battle. I’m ready for the voices, for visions, and for whatever new thing attacks me. That’s the way it is and that’s the way it will have to be until I can create a different way.

  Seven pots of coffee, eight hours, and twenty-nine pages later I sit in front of my computer, staring at the screen. I see the page number on the bottom of the document I work on. I know what it means, what I’ve done, and I know what I have to do. But my clear vision is fading and the blackness is coming. I know it is and there’s nothing I can do.

  The voices, I feel the soft wind-like voices blowing up the back of my neck. I don’t turn around. I try not to allow distractions but from the corner of my eye I see movement.

  I turn around and see nothing on the other side of the basement. I stand and begin pacing around my chair. Did I see something, of course I didn’t. It’s the same as the voices. I know why they exist.

  Come on! Come on!

  I shut my eyes and remember. I remember the first time I saw the mother of my oldest son. I worked at the local department store my last two years of High School. It’s funny though, that store is why I have all that I have now.

  The summer after my senior year I’m working in the garden section, loading bags of dirt and mulch into customer’s cars. My first girlfriend ever had dumped me less than a year ago and I had dated nobody since. My vision blackens and I remember.

  It is night and the store is closing in minutes. I load the last car then turn to my co-worker, a guy I really liked and was fun to work with. We walked into the store and were on our way to the bathroom to wash our hands. That’s when I saw her, the mother of my oldest son. She was a customer and she was looking at an item on the end of an aisle in front of us.

  I stopped instantly. I was speechless and my coworker saw this. He told me to talk to her and I was going to. I saw her look at me and smile. I was going to talk to her. I didn’t care about my appearance and when I got an aisle away from her she turned to me smiling.

  I panicked and turn down the aisle in front of her. I didn’t talk to her that night and I wouldn’t for a couple months. That’s when I saw her again but this time she was an employee in training.

  For a couple months I was her friend and would talk to her about her boyfriend. He wasn’t nice to her and I took advantage of that. She dumped him and I became her boyfriend. Seven months later I am on a tennis court with my younger brother and she was inside our nearby apartment.

  I remember the day very clearly. We were a couple points away from beating two arrogant college students when she opened the back door and yelled out to us.

  That was the day I found out I was going to be a Father. I was eighteen and I wasn’t scared. I knew at an early age that I was going to be a father at nineteen. When I was six or seven, I had a dream that I had a baby. In my dream I was eighteen or nineteen, so this was not a surprise. I guess you could say it was a dream come true moment. One I eagerly welcomed.

  I was going to marry her because that’s what you do when you get a girl pregnant. I told myself that I loved her, but looking back now, I know I didn’t. Well, I took her to dinner at a fancy restaurant.

  The dinner was expensive but that’s why we were there. The waiters were funny. They knew what I was going to do and every time they’d walk by our table they’d wink at me. My girlfriend saw them a couple times and asked me what they were doing. I told her they probably thought I was cute. We laughed because a couple of them were guys.

  At the end when we were ready to leave the waiters brought us our bill and fortune cookies. She opened hers and while she was reading the words, I love you. Will you marry me? I got down on one knee with a ring. She said yes.

  It is a good memory even now for me. The relationship is not a good memory. The truth is she was nicer than all get out to me while she was pregnant. Those nine months were the best in our short relationship. She was nice to me and I didn’t make her as mad as I normally did.

  Her parents were the owners of a small pizza shop, Perfect Pizza located next to a used car lot. Her parents didn’t like me. They had their rules and I didn’t fit into them. I didn’t care and I thought she didn’t either but I would eventually be wrong about her.

  One day I was on lunch and drove over to the
pizza shop. I entered the office and that’s when I saw him. He was a salesman from the car lot and right away I saw the way he was looking at my girl. Worse than that though, I saw the way she was looking at him. I should have punched him in the face but I didn’t. I shook his hand and smiled instead. She and I left and went on lunch. I wouldn’t see that guy again for several months.

  We were one month away from the wedding. Invitations were out and we had a good idea of who was and wasn’t coming. She was six months pregnant and she was showing, at least that’s the reason she said that she wanted to wait for the wedding. So we did. We canceled the wedding and said that we would marry after the baby was born. I knew better though. I knew that if it were love then she would have married me anyway.

  The day I got the call I was at work. I was at the service desk when I answered it. She said that her water broke. I repeated her words back to her and she said yes. She was waiting for me. She wasn’t letting her parents take her to the hospital. I told her I was on my way and then I hung up the phone.

  I stood there in shock. I was about to become a father. A coworker on the other side of the desk looked at me and said you better go honey. I did to. I ran out of the store without clocking out and less than an hour later, I was at the hospital with her.

  My son was born. My beautiful son, he was healthy, smiling and everything I knew he would be. I held him in my arms and I knew that it was the greatest day of my life. Eventually in life I would experience that moment two more times. The twins and my youngest daughter, and the day I met my oldest daughter, all were great days in my life.

  I remember standing in that room. I saw my son’s mother on the bed. She was tired, worn out and ready to sleep. She stared at the baby and me, and for that night, I knew she did love me. We were going to make it. I knew it. I was going to be with her until my end.

  It wasn’t that way though. One month after our son was born we began fighting like we did before his birth. I didn’t place great value on the fights, sure she had broken up with me before, once prior to Bryan being born, but she had come back and everything had been great. Besides, I had heard that after giving birth that it could take a woman up to a year to completely recover mentally. So that’s when I began to plan.

  I called my Father and asked him if he could take me on one of those famous vacations. He said yes, and to bring the baby so that’s what we were going to do. I was going to give her a great vacation and then we were going to figure out the rest of our lives. We had two months to save some money. My vacation was approved and it was going to be paid. I thought it was going to be easy but we fought a lot in those two months. I placed little value on the fights. I was working and I was distracted with being a father.

  The night before we were to leave on vacation we fought. She yelled and said that she didn’t have any clothes to wear. She said that she hadn’t lost the weight from the pregnancy. So we went to the store and we spent a lot on clothes so she would feel comfortable. We bought bathing suits, shorts, shirts, and sandals. She looked happy and I knew I had been right. She was just adjusting so when I went to bed that night I had no worries.

  The next day we were leaving at eight P.M. She calls me at twelve and says “I don’t want to go on vacation with you,” she says that she “doesn’t think she loves me,” then she said that we were “over.”

  I ended the call and looked to my Mom and younger brother. They were standing around and they saw the look on my face when I was on the phone. I didn’t know what to do. They told me that I should go on the vacation. She said she “was having post pardon or something.” She said that she “needed space.” So I did. That night my Dad took me on the vacation that was meant for my family.

  I was on vacation three days when I called home and talked to my brother. He told me that she was there earlier in the day with the baby. He said that she told them that she was with another man. That she was with the sales man. The sales man! I didn’t stand a chance against him. He was older, had his own place, and he had money. I’ll admit that he’s a smooth talker but what ever. I thought he was the typical dork that preyed on distracted woman. I say distracted because no woman who wasn’t would fall for his garbage.

  I’m in the current now. Mindtraveling through the past does not fade the blackness. It doesn’t silence the whispers.

  I hear them now. They say words that I do not understand. Why speak to me and not allow me to understand? Maybe they can’t? Maybe I can’t. I need to remember but everything is a distraction.

  I sit in front of my computer staring at the screen. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m typing what I am. I’m thirty-three and a father of five. I am a husband to the most amazing woman and seriously, there are no words that can describe her with justice. There just isn’t any it’s that simple.

  My vision fades and multiple images slam into my subconscious. I take a quick journey through memories searching for a path, seeking answers, or maybe I’m out of control. I don’t know. I have no direction.

  My vision clears and I see myself three years after my son was born. My ex and her first husband, the salesman, he is the husband who created multiple memories that led to anger, confusion and sometimes sadness; whatever.

  I was dating a woman my Mother worked with and had been for months. I had not written anything on the Story for a couple years. I was driving thirty minutes to see this woman and though we were not committed, I was starting to like her a lot more than a little.

  She was nice. Her marriage had ended like four months before we started dating and I was like the fourth guy she had dated so I wasn’t worried about being the main rebound. I would be wrong.

  We were a few months into our relationship when she and I were on a date one night. It was a simple date. We went to dinner and during dinner there was a conversation about how her ex-husband wouldn’t allow her to dance. She said that she loved to dance so I said “Why don’t we go dancing.” I don’t dance but I really wanted her to like me so I said I would. I figured I’d slow dance with her and that would be about it. I didn’t really know what I was going to do.

  We go to this club in the center of her small town. It’s a nice place with a small dance floor and as soon as we entered I knew I was a tad bit out of my element, but I didn’t care. I figured that she was in a nine-year relationship where she wasn’t aloud to have fun so tonight she was going to have fun.

  We got a table several feet away from the bar and she began drinking. She said that she didn’t want to dance just yet. I was the driver so I didn’t drink but she continued, one after another until she had had four beers. I looked up and that’s when I saw him. He was the typical good-looking guy at the bar. He enters the bar and instantly those near would acknowledge his presence with a smile, nod, or handshake.

  I knew this man was trouble and as he walked through the club I knew where he was heading. He was going to sit near us and that was all there was to it. I was right. He did. He took position two tables away from us smiling at her the entire time. He was tall, well dressed, and she was looking at him, but I didn’t care. I was trying to be cool, something in previous relationships I wasn’t known for. I didn’t want to, but I had to go to the restroom. I stood up and bent down to mark my territory by kissing her check. She smiled as I walked away and I was feeling good about the night so far.

  I was wrong. When I came back from the bathroom, a trip that took all of three minutes, that good-looking guy was sitting in my chair. He was sitting in my chair, laughing and talking to my date. Worse than that, she was hard-core flirting back. I saw it in her eyes as she reached across the table, touching his arm as he told a joke. In the past I’d of already lost my temper and gotten beaten up, but I was determined, this time was going to be different.

  I walk up to our table and stared down at him. He smiles and extends his hand, introducing himself by name. I look at her and she’s smiling at me. I see it in her eyes. She is having a good time. My anger left. I remember the convers
ation we’d had a week before. She told about her husband and how he’d never let her talk to guys. I turned and grabbed an empty chair from the table behind me and pull up to our table, I mean her table.

  The next twenty minutes I fake smile as I listen to this guy impress my date with his story. I’m mad. I made up my mind that after that night this girl would just be another bad memory.

  He asks her to dance and she turns to me. I liked that and at this point I wanted to challenge my jealousy. Might have been stupid but it’s true. Then she bends down so only I can see her face, speaking only for me to hear.

  “Please don’t leave me. I just want to dance.”

  My focus became pure confusion. Mad, not mad. Was she interested in him or was I just being stupid? I told myself that this was different. She was older. I’m older than I was in my previous relationship. A woman can dance with a man and it can be just dancing.

  I nodded yes and when they walked to the dance floor I stood up. I walked to the bar and ordered a soda. Watching them dance was not fun. Thankfully the song was ending.

  “You’re going to let your girl dance with him?” the bartender asked me. I didn’t think about his words. I just heard them and simply responded yes. I didn’t look at the man behind the bar. My eyes were focused on the two dancing as the new song began. It’s was a slow sexy song and I took a deep breath. This is pathetic is all I could think as I watched them dance in their erotic motions.

  That’s what I did for the next thirty minutes and the only reason I didn’t get the hec up and leave is because she drove. I was going to take her car but before the club at dinner she told me her fears. They were stupid but one of them was that in her life she’d been taken advantage of every time she drank, and right now she was drunk. I couldn’t leave her.