Survivor's Guilt Page 12

  Reaching for the pile of napkins, I cupped the side of her head as she continued to laugh hysterically and began wiping away the mustard. Her laughter dies the minute I pulled her into me and wiped the side of her face. Her breathing hitched and then a long, content sigh came from her and it did something to me. Call it crazy, call me the most insensitive, insane person on the planet, I needed to know. I needed to know if her soft lips felt as good as they looked. I had already kissed her once, but it really was a no big deal kind of thing, but for some reason, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to memorize the contours of her mouth. I wanted to taste her tongue on mine so I went for it.

  Tilting her head to the side, I lean in carefully as I threaded both of my hands through her hair. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t pull away, but instead leant into me to where our chests faintly touched when our lips finally came into contact. All background noise fell away, the familiar sounds of rides, laughing and screaming people, melted away only to reveal the heavy thudding of my heart in my chest.

  I’ve kissed a few girls in my life, but it was Lilly that I was with for so long that I wasn’t what you would call a kissing expert in my eyes. I was nervous, probably more nervous than I had ever been. I concentrated on how just the barest touch of our lips made most of my senses come alive. The ferocious beating of my heart coupled with how she smelled like sunshine and sweet roses, had my thoughts going into overdrive.

  Testing, I brushed the tip of my tongue along the seam of her lips and on a sigh she opened to me, all hesitation gone as if it were the very thing she was seeking. My skin was on fire as her hands held onto my forearms. Her lips were soft, providing a sweet cushion for my own as our tongues began to leisurely entwine together. It wasn’t hurried. Wasn’t rushed. We teased, tasted and relished in each other as if time were on our side. As if we had slowed it down enough that nothing else mattered, besides what was happening between us right at that moment.

  Reluctantly, I felt her begin to pull away, yet I wanted to hold her to me. It hurt to have to let her go, not having nearly enough time to relish in the taste of her. We sat there staring at each other for a matter of moments, taking in what was no doubt our first experience with something new.

  Someone new.

  That’s when her expression changed, as if the thought had suddenly hit her.

  Then it hit me.

  The guilt.

  The remorse.

  The pain in knowing that I had just kissed, really kissed, someone who wasn’t my wife.

  “Ellie,” I breathed not knowing if it was a plea for forgiveness, or to beg her to return her lips to mine so that I could lose myself in them again.

  “I—I have to go,” she stuttered and quickly rose to her feet, knocking over her corndog in the process and sent it rolling into the dirt.

  Before I had even had the chance to get up, she was already quickly walking in the other direction. I felt my stomach drop and my heart leap from my chest, but thought it was a better idea to let her have the time she seemed to desperately need. Through the remorse and guilt I felt about kissing her, I also felt that it was the right thing to do. It was a need that was aroused in me, a compulsion that wouldn’t go away until it was exercised.

  “Fuck,” I thought to myself as I continued to watch her retreating form, never once seeing her face again because she never turned around to look back at me. I picked up our trash from the ground and discarded it in a nearby trashcan before I took off in the same direction in which she headed. I didn’t bother trying to catch up with her, but instead shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts and headed home.

  GUILT AND PROGRESS

  Evan: Please tell me that you have made it home okay.

  THAT WAS THE last words I heard from Evan when I ran away from him at the carnival almost a week ago. I had only replied with a curt yes and then nothing more afterwards. In the heat of the moment, the kiss was…amazing, passionate, enticing and both completely right and completely wrong at the same time. His feelings had to have been all over the place when I ran away, but the guilt and the pain that consumed me when I thought about Jeremy immediately after, was almost too much for me to take. I didn’t want Evan to see me fall apart in front of him. I made it out of the carnival, into a cab, and all the way back to the apartment before I locked myself in my room and let the tears fall. The conflicting emotions were like a giant wave that were crashing on my soul. I felt horrible for the fact that I enjoyed the kiss. I felt despair for taking in the joy and elation I felt when Evan’s mouth touched mine.

  It also felt like a betrayal.

  Betrayal to the person who I had pledged my life to. The person who I told I could remain faithful and true to for the rest of my life. It didn’t matter that Jeremy wasn’t with me here in the physical sense anymore. We were connected by the soul, and that was more powerful than any physicality could create.

  Night after night I prayed Jeremy would return to me when I let my exhausted and achy eyes succumb to sleep, and night after night I was left heartbroken and disappointed. Other than Jeremy, Evan was the only one I felt comfortable talking to about everything that has happened with Jeremy’s death and everything since then, yet he was now the source of my torment, effectively ripping that resource away from me.

  I had stayed holed up in the apartment for the better part of a week. Only leaving when I needed to go to the store, or to get a few minutes of fresh air. The risk of running into Evan and the confrontation that I knew was bubbling on the surface between us wasn’t something I was prepared to deal with.

  I had no choice but to see him today though. In a few minutes, we would both have to leave to go to counseling and would be forced to come face to face with one another. Sit next to each other in the confines of a small car. Breathe the same air. Live the kiss over and over again as the heat from his body radiated over to me.

  Taking a deep breath, I grabbed my purse and tentatively walked out of my apartment only to slam into a brick wall.

  A brick wall of Evan.

  His arms encompassed me as he tried to hold onto me to keep me from propelling to the ground.

  “You okay?” His deep voice vibrated through me as he hugged me to his chest. Somehow the tone in his voice was asking more than if I were okay from nearly kissing the pavement. I righted myself, brushing off imaginary dust from my clothes like I had fallen on the beach and I was covered in sand.

  “I’m okay,” I replied, dismissively.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m ready.”

  We walked to the car in uncomfortable silence. My nerves had me on edge and when I climbed into the car, I immediately wanted to get out. Being in the confined space with Evan was only making me feel worse.

  Evan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as we drove through town to get to the rec center. His eyes never left the road, his expression looking pained as if it were taking everything he had not to look at me.

  I know. Because I kept risking glances at him.

  “Are you going to talk to me, Ellie? Or are you just going to keep looking at me and not say a word?” He finally said breaking the ice-cold tension between us.

  “What do you want me to say, Evan? We kissed. Can’t we just move past that and go back to how things were? I’m not ready to even think about another relationship right now. Jeremy and Lilly have only been gone a little over a month, yet we made out like teenagers. Doesn’t that concern you a little?”

  My breathing escalated as my anger reared its ugly head. How could he seriously not be affected by our actions while our spouses lay in the cold ground?

  “You don’t have to remind me that my wife is dead, Ellie. I wake up ever single day of my life since then with that reminder. Every time I open my eyes, I’m reminded that she is gone. I don’t need your vocalization of it,” he bit out. The anger was present in his voice and he didn’t even try to hide it. I felt a little guilty for evoking such an emotion from him, but dammit, it was eat
ing me up inside.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I like you, Evan. I really do. I would be completely lost if I hadn’t had you all this time, and I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

  He nodded his head as if he understood what I was saying and some of the anger began to melt away from his features.

  We drove the rest of the way to the rec center in silence, neither one of us wanting to fracture the fragile state that our relationship was in. I felt guilty for what had happened between us and was scared to death that I could lose the one person helping me get over the grief that was just there on the surface, threatening to consume me. In a short period of time, he had become my best friend, my only friend, and the one person on this earth that knew exactly what I was going through.

  Almost everyone was already seated by the time we arrived. I noticed that our usual places were occupied by some of the others and the only seats left were directly opposite from each other. Evan took one and I reluctantly took the other, feeling a little nervous that I wasn’t seated next to him. His presence comforted me. I needed him by my side to coach, guide, and protect me, not only from the outside world, but from myself.

  “Hello everyone,” Sandi said in greeting as the session began. “Tonight we are going to talk about self-forgiveness. With grief, we are so easy to blame ourselves for what has happened. We feel guilt and so many other emotions that lead us to believe that we were either the cause of the devastation or a catalyst. We find ourselves thinking about what we should or shouldn’t have done, what we can do to take it all back. These feelings of guilt are very much normal. Some of you may even feel guilt just for being alive. That is called survivor’s guilt. You hold on to that feeling of ‘damned if we do, damned if we don’t’. This exercise is to help you look past those feelings so that you can continue your road towards acceptance.”

  Sandi’s words hit me square in the chest and I placed my hand above my heart as if someone had actually struck me there. She was right. So, so right. Everything she just described was exactly how I had felt and still did. I looked up to find Evan blatantly staring at me, his expression carved with worry and concern. I looked back at him silently trying to convince him that I was okay, even though it felt like I could implode with the slightest provoking.

  “A majority of the time, it is helpful to share our feelings of regret and guilt with others who have lost loved ones so that we better understand that we aren’t the only ones having these feelings. Now, I know that at this point in time, you may not be ready to let go of those feelings and that is okay, but expressing hopes for self-forgiveness can be a great beginning.”

  Sandi looked at us all expectantly and a new concern began to grow within me. I couldn’t confess to this group that I had kissed Evan. I couldn’t confide in them and tell them that although it felt so incredibly good, it also felt tremendously wrong at the same time. How would these people see me? Would they think I was a selfish and emotionless asshole who instead of grieving her husband was sticking her tongue down another man’s throat? Would they even understand? Would I be some whore in their eyes because my husband had only died just a short time ago?

  I looked at Evan and my concern grew even more. What if Sandi asked him first before me and he told the group about our debauchery?

  “I’ll go first,” Sandi said breaking through my troublesome thoughts.

  “In the beginning when I lost my sister, the days after nine-eleven, I couldn’t cry, rather, I wouldn’t. I was afraid I would look stupid, foolish, and weak even. I wanted to be strong and to help my mom and dad deal with their pain. I wanted to be the shoulder they could lean on. The one person that they could hold on to for support. I had to forgive myself for not crying. I had to tell myself it was okay to. I had to tell myself that it was okay that I was alive while she died, no matter how much it hurt my heart to do so.”

  Sandi paused, clearing her throat, evidence that her own words had her choked up.

  “Who’s next? Jessica?”

  Jessica rose to stand and looked around the circle at all of us.

  “The guilt I feel is that maybe I over did it. Maybe if I would have taken it easy those last few weeks and not worked so hard or worry so much about what I needed to get done before Daisy’s birth, that maybe the chord wouldn’t have ever wrapped around her neck. Maybe I shifted wrong. Maybe I should have slept on my side like the doctor’s suggested instead of on my back where it was more comfortable for my hips.” She looked down, twiddling her thumbs in front of her and I watched a tear escape from her eye and land upon the floor.

  “Would anyone like to respond to Jessica’s thoughts?” Sandi asked the group. I didn’t even give anyone else a chance to respond and spoke up immediately.

  “Jessica, there is no way of knowing why things happened with Daisy the way they did. Just from these last few weeks of getting to know you, I can tell you that you would have been an amazing mother to her. Circumstances were out of your control and sometimes those things happen, but you can’t blame yourself for her death. It wasn’t in your hands, or by your hands. You did everything right with the pregnancy.”

  Her eyes filled with fresh tears and she looked at me with kind eyes. My heart broke for her. I’ve never had the luxury of being pregnant. Jeremy and I had talked about having kids, but we also both wanted to enjoy each other for just a little while before we started a family. I couldn’t imagine having to carry a child for an entire pregnancy, only to lose it before it was even born.

  I then immediately looked at Evan who wore a distraught expression on his face. There were two other people in the group who had lost children and every time they spoke or told their story, it really hurt Evan. He also lost a child. One that he had only known about for a matter of hours, but it didn’t matter how long he knew about it. It could have been seconds or years he had with his child and it wouldn’t hurt any less. The pain of losing a child never goes away.

  “Thank you, Jessica. Next? Ellie?’

  I froze like a statue in my seat not expecting for her to call on me so quickly. I tried to think of something to say. Anything other than what it was I needed to say. She said that sharing our guilt would help us and the only way I would be able to move on after Jeremy was if I told the truth. Lies wouldn’t help me, only hinder me. I took a deep breath and rose to stand.

  “Losing Jeremy was the most unexpected and life altering experience of my life. I, like you Sandi, couldn’t cry in the beginning. I felt that if I put on a brave face, people wouldn’t see just how broken I really was. But even more unexpected is the fact that I have grown to depend on someone to help me get through this. I feel guilty that I have confided in this person. I feel guilty that I have grown to really like this person. And most of all I feel guilty for the feelings that I have developed for this person because it is too soon. It’s way to early to even imagine trying to move on right now.”

  I sat back down, hanging my head so that I didn’t have to look at Evan.

  There.

  I said it.

  I put my feelings out there hoping that he would understand, yet kept it vague enough that I wouldn’t be judged by the group for my thoughts and actions.

  “Thoughts?” Sandi asked the group. I prayed, no, begged in silence that Evan wouldn’t be the one to respond. I didn’t want the group to think we were involved or having some salacious affair. Despite what people say, opinions of others matter, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves otherwise.

  One of the older gentlemen in the group spoke up.

  “Ellie, I met my fiancé just three weeks after I laid my Violet to rest. I felt guilty because there was this instant connection with her. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wasn’t seeking comfort or companionship in anyone else. She just happened. It was platonic for a very long time, until one day I realized I was in love with her. She helped me through the darkest part of my life. I knew that we would be able to handle anything together after all of that. It w
as almost as if Violet sent her to me.” His smile was sweet as he reflected back on his late wife. “I still miss my Violet, but having my fiancée makes it easier.”

  I took his thoughts into consideration as I sat silently and pondered what the man had said. There was something that he said that specifically caught my attention.

  It was almost as if Violet sent her to me.

  Was it Jeremy’s intention for me to return to Florida just so that Evan and I would cross paths again? Was it a weird and sick twist of fate that he was the one who saved me from the Jet Ski incident, or was it merely coincidence?

  Several other people took turns admitting what they felt guilty for or what seemed to be holding them back regarding their lost loved ones, until it was Evan’s turn. I was on pins and needles waiting to hear what he had to say. Was he experiencing the same type of guilt I was, regarding our kiss? Was he regretting it even now in his mind?

  “I’ve felt guilty for many things since I lost Lilly. I felt guilty for letting her go that night. I’ve felt guilty for being angry at God for taking her from me, and for surviving when she didn’t. I’ve felt the pain every time someone mentions their child because I barely even got to acknowledge that I was going to have one. But most of all, right now, I feel guilty for not feeling guilty about certain feelings I am having. There’s this incredible person that I have met that, when we are together, my pain is subsided. It is subdued to the point where I actually feel as if I could possibly live again. I feel guilty for the regret I don’t feel.”

  He sat back down, but not without pinning his blue eyes on mine briefly. I had to fight back the tears that threatened to form. I had to take long, deep breaths to keep from falling apart in front of the whole group.

  “Anyone have any feedback for Evan?” Sandi asked the group and when no one responded, Sandi spoke again.