Away pt 2
Between work and cancer treatments, Rusty would come up and stay with me as often as he could to make sure I was complying with going to my treatments because he would not allow me to give up on my life and health. Because chemo sucks and you want to end your life when it’s really bad. I hated feeling horrible. I really hated wearing wigs and rags on my head. But I did my time and things started going well because I was working with a guy who I found interesting. The flirting I did with him was not good because he was a boss. So I did my best to keep it low key when I did flirt. My boss “Neal” was charming, nice, seemed like he had his act together for the most part.
Rusty would call, we talk, he come up and check on me, but I started to work even on my days off because I really enjoyed working and working with Neal. This went on for months like this. But the more I was working the more I was not talking with Rusty. Then one day while I was working in the group home, I hear one of my clients talking about root beer and $2. I go down the hall and I see him on my cell phone. When I get the phone from him, I see that it’s Rusty. I asked what did you promise my client because now he will be waiting for it. So Rusty drove up the next day and gave my client the soda pop and $2. This will be the first and last time that Rusty and Neal will meet, but it will not be the last time they will have deal with one another.
Neal asked me a lot of questions about Rusty and my relationship with him, this gave me the chance to learn more about Neal. By late spring of 2022 I found myself feeling a lot for Neal. So on my last week at the group home and before my move to another location in the company, I chose to tell Neal how I felt and he too felt the same way. So I made us a date the week after he was no longer my boss. I made dinner and him over to watch the NHL playoffs. Rusty called me during this and was upset with me for making him dinner, for watching sports with him. He was jealous. He tried to give me a guilt trip over it all. I hung up and went about getting ready for my date. When Neal came over, we sat far apart of the sofa. As the night went on, we would get closer and closer. We talked a lot and my phone would not stop ringing. It was Rusty calling every 20 minutes.
Neal went through my yearbooks and he learned I went to school with someone he knew from his brother. Small world. We talked about college and we talked about people and I learned he went to school with someone my brother lived with. Small world. Some place in the middle of talking, Neal leaned in and kissed me. Again my phone rang. This time I had no choice but to take the call. I went to the back room to talk to him and what he said next surprised me and scared me, ” I thought you would take things slow”. He was in town and in my court yard spying on us! He crossed a line and a huge red flag went up. I asked Neal to stay the night with me and this was not something I would have ever done, but I was scared and I didn’t tell Neal why. Just knew that I did not want to be alone.
He held me most of the night and come early morning, we started to get into heavy petting leading to sex. Again something I never would have done on the first date. I was not sure why I allowed it, maybe just incase Rusty could hear or assume. I don’t know, but I felt wrong for using Neal as a pawn in this chaos. After I called Rusty and we had a long heated conversation about what he done. This lead me to tell him I could no longer have him in my life and that I was ready to say goodbye because of his actions. He was upset that I made this call but at the same time understood what he did was wrong. This was so hard because we always talked about how the timing for us was off and wrong. He was on drugs, I was clean or the other way around. I had a boyfriend and he was single or the other away around. We never could be in sync and this was looking that we needed time away.
Neal and I became very close very quickly. I was always at his place most days, we both enjoyed the same music, movies, tv shows, foods. We had each other to talk to about work because others we knew couldn’t understand our jobs. It was nice. But the more time I was away from my apartment, the more I found myself more serious with Neal. The times I would come to my apartment, I would cards or letters from Rusty telling me he was sorry or that he loved me or that he missed me. It was not every week but more then I liked to be happening.
One day in late Summer I got a call from one of my theater friends that a friend of ours was in a horrible car accident and it was not looking promising. So I drove back to my family town. Our friends back was being worked on and it would be a 12 hour surgery. So some of us went to a local bar to hangout and wait to hear the outcome. While there I see Rusty walk in with his friends and some girl I never met leaning on him and laughing at his every word. I tried to hide in the dark parts of the bar so that he wouldn’t see me, after awhile everyone was going outside to smoke, I knew that meant I would be left inside by myself or I would have to cross his path on my way out. I was better if others would be around me. He did see me and followed us out. “Hi” In the bar he looked sad, angry… not himself. Now outside he seemed like the guy I knew, happy and charming and gleaming from ear to ear.
I told him why I was in town and he asked where the new boyfriend was, explained he was on call being a supervisor and all. He seemed upset by the fact that Neal was a boss. He seemed jealous again. After word of my friends surgery being good, I went back home. On my drive home I was feeling torn with Rusty and Neal, so I turned around and headed South to the next state to see my best friend. I took another 2 days off and went to the one person who would be able to help me figure things out. She helped me make the choice I needed by helping me figure out what I needed in my life. I was choosing Neal. I knew I would need to keep my distance from Rusty if I wanted this to work.
When I got back home to my apartment, I could tell someone had been there. My door was locked and nothing was missing, just moved. My OCD had me always having certain things at angles or facing a certain way, that I knew someone had been inside. My bedroom window was unlocked and the screen looked like it was torn. Now looking back it could have been my brother or Rusty but at the time I thought Rusty was there. After that I was always at Neal’s. My apartment was like a huge storage unit that I was paying for. Then when I left my guard down, I got pregnant and I didn’t know. I thought I was having a period one week because it was like a period, abnormal and different like it had been for years. This one day turned into fight for Neal and me and because of it, we broke up.
I was stressed and upset and my period stopped. I didn’t think any thing about because of my cancer and treatments my periods had been messed up, then I started to gain weight and my boobs doubled in size, I went to my doctor and I found out I was pregnant. I told Neal right away and I didn’t want to make past mistakes. I started to take care of myself and get on prenatal pills. Ate right. Did everything I was suppose to then Rusty came up to see me. Which he didn’t call or text, he just came over. He was surprised I was home and more to see me knocked up. He was mad. He didn’t like the idea of me having a baby with someone else. He was made that he didn’t know about any of it. I told him he couldn’t be all stalker about all this. I told him I wanted to be friends but not like it was. He told me he was not sure he could be friends.
We sat in silence looking at the stars and he told me it was a mistake to come but he still missed me and loved me. He left without another word. I cried so much. I found out I was having a boy and I was so thrilled about it and Neal seemed still in denial about it but was there to support me even though we broke up. Then at work I started to cramp. I was taken to the hospital and I lost the baby. I felt I was being punished after my last pregnancy. I called Neal and he came. The look of relief came across his face and I felt devastated by all of it. So I called Rusty and he was there for me. No questions. Just came and took me home. He stayed with me for 2 weeks. Never asking questions or being rude about it. He just took care of me. It was because of the whole thing I moved back to my parents house and went back to College.
While I was back home, Rusty and I would see each other. Go out to dinner or lunch. Hang at our park. Some times we would hook up but it was nothing more than that. We did that for another 3 years. We took a break for a few months and in that time he hooked up with his Roommates sister and got her pregnant. While the mother of his child wanted nothing to do with him, I found myself being over at his place more and more. We got back together for 3 years. This time we had been in sync and this time things fit right.
During this time his daughter was born, my father had his first heart attack, my brother stole 7k from me and I graduated College. Also during this Time, Rusty really went more into his DJ work. He changed his regular job a few times and went to College to become a massage therapist. We drank a lot, but no drugs. But the drinking was even getting in the way of things for us. I started heading back up to visit friends where I use to live, I really missed being there because my home town sucked ass. Then I got a job at a phone company. I started hanging out Brandon a friend of mine from HS. He was my pizza guy friend back a few stories.
Rusty hated that I was hanging out with him and other guys from work from time to time. He started having trust issues and I told him I was not the cheater in our relationship it was always him and that stung some for him because he knows I was never over all that. I told him we needed to be on a break and figure things out. So what does he do that same day? He slept with someone else. So I walked away yet again.
By 2009-2011 I would see Rusty through mutual friends. We would always hook up and date for a few months and then things would go south. On our last hook up, I told him I felt like we had been 2 broken magnets. One pushing the other away and sometimes could flip the other person to connect but it would be hard to keep doing this.
In those years, he saw me go through a horrible relationship with Brandon, I saw him get engaged to someone named “Jules” and her break his heart. We watched my best friend die from Cancer at the age of 28. He watched me go through more doctors with cancer, Endo and PCOS. I watched him become a man. Giving up drugs and booze every day to once and awhile. He grew up by just staying friends. We learned we did better apart. While working at the phone company I met a guy who was 7 years younger than me. I was 30 and I felt so wrong dating someone so much younger but he was what I needed at the time to move forward. He left me to go back to his ex and left to be in some small ass town up way North.
I drove to the park after that break-up and to my surprise Rusty was already there sitting on the wall at our spot. We both looked surprised and happy at the same time. I told him I was dumped and he too. We laughed at how we just knew we needed each other. No make out. No hooking up. But we did sit there holding hands and talking. The rest of that year, it was always like that. Just come across each other or call to say we needed each other and we would drop everything to be there. We both started to have doubts. Then one night he asked me to Marry him. And after everything, all I could say was “No”.