Breakups

Hi,


Here is another chapter that I'd like you to look at and get feedback on. A particularly difficult one to write and one that gives a bit more insight into Raymond.


The chapter takes place after Raymond has had his breakdown, in a previous chapter he begins to look for answers as to why he had a panic attack and why he felt so down. He decides to make changes to his life in order to get himself back on track, but is he making the right ones?



(please forgive any spelling or grammar errors as this is still draft format)



Chapter 4 – Hope forsaken

Raymond stood in Esperanza’s living room, his palms sweaty; his heart beating fast; his stomach filled with a thousand butterflies. Even though his body felt like a charged electrical wire, the feeling was juxtaposed with a strange sense of comfort. He was no longer listening to his body. His mind was occupied with what he knew he had to do, not with evils lurking in the shadows. To Raymond, this was a sure sign he was making the right decision.

Esperanza stood over the kitchen sink, picking up another perfectly clean dish from the dish stack. She had taken one look at Raymond when he’d knocked on her door, before retreating to re-scrub the already pristine dishes. One look was all it took. Raymond had walked over to offer help but she waved him away. So he sat himself down on the couch, staring at the same photo of him and Spera, that he had over his TV. The only sound between them was the sloshing of suds. He waited. And he waited.

“Can I talk to you, Spera? Please?”
“I’ll just finish the dishes.”

“Ok,” he said and hit the remote. She didn’t use my name, he thought. Names, so simple and yet so meaningful – the first brick to be laid in the foundation of a relationship and the last to be razed when it crumbles. The last time Spera had dispensed with Raymond’s name was when he refused to go to her niece’s communion. So many relatives. All wanting to ask questions. “They’re my family,” she had said. “Why don’t you want to go?” He had made some excuse about catching up with work, but spent the whole afternoon downloading music from the Net to his MP3 player.

Raymond changed the channel on the TV. How am I ever going to do this? he thought, his determination wavering. He remembered the first time he had seen Esperanza, at a training course for Call Centre Managers. He had not been well, but his employer had paid good money to get him on the course at the last minute, so he’d been determined to be there. She had wandered over unasked, to offer him a tissue and a lozenge. Such a simple gesture but one that had resonated to his very core. It’d been a long time since anyone cared for his well being, unasked and unconditional. It had made him feel beyond good; a feeling that he’d previously learned to do without.

“Can I help you finish off those dishes?” he asked.
“No, it’s ok,” she replied.

He remembered that day on the course like it was yesterday, looking up to accept the tissue and seeing Esperanza for the first time. He’d had many experiences with women before her, he was not without his charms; but with the others his eye had been drawn by the physical, his lust stirred. She had been different. Eyes that spoke of warmth and kindness. Her hair as black as a crow’s feather, thick and lustrous, hung down over her shoulders to fall about her breast. A fullness of curve that had captivated many of the men in that training room, but unlike them, Raymond had felt her spirit touch him more than her sensuality.

“Have you nearly finished, Spera?”
She ignored him and continued wiping down the sink, a sink that had been spotless for the past 10 minutes.

Raymond turned back to stare at the television; his mind still replaying the events of that first meeting on the training course more than 2 years ago. How he’d chanced many a furtive glance her way, reddening on the odd occasion as she turned to catch him in the act, but feeling his spirit soar as she smiled warmly at his obvious embarrassment. He’d learned nothing that would have been of value to his employer on that day. His body had been infused with an unusual desire, one that he had not felt before, one that he felt through his whole body, one that was not a rush of blood, an eruption of heat. He desired to hold her hand. He desired to feel her warmth flow through him.

He changed channel on the television once again, hoping the invisible beam from the remote would do the same to the images in his head: stolen kisses, laughter, hugs, closeness. He had sought her closeness often when they had first begun to share their lives. Sometimes he’d felt like holding her tight enough to squeeze himself into her very soul. And she had given of herself without question, asking little of him in return for she had sensed in him a desperate need to be held. Esperanza been happy for Raymond to bask in the warmth of her love, but as they became closer, she wanted to know more.

“Spera, I really need to talk to you,” he said.

She’d wanted to know everything about him, why he could be so euphoric about his dreams and yet have periods of melancholy and reflection that would see him become distant. She’d pressed him to share his thoughts in times when the world weighed heavy on him, but he could not. Not out of cowardice or shame but because he did not truly know what it was that had changed his mood. He preferred to push all her questions aside, telling her not to worry about it.

“Spera, if you don’t come and sit down, I’ll come over to you.”
“Would you like me to make an espresso?” she asked.
“No, please, come sit down.”

But as lovers do, she had worried about it. Esperanza had wanted to know why. Why he’d been spending so much time on Facebook, why he’d spent so much time at work, why he’d go out and get drunk every Friday night. “Why won’t you let me in, Raymond?” she used to say. He had not been able to tell her, he didn’t know.

Esperanza’s return to the couch broke Raymond out of his silent reverie. He watched her pick up the remote and press the button to silence the TV. There was no lightness about her movement as she sat down beside him, slumping into the couch with the heaviness of one who has just given up. As he met her eyes he could see that they were moist.

“You know,” she said, “you used to call me sweetheart all the time, sweetie, honey, my love…” she let the words trail, shook her head and closed her eyes. “For the last few weeks it’s been Spera.” She stared at Raymond looking for signs that she was overreacting, but what she saw only confirmed her worst fears. She should never have let him have his two weeks to ‘think’. But what could she have done, as her mother would say, souls are not birds to be caged.

“You want to leave me, don’t you?”

Raymond could not look at her. There was a part of him that hoped she would eventually tell him to go, that enough was enough, it would have be so much easier. Everyday for the last few months he felt like he had let her down. She was so full of life, so giving. And he, was no longer the man she had fallen in love with. He did knot know why, but he knew it to be true.

“You could at least look at me,” she said.

He met her eyes. Here was his opportunity. He doubted he would ever have the courage to finally say what he felt he needed to say even though he had attempted it many times before. He decided his silence would do the talking for him.

“I always thought,” Spera said. “I’d never ask this question if I ever got into this situation…” she paused. “I always thought I wouldn’t want to know.” She searched Raymond’s eyes making him feel as if his insides were being scorched. “Is there someone else?”

No. No one he’d ever contemplated being intimate with. There were women with whom he’d held alcohol-fuelled conversations with on Friday nights, after work. Women that had not known him, that hadn’t got close enough to him to see the emptiness behind his alcohol-fuelled bravado. In that Friday-night world, he could be whatever he wanted, dream the big dreams, and the potent elixir of attention and alcohol added fuel to the fire of his convictions, intoxicating him beyond any self-doubts and releasing him from the chains of his melancholy, even if it was just in that Friday-night world.

Raymond shook his head.
Esperanza looked at him. “Then why? Why? Is it worth talking about?”

They’d had their troubles before. They’d talked about them before, always scratching at the surface only for the real issues to remain hidden, buried by an avalanche of logistical concerns. They had resolved their issues by making monumental decisions – buying a ring, booking a holiday. Always it had been Esperanza who proposed the jump. Hoping that these acts of union would somehow provide the gel to bring them closer. It had not; all it had done was make her feel guilty for the attempt.

“You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?” she asked.
Again, Raymond met her question with silence.

Esperanza dropped her eyes away from Raymond and turned to look into space. He could see the tear rolling down her cheek. “Do you remember,” she said into space, “how we used to sit on this couch on Sunday’s and-” She stopped and wiped away the tear and then let out a mock chuckle. “Yes I know, we’ve been over all this before. I tried to prepare myself for this…” the words got caught in her throat. She pulled her knees up to her chin and hid her face in her lap. Raymond could see her shoulders convulse as she tried to muffle her crying. He had never dealt well with her tears before and even now at the end, she still tried to do the best by him in her attempt to hide them.

He remained mute.
Esperanza lifted her head and looked back at Raymond, her eyes now dripped her sorrow. “Did you ever love me?”

He truly did not know the answer. His father had loved his mother and now she was with another man, his sister had loved her husband and now he was gone as well.

“I love you, Raymond Figg,” Esperanza said imploringly. She no longer held back the tears. She sobbed as she stared at him with fear and the fading light of hope in her eyes.
Raymond wanted to reach over and tell her everything would be all right. That he just needed some space to work some stuff out. But as he formed the words in his mind, they sounded empty and clichéd, selfish even, and he wasn’t even sure if those words would be spoken in truth. Esperanza had given him everything, opened up her heart and soul and what had he given her in return? Nothing. And now he was giving up, he had no stomach for the fight; instead he sought the smoother cobblestones of the path of least resistance. And after all, he did need to make some big changes to his life if he wanted to stop feeling like crap.

He stood.

Esperanza watched him from the couch, her cheeks forming a canvass for the trails of mascara that ran from her eyes. He paused to look at her, his face betraying the signs of inner turmoil, igniting the light of hope in her eyes to a brilliant flame. She was about to leap up from the couch and take him into her arms when he turned away.

She watched him rush towards the door and fumble the locks in a desperate attempt to leave. She watched him burst through the entrance like a thief making a getaway. The door banged back into place. It all happened so quickly; one moment he was there and the next, gone.

Esperanza sat on the couch mired in her grief. Tears rolled unchecked. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind - Did I tell him I loved him enough? Was it my fault? What am I going to tell people? She could not understand how everything could have gone so wrong for her. She had been brought up to believe true love would get you through any hardship. An unshakeable bond. She had seen as much in her parents, in her family. She came from a world of love, hope and faith.

She turned her attention back to the door, she did not know what else to do. And there she sat, on her couch, hour on hour, staring at the door. Until finally, in the hour before dawn, she cried her last tear. She rested her head on the pillow and closed her eyelids. And finally, the last dying embers of hope in her eyes were extinguished.

Raymond Figg was not coming back. He was gone. And with him went her faith in love.