you think of it, it’s kind of poetic how those little things were the source of so many arguments, when really we should have been arguing about my lack of connection with her, and her screwing Wade in her spare time. If we’d only been able to see through that facade and look deeper into the hole we were digging for ourselves we might not be in this position.
But maybe all of the things have happened between us served only to highlight even deeper pains, bring them into the light so that they could be dealt with. Maybe we needed things to fall apart so that we could start again. Maybe things weren’t that great between us in the first place. Maybe I need all of this so that I would finally grow up. Maybe we both needed this to grow up.
It’s easy to be bitter about all of this. I could ruminate on my situation all day but it won’t change anything. It won’t take back the way that I spoke to her these last two years. It won’t take back the biting sarcasm that is my way. I won’t connect me with her back then or indeed now. It certainly won’t make Quinn pure again. And there it is. I can’t change it, so why hang onto it all.
Bitterness was my enemy. If I let it into my heart it would poison my soul, my words, my deeds. Sure I could hide the fact, I could pretend, but in the end it would come out, in small things at first and then in loathing and destruction. And this I could not afford.
It’s all in the words, I think. Grant had me speaking ‘words of life’ into her. I had only an inkling at first of what he meant, but now I think I get the idea. He wants me to only speak the positive, only words that will build her up, only words of forgiveness and trust. Only words of love.
I guess the opposite would foster bitterness. The opposite would poison us, kill us. The end would soon come upon us.
It’s about changing the way you think. If you’re always looking for words of life to say then your brain makes connections and patterns that make that happen. It’s made that way. And so we can train it for any sort of behaviour we want, and if we stick to it, it becomes a pattern, a habit, and then it starts to change the way that we think. It’s sort of a cycle.
The show is moving along well, but we’re not breaking any barriers, we’re not making any waves. There’s no zest to it. And that’s worrying me. Well, not exactly worrying me, there’s no concern there, it’s more that I think we can do better.
We have four hours, five days a week, to communicate to our listeners, and I wonder just what we are selling. On face value we’re giving them some sort of insight into the very worst of people: their problems; their behaviours - the damn foolishness of it all. And I’m not immune myself in that regard. I’ve been a damn fool for quite some time. But I’m the worst kind of fool, because I’ve been blind to the fact of it, I’ve been looking at others down my nose not realising that I’m just like them.
And I’m still like them, but with a big difference. My eyes are open to it and I’m trying to change. I’m trying to be better. And that I think is the take home lesson here: that we can stay the same, keep doing the same old stupid, self-destructive things, keep hurting the people around us – or we can decide to stop, just stop, and start to change.
But it’s not my show, its Wade’s, and he’s not thinking this way. He wants what we had, not what we could have. And I’m not sure exactly what that is anyway.
And so we keep on with the same routine that we’ve always used, because it works, because people listen to us, because we get paid to do it.
We get through the show and then the meeting afterwards. I’ve got some calls to make later and then I was going down to see my contact at a steak house chain that wants some air time. But Wade doesn’t run out. He stays in his chair. I know he wants something.
“How are you?” he asks me.
“Just swell, Wade.”
“I mean it,” he says.
I remember him asking me this question several times in the last year. It’s only occurred to me that he wasn’t asking because he cared, but because he was feeling guilty for what he was doing. I’m just guessing about that. I don’t think the emotion is in his repertoire. He asked me how I was even as he’s screwing my wife behind my back. I’m getting angry now.
“What do you want, Wade?” I ask him with a little bite.
“I just want to know how you and Quinn are going.”
“Seriously?”
“Sure. You know I care about both of you.”
“I know you’d care to screw one of us at least.”
He shakes his head. “Back to that again.”
“Well it’s kind of why I’m in the middle of this mess that is my life. You’re part of the cause of that, and it’s damn difficult to just watch you get on with your wonderful life while mine is complete crap.”
“I get that. I did that to you. I know you don’t believe me, but I am actually sorry for everything. But you have to know: I didn’t go after her, I didn’t seduce her. She came to me. You were hurting her. She was lonely and in pain and that was your fault.”
“And so you took her, even though we’re friends, even though she’s my wife?”
“Yeah. I did. I admit that when she came to me I jumped at the chance. Quinn is beautiful and I’m human. I’m weak, and you know that, so what did you expect?”
“I expected you to tell me when it happened. I expected you not to sleep with my wife. It’s not rocket science, Wade.”
He nods. “Good to know. That’s what I’ll do next time.”
“There won’t be a next time. I’m making sure of that.”
He’s still nodding. “Glad to hear it. But really, I did you a favour there, and I get no credit for it.”
I’m shaking my head. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Listen,” he says. “She came to me. She could have gone to someone else, someone half decent, someone that might just stay with her through everything. And then it’d be over. So, if I’d rejected her, she might have found someone else, so I kept her busy and she stayed with you. I don’t know if that would have happened with anyone else.”
I’m raising my brows. “That’s some screwed-up twisted logic,” I say.
“I know,” he says with a smile. “But think about it. You know it’s true.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Come on, Judd.”
“Listen, we’re never going to kiss and make up, Wade. You need to live with that.”
“Okay,” he says sadly. “But listen man, she wanted you to stop messing things up, she wanted you to start seeing her. But you never did. I was never going to cause her any trouble if she went back to you.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
He shrugs. “So,” he says, “how are you going?”
I sigh. “We’re seeing some people. It’s a long road ahead.”
“But you’re getting there, right?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, don’t give up on her. She needs you, I know better than anyone. When she was seeing me, she’d cry sometimes she was hurting so much. She still loved you then, but she couldn’t see a way past the pain between you.”
“Are you actually giving me advice about this?”
She smiled a little. “Believe it or not, I’m not as bad as I seem. I’m with Chloe now, and I think things might be different with her. But listen, you’re going to lose her again if you don’t save what you have. I know it wasn’t good at the end but it can be fixed. If you give up on your marriage then you’re giving up on her.”
“Thanks for those words of wisdom.”
He gets up and walks out, leaving me bewildered. Damn, I think, he’s actually made a good point there.
Tuesday
I start on our story after work, sitting in our favourite coffee shop again. The staff look at me with sad eyes. She’s been here with Wade and they know I’d been replaced. We’re going to have to find new places to go. I ignore their stares and whispered voices and they move onto other things. I have much more important things to worry about.
<
br /> I write about our meeting. She’s riding a bike across the quad at college and I call out to her, she slips and scrapes her knee. I’ve seen her before. She’s young and cute and she’s caught my eye. She’s also way out of my league. Now she’s stopped I have no idea what to do next – I hadn’t planned it at all. I say something cute and clever, the first thing that comes to mind, and she laughs. I make her laugh twice more and I think I’m in heaven.
We become friends then, and soon lovers. She is beautiful and I’m captured by her. She’s been hurt before and I’m determined that I won’t do that to her. I’m determined to love her for the rest of my life.
I propose when I finished college and she says yes. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do with my life, I just know that I want to do whatever it is with her. I get a job at the local radio station and end up working with Wade. I hesitate to add him, but back then he was a friend and he gave me my break in the business. When he syndicates he takes me with him and that means more money. I won’t mention him again.
A couple of years into our marriage Quinn tells me she wants to have a baby and I can’t deny her that. I’m not sure I’m ready to be a father, but then who is? It takes some time. Finally the strip turns blue and we laugh and dance and make love to celebrate.
It’s hard to know just when things went wrong. I’d like to put my finger on a specific event and say: yes, that was it. That’s when things fell apart. But I can’t. I don’t know when to stop. Do I write about the day she called