Stupid Little Emotions: Regret

 

 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a relationship started with a heaping pile of lies, leads to a short lifetime of Regret.

 

More like overly tragic regret, in an annoying sort of sad way.
Fast forward to almost four years later, to a desperate me hiding in the bathroom stall of a Geneva County pizza joint. At a whole whopping age of 25, I find out that day that I am more of a nervous wreck than I previous thought before, in the sense that this nervousness makes me have an overactive bladder. So here I am, head between my knees, heart pounding out of my chest, trying to get a grip on myself and also pep talking my bladder, all because I saw that bloody red hulking Ford Expedition parked outside of the local courthouse.

You know you have hit an all-time low when you’ve taken up camp in a Pizza Hut bathroom, in lower Alabama, because you’re so nervous you became a small puppy with an even smaller bladder.

 

I didn’t care much about sharing space with my ex, he wasn’t so much a free thinker, but he was intimidating. The kind of intimidating that when you looked into his ice blue eyes, you get lost in the loathing, seething hate that seemed to move in over the years. He used to look at me differently, but since The Great Divide, he looked at me with darkness. I feared it would be worse today.
 The Ford, however, belonged to his mother, the women who singlehandedly fucked up my already damaged psyche and ruined my marriage before I went ahead and finished ruining it myself. It flashes in my head again, as I take a deep breath and finish my business, wash my hands, reapply lip gloss and do a once over before I go back into the car with my mother. I needed to look like I haven’t totally lost my shit, so to speak, so some added lip gloss might make me look more put together than I felt.
And I felt like cold smushed horse crap on a sidewalk.

At least I was not alone, my brain chimed in, mom graciously took it as part of her motherly duty to tag along. Bringing my boyfriend would have caused a major shit storm to arise and I was already pushing it.

Getting back to the car I hop in, as much as one can hop with such a knotted belly full of apprehension.

‘You good?” My mom asks flippantly as she flicked the amber ash off of her slim cigarette. I nod and smile a little, again, faking it until making it. I faked it for three out of the four years living with my ex, plaster the damn smile on your face and get past this last hour and you’re free to lose it afterward.
I’m obviously not the best pep talker.

‘Just nervous...’ I shrug it off but still dread the two-minute drive back to the courthouse. Once we arrive, I eye the car, no one’s inside of it, so that means they’re in the building. I beg a higher power that they are not by the front door when I walk in, maybe off to the side, maybe elsewhere because I might pee my pants right out the gate.
 I’m an Aquarius, confrontation is not my thing.

It is the beginning of an Alabama summer, so stepping out of the car you're hit hard with heat. No breeze because it is basically upper Florida but land-locked and no moisture, just hot nastiness with a muggy stilted undertone, which reminded me of my soon-to-be ended marriage. Stagnant bitterness with a side of unrelenting emotional torcher.

 

I still don’t know why he ever asked me to marry him or ask me out for that matter. We had nothing in common, no common goals, dreams, or any good conversations. I think in the five years we were together we had like two real conversations; the rest were just to deflect my serious inquiries with humor that was lost on me.
He wasn’t very funny, it was most insults shot at me.

So, this was nothing new to me, just a sad reminder that I was not enough, once again, and this was the ending of another sad chapter of how men only sought me out, to change me. 
We did have promise, once, but it took family intersecting themselves into the middle of our problems to just have me throw in the towel, tuck my tail, and run away. I didn’t see how staying would make things better.
We equally fucked that up in the span of a year.

 

As we approach the doors, a few others are walking in so we kind of fit in with the three others as we file into the quaint, cool lobby. It is a small building, but effective I suppose, Geneva’s not that big, to begin with. It houses the DMV, Police station and everything else local government can provide in just this small area. So, as we walked in my eyes instantly searched for that poufy haired asshole I once called my mother-in-law. 

To my relief, all I saw was my father-in-law looking at me with my ex standing in front of him, his back toward me, down the other hallway, I nod to him and he smiled sadly and nodded back. My heart is still pounding in my chest as I follow on my mother’s heel down the opposite hallway, I reach up and rub my sternum absently. Finding a free area, we sit down and wait for our last name to be called.
My head is shuffling through expectations and TV shows where divorce court was a popular spectacle. I have myself armed with only one want in this whole charade: I just want to get my name changed back. My mom had spent ages telling me I need to ask for money, but I told her no. I simply did not want to, I didn’t want anything from him, because I too had messed up in our relationship, so he wasn’t solely responsible for its downfall.
I didn’t want to take advantage of him.
We both messed this relationship up, but I’m the only one admitting to my half. Our relationship being dirty did not mean we had to fight more so for a divorce, I wasn’t about to fuck him over like my mother expected me too.

 

My bladder is doing its thing again. I feel like my stomach is participating in its own lovely Tango as it twists and turns my insides, revolting at my hushed notions of pleading for calm.
Once our names are called, I hang back and wait until they go in first. I do not know what to expect, all I know if that he hired an attorney and I don’t know why, since I already told him I didn’t want anything. We shared a car, that I still drove, so I guess that is what the attorney was for.

It was the most awkwardly mortifying thing I have lived through and there were only six people there to witness the whole thing.

It is really pointless to be here, I nervously wring my hands in front of me, I just want my name back. I plan on giving the car back to him but was biding my time until I find a new one first. Which is hard to do being basically single, working minimum wage and trying to get out of the debt you put yourself in, to ‘save the marriage’ because someone wouldn’t help pay the bills. He had not wanted to move into the apartment with me in the first place, but did anyways, since we were ‘married’. He hated the apartment, hated I had spoken up and out about wanting better. Hated that I had a job that I loved. I shook my head, stop it.

 

So here I sat, hands in my lap, looking everywhere but at him. The room was larger than I expected, floor to ceiling dark wooden planks, a décor choice I hated about the south. Loathed since one of our fights had been about painting wood paneling white instead of keeping it dark wood. His mother had come over and said that idea was great, and then he agreed that maybe it would look good.
Hmmph.
Assholes.

 

‘Can we have the plaintiff and the defendant come to the back?’ I did not notice the woman, but she popped in and spoke up without a pause. I perk up at this and I look straight at my ex, who looks back at me, dark eyes, and all, moody as all get out. I dart a look at my mother with a plea of help and she stands up with her hand slightly raised.

‘Hi, is it okay for me to join her? I’m her mother.’

‘Oh, right, yes that’s fine.’ I believe she is a clerk, no names were spoken and if they had been, I was only privy to the tirade of jumbled up mess in my head and stomach as I went to stand up.

We all file to the tiny room off of the court room and get sat in the judge’s chambers, my ex across from me and my mother next to me. It is a comical scene, but I’m not enjoying it from an inside perspective at the time. I sit looking down, my ex is looking at me and my mom looking at him, a smile on her face and has the nerve to be jolly as she boldly asks
‘So, how have you been?’

I sighed and lifted my hand to my face, closing my eyes tightly, how the heck has he been? Probably freaking pissed off at me, for actually having the nerve to divorce him. Probably shooting me with eye daggers as this daft ass women speaks! What the heck was she thinking? How are you DOING? Kill me now, do me in, I will go dig my own hole if it means getting out of this damn room.
Why am I even here?

‘Fine.’ He said in a low, menacingly deep voice. His eyes were cold, dark and piecing through my soul when I happen to glacé up for a second, still staring straight at me.  It sent chills down my spine. I’ve seen that look several times and I always hated it; it was the look of another person. I always felt there was two of him inhabiting the same body, and this one was not the man I had once lived with. This one was the sociopath that I did not care much for, and that seriously hated my overopinionated self, when she presented herself.
Yeah, I needed to pee again. I sure hope this is not a regular thing now, I can’t deal with this bladder stress.

 

My mother chattered one more question, but I was looking away when the door opened abruptly and cut her off, but to my relief, and the clerk came back inside.

‘Okay, so, it says here that you just want your name back and your taxes from this past year?’ I nod to her question. She nods and looks at my ex. 

‘And you either want the car back or for her to take over payments?’ He nods, says a curt and clipped, Yes, and looks back at me, I quickly avert my gaze again, to the door or beyond.

‘Okay then, the judge will be right in, you guys can go back to the courtroom.’ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Opening the courtroom door, I passed by the man I did not even notice, who was holding it open. I was now so numb and tired, after that ordeal. I hear nothing, see nothing and I feel my brain shutting down after being in fight and flight mode for a full 24 hours now.
The session was swift, nothing bad happened, just avoiding a lot of angry looks from my now ex husband and sad ones from my ex-father-in-law.
I did really enjoy him, he had a gentle soul. I also pitied him for being married to my worst enemy who I wished nothing but Auburn team colored glitter bombs and ill-fitting clothing for the rest of her miserable life.

I just wanted to leave and go home, but I hear my named called. I was down the corridor a bit when I stopped and turned halfway to meet his dark blue soul pircing eyes, my name coming roughly from his lips. His eyes were wide, thin lips pulled even thinner and nostrils flaring as I watched him lift his arm and hand up to point right at me, shaking “You tell that piece of shit that he did this, you are nothing to me, I don’t owe you shit.” I took a step back a bit, mostly because I’m clumsy and partially because I’m caught off guard and was opening my mouth when my mom pushed in front of me pointing back, retorting.
Fight and Flight mode engaged once again and my angry bladder protesting also, I turned back toward the door and finish going out of it, hearing the shouting at my back, the mean words from him, my mother protecting. I am panting slightly as I make it to the car and lean on the back of it, waiting for my mom to come back and let me in. Until then I’m hiding as best as I could.
I white girl can’t even, I half heard the mean things, but I couldn’t cope, I was just scared to be here now. I could not say anything to make him understand. I tried once, before it came to this, to explain my side of the story. He said he cared, but he did not, they always said they cared before stabbing you right in your gullible back.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I look ahead at the old gas station and mechanic combo Texaco and ponder at what I did to warrant this in a past life.
I must have been a real heel.
Hearing the door unlock and no voices, I turn the corner and get into the car just as my mother was also, sitting silently for a second while she lit another cigarette and taking a drag, she slowly exhaled the smoke out of the open door.
“Well that was fun…” I glance at her pitifully and struggle to put my sun glasses on, managing to muster up enough energy to beg in as normal a ton as I could.
“Can we please just go home now?”

I ended up murmuring as I slumped against the door and window, leaning on my hand.
I wished then, that I had taken my own pleading request years prior three days before we got married. I had prayed that if this marriage was not what I needed, to give me a sign. I had a panic attack three days before we married then a day before decorating the cake and the day of right after the ceremony, there were tornados.

Nature did in fact warn me.