Shhh... Gianna's Side (7 page)

My eyes
were still green, but most days my pupils were so dilated I couldn’t see the color anymore. They weren’t vibrant and alive; they were bottomless and lost. The dark circles made my appearance look tired. I made myself look presentable when I went out, and I would often catch myself staring at my reflection in the mirrors of the restrooms I found myself in. I didn’t see anything anymore, and it was crystal clear when I looked in the mirror. I couldn’t hide from my reflection and the person looking back at me. It always showed the truth. It was strange to see how much I had changed in seven years.

Depression and anxiety hit me hard after the trial
, I didn’t want to go out or be seen anywhere. I was terrified that someone would recognize me and would ask me questions or worse, ask me how I was doing. Our town was small and it was a given that I would run into someone I knew. Jake spent every second with me during the time of preliminaries. It took a year before the trial got started. The prosecution hired the best possible coaches to make sure Mack and I didn’t crack on the stand. Jake said he couldn’t leave me, and that he loved me, that his place was to stand right beside me to make sure I made it through it all. If he could have walked through the gates of the prison, he would have killed him with his bare hands.

He transferred from Columbia to Brown University to finish his senior year and
to see me through everything. To add insult to injury, it was then that I realized he never cheated on me. He was the epitome of the perfect boyfriend who worked his ass off in school to come back to me. He worked hard and took heavy class loads because he wanted to provide me with the life I was accustomed to, and the one he said I deserved. I tried to attend Brown University with him, and I made it a semester before I had to drop out. I couldn’t take the preliminaries of the trial and still function normally; throw school into the mix and it was just too much. It took a year after graduation for the trial to start and then three months later he was gone.

Placed behind solid bars and away from me.

I couldn’t contact the love of my life.

Mack had been accepted
to Michigan State and left right after we graduated. She was going back and forth during the preliminaries of the trial. Jake asked me to marry him a month after the trial ended, and it was around the same time that my parents put the house up for sale. They said they couldn’t live there anymore and they needed a fresh start. The house sold in three weeks and they decided to move to North Carolina. They were ecstatic when I told them about our engagement and said it came at a perfect time.

The burden of
guilt and remorse weighed heavily on my decision to say yes because I felt like I owed it to him. I married him because I thought I had to. He was the only thing that made any sense to me back then. He was my rock, the very foundation that kept me going on a daily basis. Jake did the best he could for us. He studied hard to graduate with a business degree and make a name for himself in pharmaceutical sales. He traveled all the time, leaving me alone with nothing but my misery and self-loathing. The hatred I felt for myself was overwhelming; there were days I couldn’t even get out of bed and when I did, I cried the entire day. I didn’t know how it could be possible for one person to shed so many tears, but I was drowning in them.

However,
that was only on the inside; I was still Gianna Edwards back then. After the trial, people expected to see me relieved and grateful because justice was served, the good guys won and the monster was gone. Placed in a cell where he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

I did everything I was expected
to do; I got excited for my upcoming nuptials, I planned with my mom, I went dress shopping, ordered the right food, and picked out the most perfect four-tier cake. I prepared for a day that I was dreading, and no one knew it but me. The day every girl dreams about became my nightmare. My parents invited everyone they knew and then some. McKenzie was my maid of honor, but we barely spoke throughout the entire wedding process. By that time, we were barely speaking at all. Her speech was short and to the point, but no one thought anything of it. I knew better. We got married fairly quickly, three months from the day he proposed to be exact. Our parents insisted that we have a honeymoon, and I came up with every excuse in the book to not go through with one.

He was starting a new career and needed to stay focused, I wanted to prepare our new home and make it comfortable for us, it was a better idea to put that money in savings
…and the list went on. Thank God it worked and I was able to avoid going on a honeymoon with the man I was supposed to be madly in love with. Lying and pretending became my profession, and it was an art I had perfected. The thought of being alone and feigning romance, love, and all that other hocus pocus made me want to slit my wrists.

Everything was going according to plan and I had become numb to it all. It was easy to say
“I love you too,” it was easy to let him touch me and pretend his caresses were by someone else in order to reach an orgasm, it was easy being Betty fucking Crocker when everyone was looking. It made it that much easier to lie and deceive everyone with their expectancies of the perfect Gianna Henderson.

The woman and wife
Jake deserved.

All
of that went to shit one afternoon when he was away on a business trip.

We’d been married for six months and my mundane routine was to take care of the household and provide my husband with everything and anything he ever wanted.
We all pretend to be something we’re not, that’s life, and that’s how we get by. People’s perceptions of you are whatever you want them to be, and I was a Stepford wife.

I cleaned
, making sure the house was immaculate and spotless, not one thing out of place. Jake was due back in the evening and I made sure to have all his suits dry cleaned, the bed sheets were ironed, and all of his clothes smelled fresh and were put away precisely the way he liked them. I started to cook his favorite dinner–beef stew–knowing it would take five hours until the meat was tender and held the perfect flavor. Crying had become my outlet from my reality, it was my source of comfort, and I needed to find that elsewhere because Jake could never know about it. I went into his office, hoping to find anything that took my mind off of where it wandered when I wasn’t focused on a task to distract my thoughts.

My eyes found it immediately
, as if it was calling to me. My feet moved on their own as I walked to the bookshelf of literary works that Jake had organized when we moved in. There, before my very own eyes, was the collective masterpiece of Romeo and Juliet, a gift he had given me. I assumed it was thrown away with the move or I had carelessly left it behind and it got lost. My finger traced the border of the book, feeling the rough edges of the old hardcover. The memory of when he handed it to me quickly made its way into my bloodstream.

“What is this?” I asked
, taking the book into my hands.

“It’s a gift
,” he responded.

“You got me something?” The emotion
was evident on my face.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because it made me think of you and I wanted you to have it.”

“Oh,” I replied, confused.

I opened the book to find a
passage written in pen on the first page; “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

I looked up at him as he stood above my desk watching my every move.

“Did you write this?” I questioned, trying to read his expression and what it all meant.

“I did.”

“Why?”

He sighed and bent down so that we were
at eye level. “Because, Gianna, Gia, G, you are the same person, you don’t have to pretend to be something you’re not. Let the world see you the way I do, the way you allow me to.”

I frowned and my head fell forward
; I felt ashamed. He grabbed my chin and made me look at him. “You don’t hide from me. You don’t ever pretend with me. Do you understand?”

I took in his words and what he was demanding. It was the first time I allowed myself to feel free and accepted. It was because of him. I nodded enthusiastically
, hoping that he could feel as much as I was. He smiled, took my hand, kissed it, and stood up to remove himself away from me. I felt something silky and smooth that he left behind in the palm of my hand. I turned it over to find a single red rose pedal.

I
shyly smiled, closed my hand and placed it on my heart, right where it belonged.

I found myself in the kitchen, crouched down in the corner with a knife in my hand
as I came out of the haze from my memory. I didn’t even remember how I got there. The last thing I remembered was looking at the book I thought I had lost. My mind was swarming with different thoughts. I needed to get dinner on the table, I still had a load of laundry in the dryer to fold, was something burning?

“To thy own self be true
,” I said aloud as I watched the sharp knife slice across the delicate skin of my wrist. The blood was red and warm, exactly like the rose pedal. I continued to cut at my wrist in slow movements, wanting to capture the beauty of the color red that was exposed with each swipe of the blade.

I didn’t hear the door open
, nor did I hear Jake yell when he saw me.

“Oh my God, baby! What did you do? What are you doing?” he exclaimed
, taking the knife out of my hand. He sounded concerned and something else…panicked?

I cocked my head to the side and smiled
. “I wanted to see the color red. It’s so pretty. Isn’t it pretty, babe?” His eyes widened in fear as he tried to make sense of my rambling.

He stood up fast and slipped on my blood as he reached in
to the drawer for a hand towel.

“Let me see your arm, Gia
,” he ordered, wrapping the towel tightly around it. He grabbed his cell phone from his suit jacket. He looked so handsome. I really was a lucky girl. I should’ve appreciated him more, I should’ve loved him like he loved me. What was wrong with me?

“9
-1-1 operator,” I heard the lady on the other line say.

“Yes! I need an ambulance…my wife…my wife
tried…she tried…I don’t know…I need an ambulance. She’s bleeding! There’s so much blood. Please hurry.”

I smiled and caressed the side of his face and his eyes immediately found mine.

“Calm down, everything is fine. I’m fine. I made you beef stew, your favorite, but I have to go take the load out of the laundry.” I tried to get up, but he gripped my leg, making it impossible to stand.

“Don’t move
,” he ordered in a strained and demanding tone.

He was mad at me? What had I done? I tried to be the perfect wife
; I was Gianna Henderson. Could he finally see the lies? Did he know I wasn’t perfect…would he leave me now?

I was transported to the nearest hospital where I was placed in psychiatric evaluation for seventy-two hours. The psychiatrist called it a mental health breakdown
; she told my family it was due to the trial and everything I had gone through. She said she was surprised it took that long for me to have a psychotic break. It was far from the truth and now yet another added lie to the ever growing pile.

I was put in
therapy and my counselor told me I was a “survivor.” Jake swept it under the rug, thinking I was getting help and everything would return back to normal. The root of the problem was solved but it was far from my actual issues. I was prescribed anti-depressants and anxiety medication and for a while, I felt okay. It tamed the beast and it was once again quiet and silenced. Jake started discussing having a family, and my therapist believed that it could be good for me to have something to look forward to and to take care of. I agreed with her, hoping that a child could redeem and save me.

My salvation.

We had been married a little less than a year when I found out I was pregnant. It only took us two months of trying for that little white stick to show a plus sign. I prayed every single night that I would feel half of what I felt the first time I got pregnant. I wanted it so badly that it consumed me. I was overjoyed with my first pregnancy; the possibilities of us being able to be together were endless. We were expecting a child together and it was made from love and passion. No lies tainted it, it was all truths and that’s all that mattered. We would make everything work, at any cost. I desired those exact reactions with my pregnancy with Jake, but it wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even on the same wavelength.

The moment I read the bright pink plus sign
, my heart dropped, I had to catch my breath and I felt like I was going to pass out. The bathroom walls crumbled their way into my space, leaving me suffocated and unable to move. I was frightened and scared and I wanted no part of it. How was I going to bring a child that I didn’t want into the world? How could I pretend? I crossed the line and had involved an innocent child into my charade of lies. I slid down the wall in shock, staring off into space. I wanted to cry, scream, and run away. I contemplated getting rid of it; nobody would ever know except me. I could go back on birth control and not tell Jake, there were couples that took years getting pregnant.

We could be one of them.

I grabbed my forehead and frowned, how could I be thinking this? Going to hell didn’t even faze me because I lived it every fucking day. I touched my stomach and rubbed it back and forth, I had no choice but to continue with my pregnancy. I made my bed and now I had to lie in it. Jake was overjoyed to learn that I was pregnant. He was planning names and wanted to start decorating the baby’s room before my first doctor’s appointment. I went along with everything he wanted to do, trying to be the perfect wife and soon to be mother. I was ten weeks along when I went to bed with extreme cramping; I figured it was from stress and exhaustion. The intense abdominal pains woke me up in the middle of the night and I ran into the bathroom. I turned on the light and stared at the blood that was staining my panties and running down my legs in the mirror.

It was the most surreal feeling ever. I wanted to feel the loss of my baby, the sadness and darkness to devour me whole
, but I didn’t. I breathed out a huge sigh of relief because it was gone. I didn’t have to involve anyone else in my dishonestly. I didn’t have to worry about ruining another life that wasn’t mine. It was a blessing to me.

I walked back into our bedroom and
what I saw broke my heart. I didn’t think my heart was capable of beating anymore. Jake was lying there, rested on one arm while the other was lying in the pool of blood.

“It’s gone
isn’t it?” he whispered, not taking his eyes off the blood stained sheets.

“Yes.”

My heart broke for him. He didn’t deserve that and he didn’t deserve me. I could never offer him what he truly was entitled to. My heart didn’t belong to me, it belonged to the man behind steel bars, the man who was locked away for my sins. The man I would never see again. Jake threw himself into work and that was when our marriage started to show its cracks in the foundation. Its true colors made itself present; they were bright and blinding. Anything that is broken will eventually shatter, even if you think you’ve glued it back together. And all you will be able to do is stand by and witness its demise.

Two months after the miscarriage, Jake called me from Houston, where he was at on business. I will never forget that phone call. I could recite it all by memory. Closing my eyes, I could remember the entire night.

“Hey baby
,” he said on the other end.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing?”

“Not much, just reading.”

He paused for a few seconds, and call it intuition, but I knew what he was going to say, I knew exactly where this conversation was going to go and I was dreading every minute of it. I pushed my nail into my skin to relieve the anxiety that was building.

“So I’ve been thinking, babe. It’s been a few months now and I thought maybe we could start trying again?”

My heart sank and I swear the room started to close in on me. How the fuck could this keep happening? Was it ever going to be over?

“Jake, I don’t…I
mean–”

“No
, listen. I think it would be great for us. Most first time pregnancies end up in miscarriages. I have been doing a lot of research on it. It’s actually really normal,” he reasoned.

I should have been thinking how lucky I was to have such an amazing man in my life but I wasn’t. I thought that he sounded needy and I hated myself more for thinking that.

“I guess we can talk about it some more when you get home.”

He laughed
from nervousness. “Really? That’s awesome, babe. Oh my God, I’m so glad you feel the same way.”

I wanted to hang up on him and pack my bags and disappear. I couldn’t take
it anymore, the years of pretending to be someone I’m not.

“
I have to go, baby. I love you. I’ll be home in two days and I can’t wait to start trying again.”

I hung up before I had to say the words back to him.
I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.  I sat there in a trance, trying to re-evaluate my life. The thoughts were too much to bear and I couldn’t stand to be there anymore. I had to leave. I went to the nearest bar and downed drink after drink.

And just like that she was back again.

G.

That was the
beginning of the end.

“I didn’t order that
,” I told the bartender.

“I did
,” said a voice from behind me. I turned to find a good-looking, older man standing behind me.

We talked for hours about nothing and he made me laugh. I mean really laugh.
G just took over and all the noise in my head just disappeared, it was gone like it didn’t exist, like it had never been there. I can’t explain how liberating it was to feel free and not tied down from all the lies that buried me.

She
didn’t stop him when he pulled the hair out of my face and placed it behind my ear. She didn’t stop his hand when it touched my knee and slowly made its way up my thigh. She actually smiled at him, provoking him to keep going. When he grabbed my hand and escorted me to his car, I knew exactly what we were going to do. She let him take me back to his house, she let him touch and caress me. She let him bring me to orgasm and it was the first time since he had been sent away that I didn’t have to pretend it was “him” to reach climax.

Not one time
did I think about Jake or what this would do to him.

For the next few hours
, I lived in a bubble of lust and desire, where I let my body do the talking. It was then that I realized that alcohol and sex made everything go away. Alcohol locked it up and I personally threw away the key.

I was…am…a selfish person.

I went home the next morning and dialed Mack’s number ten times. I dialed the first five numbers over and over again before hanging up. I wanted to come clean and finally tell her everything. She deserved to know the truth. But I couldn’t do it, and every time I got close to dialing the sixth number I would start to shake and get a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I would hit the end button before I could change my mind. The last thing I wanted was for her to judge me, to be disappointed in me, I already did that enough for the both us. A part of me felt like she knew exactly what I was going through because she was going through the same thing. The lies we shared together would forever bind us.

Months went by
, moving at a slow progressive rate. And with each day that passed, I placed my own nails around my coffin, one by one. I tried to stay faithful to Jake, but every time I looked at his sorrowful face, the face of the man who blamed himself, I couldn’t help but run in the opposite direction. It was the face of a man who loved me but had no idea who I truly was, he loved Gianna Edwards and she wasn’t real. I didn’t deserve his kindness, his respect, his adoration, and most of all, his love. I never had…even before that night. He was too good for me.

My friendship with Mack also
drastically changed and we weren’t the same girls anymore. We didn’t talk or hang out at all. Her eyes mimicked mine; she was as empty as I was, and there was absolutely nothing either of us could do about it. It was too late. She left for an internship in Detroit two years after we graduated and it was the best decision she could’ve made. We needed to get away from each other; our friendship was no longer healthy for either of us.

I filed for divorce two years into my marriage.
It wasn’t fair for me to continue running around on Jake. He had always been my safety net and it was time for me to set him free. The affairs were getting too much and I was enjoying being G; I didn’t want to pretend anymore. It was the only time that I felt like the Band-Aid wasn’t on and drinking and being with other men allowed that. I was allowed to show the darkness that I felt harboring inside. I let it take over the day we signed the papers. Jake never found out what I did when he wasn’t around. When I told him I wanted a divorce, he didn’t fight me on it. He didn’t even seem surprised when I handed him the papers. He kissed and hugged me and told me that everything was going to be okay. That we would still be in each other’s lives and that he would always love me.