Reason to Live

“Want a tissue?” Debbie asked sympathetically.
“No I do not want a tissue," I snapped. “ You know why I don't need a tissue? Because I'm not gonna cry – that's what he wants me to do!”
“They're over there when you stop to think about this and start crying, okay?”, she replied, pointing to the tissue box.
Given how pissed off I was, I thought it would be impossible for me to cry. I was far beyond angry. "I don't need a tissue," I repeated.
"I do," Debbie said, sounding as if she was drowning in her own snot. Thinking back, I wish I wasn't so selfish. That poor girl was struggling to breathe, and I just kept on.
“He made me feel horrible for a year, a whole year!” I complained. “All because Joe kissed me. He kissed me! I didn't even kiss him back! Do you have any idea how hard it is to turn down Joe Perry?" Debbie shook her head. "Pretty fucking hard, alright? It was just a kiss.... then he thinks it's okay to go and bang my friends!”
“It's not quite like that Audrey. It only happened once, and he definitely wasn't proud of it. If you'd just let me explain how it happened...”
“I don't want to know the details Deborah!” I said disgusted.
“It's not as bad as it sounds," she said before coughing horribly. "You're actually over reacting."
"Over reacting?" I yelled. "I just found out that the man I'm supposed to marry next week has been doing my friend! How the hell am I overreacting?"
"Aud...listen will ya?"
“The worst thing about this is that you knew! Why didn't you tell me? Who else knows?”
“Holly obviously. Paul and Gene, ... I'm not sure about Marie.”
“Wonderful," I said sarcastically. She just looked at me sadly.
“Your fathers' an idiot!”, I yelled at my belly.
“You're the idiot. You barely even have a baby bump yet, so you're pretty much talking to yourself.”
I was about to say something spiteful or sarcastic, but the doorbell rang.
“Oh, that'd be Dave, thank god. He hasn't been returning my calls. I hope he's okay," she said, leaving the room with her floral dressing gown trailing along the carpet. " Maybe he can talk some sense into you ,"she coughed.

I was very unhappy to see her return with Bruce.
“Oh, tell him to go away Debbie," I said, looking directly into his eyes. I wanted him to feel as awful as I did. He knelt down in front of me and picked up my hand. “You've gotta hear me out Aud." he said, looking guilty.
“Don't touch me!” I yelled as I pulled my hand away from him again.
“Okay, okay. I'm not touching you." He looked a little scared. I don't blame him. I rarely get angry like that.
“Just let him explain...”, Debbie began to say.
“Explain what? He had sex with Billie! What's there to explain?”
“Good luck getting yourself out of this one," Debbie said as she patted Bruce on the back and left us alone.

“Audrey, I love you okay? Like I've said before, I always have and I..." he sat next to me on Debbie's couch, and wrapped his arms around me as he spoke. I stopped him mid-sentence with a cold look.
"Don't try and hug me and kiss me and have sex with me. It obviously doesn't mean much, you do it for anyone."
There was a moment of silence. “Why Billie?, I finally asked.
“Look. It's not like I planned it or anything. I didn't even think it through... it just happened," he tried to justify.
“How can it just happen? Did your pants just magically fall down? Do you think it's easy for me to hear this?” I asked.
“Do you think it was easy for me to see you at that wedding? Wearing that tight blue dress, you looked so good. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. You weren't the only one who had too much to drink that night, okay?”
“You did it at the wedding?”, I asked appalled . “You had sex at Eric Carr's wedding? Real classy Bruce," I said sarcastically.
“Classy? Everything was fine until I saw you sticking your tongue down my brother's throat. You can't say that's classy can you Audrey?”, he snapped.
“I thought he was you!” I justified. “I don't even remember it!”
“Well, I'm certainly not going to forget anytime soon, trust me. I've tried to! How could you think he was me anyway? He doesn't even have hair!”, he yelled.
“Don't try and blame this on me! Fact is you slept with Billie!"
"...and it would have been you that night if I didn't see you with Bob."
"I didn't do anything with him..."
"That's beside the point! I went looking for you and saw you with my brother, okay? Billie was there, and I was angry..." he began to explain, before I interrupted him again.
"Now I'm fucking angry, you jerk," I growled, pushing him away. "I can't even look at you."
"I love you," he said loudly, trying to get my attention.
"How was she?" I asked, arms folded.
"What?"
"You heard me. How was she?" I asked, then laughed painfully. There certainly was no joy attached to that laugh, it was more a release of tension if anything.
"How can you expect me to answer that?" he asked confused.
"How can you say that you love me, but not tell me how it was? I want to know, was she good?" I persisted.
"I don't know."
"How can you not know?" I yelled.
"I don't! All I remember is feeling sick with guilt, okay?" he said, staring at me closely. I noticed dried blood stained his face, above his left eye. It skipped my mind completely. I didn't back down from my stare. "Alright. You want to know the truth? I'll tell you the truth, because I love you and there shouldn't be any secrets between us. I'll tell you the whole truth. Obviously things couldn't get any worse."
"Alright," I said, leaning back into the chair, comfortably. "Go."
"She was good. Sex is sex, right?" he said with brutal honesty. I nodded. Then I asked that clichéd question he had to be dreading. "Was she better than me?"
"No!" he answered instantly. "Of course not! There was no feeling, no emotion. It wasn't love Audrey because it wasn't you. There wasn't that spark that we have, or that amazing feeling I get every time you look at me and..." He gently placed his hand on my cheek, lifting my face so that I was looking into his eyes. "Every time you whisper my name, god that drives me mad. Nothing gets my heart racing like your lips on my body. It has to be you Aud. You are the only person. I can't live without you."
“Bruce, don't....”, I said, finally close to tears.
“I love you now, and I loved you then. I was drunk and angry, and Billie was just there... It meant nothing”
I started to cry, slowly. Tears rolled out with every word he spoke. He placed both his hands on my cheeks. This time I didn't push him away. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, You've gotta understand that!.” I just sat there staring into his dark brown eyes.
“Bruce, I know. I ju....”
“I understand if you can't forgive me”, he interrupted. “That's ok, because I plan to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Please Audrey, without you I'm nothing," he begged. He slowly pressed his lips against mine, and I kissed him back . He started smiling, I continued crying.
“Ya, know? Even when you're with me, you're still nothing," I joked. I smiled widely, just so he knew that I was joking.
“You're right. You're absolutely right," he said in between kisses, each one more intense than the last. I pulled away from his lips, placed my hands on his face and ran my fingers through his hair. We were so close that I could see my reflection in his eyes.
"What happened to your face?" I asked, running my fingers over a cut above his eyebrow.
"I got attacked by a Canadian," he smiled.
There was no way that I could stay angry at that man.
“I'll always love you, Bruce," I sighed.