A Life More Complete Read Online Free PDF Page A

life. I don’t work nine to five like most of the population. My job is
unpredictable and demanding, it leaves little room for planning or scheduling. I
called Ben on my way back from Calabasas to let him know I’d be late. I could
hear the disappointment in his voice, but he never says it out loud.
    I microwave a brick-sized piece of
lasagna and eat it standing at the counter in Ben’s kitchen. I haven’t eaten
all day. I inhale the lasagna and stare at the lone plate in the sink. I feel
guilty. I want to be with Ben. I want to wake up in the morning with him, eat
breakfast together, make his lunch and cook him dinner. I want to belong to him
and him to me, my day to begin and end with Ben, but it won’t happen. I will be
at work late for the rest of my life. I will fly across the country at
inopportune times and return on red-eyes only to leave the next day again. I
will attend an obscene amount of late night parties, award shows, press
releases, where I will wander with a fake pathetic smile, shaking hands and
kissing ass all the while wishing I was somewhere else. This is my life. I will
always belong to someone else, someone more important...my job.
    I grab a Heineken out of the fridge,
remove the top and take a long deep swallow. It’s cold, too cold. It burns my
teeth and I feel it in my sinuses. I close my eyes and wait for the moments of
unshed tears to pass. I compose myself before I head out back to find Ben.
    Ben’s backyard is out of a Better Homes and Garden magazine. The
picture of perfection, like a resort in the middle of suburbia. Lush tropical
plants grace the perimeter while flowers bloom effortlessly throughout. The
pool is unreal and fills most of the backyard; large and illuminated, flowing
organically as if it’s an extension of the house. A beautifully crafted wooden
arbor stands nearby covered in Dutchman’s pipe. All the plants native to
California, because that is what Ben does.
    “Hi,” I whisper almost inaudibly as I
find him lying on a lounge chair staring up at the blackened sky, beer in hand.
Roxy is curled into a ball on the chair next to him.
    “Hi,” he responds, sitting up to meet
my gaze as he adjusts the chair back. His voice is soft, but there’s a lonely,
sad quality to it.
    I crawl onto the chair and into his
lap placing my head against his chest. He smells of soap, a manly smell, mixed
with beer. I’ve missed him terribly and I choke back the feeling of tears that
sting my eyes. It has been years since I’ve cried. I want to cry for the guilt
I feel, for the hatred of my job, for the loneliness I feel radiating from Ben.
But I can’t. I won’t.
    He runs his hand up and down my back
absentmindedly as if he knows to soothe me. I take another long drink of my
beer and place it on the ground next to the chair.
    “I’m sorry. I wanted to be here with
you more than anything, but...” I can’t complete the thought because it always
comes back to the same thing. My job, my permanent excuse for everything. “Can
you do this?” I ask.
    “Can I do what?”
    “Can you be with me when I’m late and
gone and when I do get here I’m just done?” I inquire exasperated. It’s a
question I ask that I subconsciously hope pushes him away. It’s my excuse to
keep him from getting too close.
    “If it means that when I do finally
see you, it ends like this, then yes. Absolutely. Yes. This is the best part of
my day.” He presses his lips into my hair and kisses me softly on the top of my
head. His words are my undoing. Why is he so unconditionally kind to me when I
offer him nothing but emptiness?
      Tears begin to fall silently from my eyes.
Pouring down like waterfalls, years of unshed tears soaking Ben’s shirt. My
mother’s words slam into me. “Save your
tears. There will be a day when you need them.” This was said to me when
she found me crying in the bathroom after a particularly terrible high school
style break up with my then boyfriend, Tyler McCarthy. The