Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2019 13:15:02 -0700 From: Always Ready Subect: Don't Say I Do Chapter 4 Don't Say I Do Part 4 Comments welcome at alwaysready123@gmail.com I've never been one to be short of words, but what stood in front of me was the shell of a man that looked more like a homeless person off the street that had not eaten or slept in a very long time. "Seth?" I just could not believe what I was seeing. This was not the man that I remember from two years ago at his wedding who was a stunningly beautiful person. This was, I don't even have words for it. "Yea Adam, it's me. Can I come in?" I just waved him in and shut the door. I followed this ragged man over to the couch and watched him sit down. I wanted to hug him, kiss him and at the same time kick him out. But I could do neither, I sat down on the chair across from him and looked at him and he faced the floor. "Seth, what are you doing here? What the hell happened?? You look.." "I know, I look like shit. You don't have to tell me I know. I know you really don't want to see me, and I don't hold that against you. I have no right to. In fact if anything I'm amazed you let me in the front door. But I have no where else to turn. And if you're willing to hear me out, maybe we.." then the phone rang. I looked at the clock 6:55. "Fuck!". I had completely forgotten about the fact that in 5 minutes people were going to start showing up for dinner. I answered the phone, "Hi Brian, sure send him up. And you can let everyone else up too no need to call." I looked back at Seth and said, "Look, I don't have time to discuss this now, I'm having a dinner party with over 20 people. But it's fine you can crash here tonight and we can talk about this tomorrow morning. Go into my bedroom, there are towels in my bathroom if you want to shower and the get some sleep. I'll check on you later." He just nodded and whispered, "Thank you so much". And then got up and went the hall into my bedroom. Just as that door closed I heard the front door open and it was Jeff walking in. He just looked at me, and I must have still had a look of shock on my face. "Adam, what's wrong??" "Jeff, I don't even know where to start but in short, I got an unexpected visitor 30 min ago who is now in my bedroom.". He just looked at me for a moment and then said, "You have got to be shitting me. He's not here." All I could do was nod my head.. "I don't know what to do now. I've got all these people coming and I have him in the other room. And you won't even believe what he looks like. I almost didn't know who it was. Uggh I have the worst headache and do NOT want to be doing this now." "Ok take a breather. You know, if you want to, you can just make an apology to everyone and send them all home. Just send out a text, and tell Brian downstairs to block them." I just looked at him and thought for a minute. "No, that's not fair to everyone. This has been planned for a while and I know people made efforts to come to this. I'll do it but- let's try and keep it shorter.. maybe out by 1030/11? If you're willing, kinda start the ball rolling to heading out ok?". He nodded, "You got it." "Jeff I don't know how to thank you, thank you so much for being my friend and support.". He just gave me a hug as the door bell rang. I went and greeted them, offered a drink and then ran down the hall to check on Seth. I knocked on the door but got no response, as I slowly opened the door, there he lay passed on the bed in just a pair of shorts. The last time I saw him in this position was over 5 years ago-except that time, it was a man of muscle and perfect physique. What lay in front of me now was a body of skin and bones. Just seeing him like this made a tear fall from my eye. But before I let this get any worse I closed the door and went back into the living room and put a fake smile on my face to host a dinner party and pretend everything was perfect. Truthfully, it actually was a great party, everyone was in good spirits, the conversations we're very "light" just a lot of fun people forgot all of the insanity's of life for a few hours. That was the whole reason that I hosted these party's. It was good and healthy to do that and I wanted to share it with others. But tonight, for me at least I wanted nothing more than for it to be over. I had more important things to deal with. I finally scanned the room for Jeff, and caught sight of him with another good friend of mine, and made a bee-line straight for him. But before I even got to him, he saw me coming and got the clue. It was time to get this over with. It was actually only 945, but everyone seemed to be done eating, and unexpectedly heard the phone ring. Now this was rather uncommon on a night like tonight since most of the people that I talked to on the phone, were here this evening. But low and behold, Jeff had come up with that brilliant idea to get everyone out that way. I just spoke for a few minutes, and then just flat out announced, that I had a personal issue that needed to be taken care of and would need to cut the night short. It took almost 15 minutes, but finally everyone was gone. Now, if he was up which I doubted, but the front door was slammed once or twice, so maybe it woke him. It was time to talk to the stranger laying in my bed. I walked back to the bedroom and again knocked on the door. "Seth?" There was a very muffled sound, so I just opened the door and went in, found him laying there as before but now his eyes were open. They had very dark circles around them, and those beautiful green emeralds that used to be there were gone. "Do you want to talk? Or just sleep? Either is fine I just want to know what happened.". He very slowly and with quite a bit of difficulty sat up in bed and just looked at me. "I don't even know where to start." "Try the beginning." "Adam, my life has been a mess for a long time now. And I'm talking a lot of years, long before I got married, (now I was really confused). All I've ever wanted was to be that plainly normal person, I never wanted to stand out, just be someone who fell into the mix. But that was impossible. Everything I did seemed to happen as an over the top deal. I just wanted to work out to be healthy, but you saw what happened there. And the same thing with women I didn't want them crawling all over me just wanted one to date and marry and be a happy camper. But no, that turned into even more of a mess. But once it got to the point that it did, there was no turning back I had to play the part that I had fallen into or be seen as a failure-that's where my one wrench was I couldn't deal with failing. So as you know I made sure to succeed at everything always came out on top, but be miserable at the same time on the inside. And finally I married Jessica, and I figured that with that done I'd be able to just let her take over and do what she wanted and I would just play the part of the doting husband. Yes Adam, I knew what she was doing and didn't care-but if I broke it off that meant failure, and I wasn't willing to accept that. And then something worse happened." At this point I was just stunned, all I could squeak out was, "What?" "In the midst of all that I drove you away." Now THAT was a shocker to me. "You had always been there, supported me, rooted me on for everything. And then before I even realized it you were gone. And then 6 months in to the marriage, I finally crashed didn't care anymore, I divorced Jessica, she pretty much got what she wanted, money, place to live and my sanity. And now, this is what's left. I went to Mom and Dad, they basically looked at me with pity and then more or less disgust. I was able to stay there about 6 months but they just kept on hounding me and I just couldn't take anymore. So I left, and looked for you, Brian told me what had happened with you, so I was left with nothing and no where to go. I finally broke down and called my friend Mark to see if I could stay with him, and luckily he was actually leaving town and offered me his place to stay while he was gone. But he came back last week and I could no longer stay there. So I was able to stay with Mom for a little while but again just couldn't take it anymore. So you were and are my last hope. Adam, I know I screwed everything up all those years ago- I'm really sorry for that. I know I can't change it or take it back, but if you're willing to give me another chance at being your brother again...I know we can make it work and go back to what we had before our fight. And, if not and it really is too late, I'll understand and respect your wishes and I'll figure something else out." I just sat there on the bed absolutely stunned. I had no words and thoughts were running through my head at a million miles a minute. I wanted to speak but nothing came out. "Adam? Are you OK?" "Yea, I'm fine, just taking everything in. I mean you have definitely thrown me for a loop here. This is not Seth I knew." "I know. And you never were supposed to. This is the person I've tried to keep hidden, but clearly, the worst thing happened. I failed. I just couldn't do it anymore." "You know, I learned a lesson a long time ago. Actually, it was thrown at me the day you stopped talking to me. It was that when you tell someone who you thought was your brother-your best friend something that is so deeply rooted inside you that for years had been suppressed, you should be able to express it without prejudice. However, I learned and quite harshly that, that was not the case. In fact, taking that chance can blow up in your face to the point that it could send you into such a deep depression that you seriously consider suicide.". Now, I could see that his eyes which had been looking down were wide open. "That's right Seth, you had me at a point that I seriously contemplating ending it all, because to me, losing my best friend and my brother all at once, nothing else mattered to me. And I came so fucking close Seth. And no, this was no joke, I even still have the note that I had already written. But do you know why at the last minute I chickened out? Something clicked in my head that said there was life passed you. I've worked VERY, VERY hard to get over you. And now you walk back in and think that it can all be fixed, Adam will do anything for me? Is that what you think??". (I actually didn't realize how much anger I had about this. I thought that I had gotten rid of it all) "I, I..I'm sorry Adam. You were the last person that I wanted to get hurt. But you have to understand what I was wrestling with.". I just looked at him and laughed. "Understand?? This may sound harsh but I know what you mean. YOU transferred all of that to me, I know what it was, I lived it my entire life. Lived in your shadow. Protected you. You know all the shit you pulled throughout high school? How the fuck do you think you got away with it?? That's right ME. I took the fall for you. Because why? I loved you and didn't want you to fail. I didn't care that I didn't get a thanks or recognition. It was you that's all that mattered to me. But you changed all that. And you can't change it back. It's not all about you anymore. I count too. I'm very sorry for what happened to you,. I know it's no easy thing to do. But I know you can do it. And in terms of you and me, I'm not sure what to tell you. You are my brother, and I will not throw you out. You can have the other bedroom, but I'm going to go on with my life. I would like to hope that things will get better between us, but I make no promises. Like I said earlier, you forced change in me and there's no going back to that." I think he was rather surprised at that, actually I was myself. But I guess I really did change. "I understand, and again I am so sorry for what happened, I never realized how deeply I had affected you. And I really do hope that at some point we can move past this. And thank you so much for letting me stay here. I will do my best to pitch in around the place any way I can." "Good. was going to ask you about work, but we can leave that for later on. Alright it's almost 2am, the other bedroom is the 2nd door on your left. Go back to sleep we'll figure out the rest later." He got up and started walking towards the door and then paused, turned to look at me -- no into me and very quietly almost in a whisper said, "Adam, thank you for everything, and..I love you." Then walked out closing the door behind him.