You know that part of the movie whe

You know that part of the movie when the hero gets dragged through the mud, or kicked off the team, or captured by the crime syndicate, and all hope is lost and yet you know, no matter what, somehow it’s all going to come together and the hero is going to get his big fat happy ending. And while he’s being tortured or the town turns against him or his wife walks out on him, you feel for him but you’re kind of spurred forward by the knowledge that everything will work out in the end. It just has to.
Well, I wish I could say the same could be applied to my own life. Because I feel like I’ve fallen off a cliff, been kicked through the mud and been tortured and there’s no sense of hope or a happy ending in sight.
Of course, all these blows I’m taking, well, they’re right in my heart. But that’s where they count, that’s where they hurt the most. And it’s kind of ridiculous, here I am, nearly two months later and I’m still this raw, gaping open wound when it comes to Bram. The rest of my life has some ups and downs. I live with Kayla still while I’m constantly searching for an affordable apartment. It’s actually not so bad, and while I know Kayla really appreciates the rent I pay, I know I’m also cramping her style. I mean, Kayla likes to have her fun and more and more she stays out at whatever dude she’s seeing’s place.
So I know that having me and a five-year-old girl in her place isn’t exactly ideal but she knows I’m working on it. My job at the Lion has been going well enough. I mean, it’s a lot of work that I’m usually not interested in, and James can be a real bitch of a boss sometimes. But it gives me money and my savings account has grown and grown. Even if everything inside me still feels like it’s constantly collapsing and rebuilding itself, I’ve got some form of security for the both of us.
I’ve also been concentrating on my designing more and more. I’ll spend hours at the sewing machine in the mornings and at night. Being creative is great fuel and I have to admit, it feels good to be pleasantly distracted. Sometimes it’s the only way to keep my mind from thinking about Bram.
Which it does. All the time. And I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself. I don’t talk about him with Steph or Kayla and when I do see Linden, I notice he’s careful not to bring him up either. There have been a few close calls though. Once I heard he was coming to the Lion with Linden, so I went and hid in James’s office for an hour, pretending to work on something. All very mature, I know, but at the moment I care so much about keeping my heart alive that I’m shielding it from everything in sight.
I just want to stop feeling this deep, cold hole inside me when I wake up and realize I’m alone. I want to stop imagining what it’s like to have Bram hold me in his arms when I’m sad or run his hands over my body when I’m not. I want to pretend I never had that connection with a man who made me feel wild and free and full of life. I want so much that I can’t have.
And so, I trudge onward, that hero in the story, even though I haven’t done anything brave. I’m just another broken-souled person on this planet, waiting for time to pass. I don’t feel that undercurrent of “everything will be all right.” I don’t see how I can possibly have a Happily Ever After, that would mean things have to go back to the way they were and how can I ever forget the pain that follows me everywhere?
“Cheer up, buttercup,” Steph says to me. I can’t help but wince at the word. It reminds me too much of that damn yellow couch.
We’re sitting in a booth at the Lion. Ava is across from us and coloring away in a coloring book. Lisa called in sick and I had to work, so I had no choice but to bring Ava in. Luckily James is pretty good about that and she usually just hangs out in the back office with me. Steph is on her lunch break and wanted to have a drink. Lately I’d been leaning on my friend a lot, so I figured I owed her one.
“Sorry,” I apologize to her.
“Don’t be sorry,” she says, peeling the label off her beer. “I just hate seeing you look so sad. You know, now. And all the time.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, and watch as she takes the label all the way off then starts picking at the sticky bits that remain. “You and Linden having problems?”
She stops and looks up at me. “Huh?”
“Sexual frustration,” I say, nodding at the bottle. “It’s why you’re peeling off the label.”
“Oh,” she says. She pushes her beer away, looking at it in surprise. “No. No, Linden is Linden, you know? If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s – ”
I raise my hand. “Please. Just stop.”
She shrugs and then picks up her coaster, starts twirling it around. And around. And around.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, noticing her foot is tapping on the floor as well.
“Hmmm?” She looks at me. She says it rather absently but it’s a little too absently.
“You’re acting like a nervous wreck.”
“Mommy,” Ava says in a lilting voice. “I drew you a bugosaur.”
She proudly displays her coloring book. She hasn’t even colored in the pictures that she’s supposed to, she’s just drawn green and brown blobs in all the white space. Blobs with legs. Bugosaurs, I guess.
“Thank you, sweetie,” I tell her and she goes back at it, tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth.
“Nicola,” Steph says uneasily.
I give her a look. “What is it?”
“Are you still in love with Bram?”
Where the hell did that come from? I can feel my face go white as I wonder if I was speaking all my thoughts out loud earlier. “What?” I can’t help but gasp. I look over at Ava and she’s watching me, frowning and pouting a little at the mere mention of his name.
“Do you love him?”
I blink at her. My heart thuds against my ribs, as if to remind me that it’s still beating.
“Oh, Steph,” I start to say, searching for words, for a way to deflect. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple,” she says, her eyes boring holes into mine. “It’s the simplest of questions. You either love him. Or you don’t. There are no maybes in love.”
Whoa. Steph is being deep. I don’t even know what that means. I don’t want to get deep. I don’t want to dive down there and pull out what remains of him from far inside me.
“I…”
She’s staring at me. Ava is staring at me.
And I can’t lie.
I sigh, slowly, softly. “Yes. I love him.”
Just saying those words makes my heart seem to exhale.
“Good,” Steph says, smiling smugly to herself.
“Good?” My eyes nearly bug out. “Why is that good? It’s bad. It’s terrible. I don’t want to love him. I want to be free of all that and move on.”
She wags her brows at me, that stupid smirk still on her face. “Love is good, my friend, love is good.”
“What is wrong with you?” I punch her lightly on the arm. “Why did you ask me that?”
She takes a long swig of her beer and says, “Do you know what the worst way to start a sentence is?”
“I farted!” Ava yells with a big smile. “That’s the worst way.”
Steph nods her approval at Ava and then looks back to me. “Do you know what the second worst way is?”
“What?”
“Please don’t hate me,” she answers and for a moment her smile fades and she flinches, as if I’m about to punch her in the face next. “And seriously, Nicola, please don’t hate me.”
She looks over at the door to the Lion and my eyes follow. There, outside in the sunshine, is the familiar silhouette of a man. He opens the door and steps inside.
I feel like I’m sinking and rising at the same time.
I feel like I definitely hate Stephanie right now.
It’s Bram and he’s walking toward us and I’m gripping the edge of the table so hard, I may actually break it in two.
She leans into me, whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry. He had to see you and I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t meet with him.” Then she quickly gets out of the booth, exchanges a quick look with Bram as she walks past him and out the door.
“Nicola,” Bram says, his throaty accent jarring me to the core. He stands in a sharp navy suit just a few feet away from the table, hands at his side. His face, that beautiful, handsome face, is the most serious I’ve ever seen on him.
“Bram?” Ava says softly and I look to her, her eyes wide with wonderment. “Bram?” she repeats louder.
“Hey, little one,” he says, grinning at her and she immediately stands up in her seat, flapping her arms up and down. It would be the cutest thing I have ever seen, if it weren’t for the circumstances. I may have just said that I was still in love with Bram, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him. It didn’t mean that it would change the past. You can love someone and not do anything about it.
But Ava doesn’t care. She runs to the end of the booth and practically throws herself at him. He envelopes her into a big hug, picking her up off the ground and I’m torn between being angry and wanting to break down and cry. There are too many big things inside me, vying for me to make a choice, to pay them all attention and in the end I’m just a giant mess.
Bram carefully places her back on the ground but Ava keeps jumping around, going crazy. She’s smiling so big, her eyes are so wide, her breath so sharp and shallow.
Her breath shouldn’t be like that.
While Bram is now staring at me, I’m staring at Ava in concern, watching her carefully, trying to listen.
“Bram-a-lama…” she starts to sing but she stops and tries to take a deep breath. Her face is going white before my eyes and she rocks on her feet back and forth.
“Oh, shit,” I cry out, getting out of the booth just as she tips toward the ground. Bram is there, catching her in time and I fall down to my knees beside her as he holds her up.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I grab her hand and squeeze it. It’s clammy. Her eyes are unfocused, glazed, and that familiar fruit odor permeates from her breath.
“Oh, fuck, no not now,” I say as she starts to lose consciousness right there in front of me. “Ava!”

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

Anda tahu bahwa bagian dari film ketika pahlawan akan menyeret melalui Lumpur, menendang tim atau diambil oleh sindikat kejahatan, dan semua harapan itu hilang dan belum Anda tahu, tidak peduli apa, entah bagaimana itu semua akan datang bersama-sama dan pahlawan akan mendapatkan nya besar lemak bahagia. Dan sementara ia sedang disiksa atau kota berbalik melawan dia atau isterinya berjalan keluar pada dirinya, Anda merasa kasihan kepadanya tetapi Anda jenis didorong maju oleh pengetahuan bahwa segala sesuatu akan bekerja pada akhirnya. Hanya harus.Yah, saya berharap saya bisa mengatakan yang sama dapat diterapkan untuk kehidupan saya sendiri. Karena saya merasa seperti saya jatuh dari tebing, telah menendang melalui Lumpur dan telah disiksa dan ada yang tidak masuk akal dari harapan atau bahagia berakhir dalam pandangan.Tentu saja, Semua pukulan saya mengambil, Yah, mereka benar dalam hatiku. Tapi di mana mereka menghitung, yang mana mereka sakit yang paling. Dan itu agak konyol, di sini saya, hampir dua bulan kemudian dan aku masih ini mentah, luka menganga terbuka ketika datang ke Bram. Sisa hidup saya memiliki beberapa pasang surut. Aku hidup dengan Kayla masih saat saya terus-menerus mencari apartemen terjangkau. Hal ini sebenarnya tidak begitu buruk, dan sementara aku tahu Kayla benar-benar menghargai sewa saya membayar, aku tahu aku juga kram gaya. Maksudku, Kayla suka bersenang-senang dia dan lebih dan lebih dia tetap keluar dude apa pun yang dia lihat di tempat.So I know that having me and a five-year-old girl in her place isn’t exactly ideal but she knows I’m working on it. My job at the Lion has been going well enough. I mean, it’s a lot of work that I’m usually not interested in, and James can be a real bitch of a boss sometimes. But it gives me money and my savings account has grown and grown. Even if everything inside me still feels like it’s constantly collapsing and rebuilding itself, I’ve got some form of security for the both of us.I’ve also been concentrating on my designing more and more. I’ll spend hours at the sewing machine in the mornings and at night. Being creative is great fuel and I have to admit, it feels good to be pleasantly distracted. Sometimes it’s the only way to keep my mind from thinking about Bram.Which it does. All the time. And I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself. I don’t talk about him with Steph or Kayla and when I do see Linden, I notice he’s careful not to bring him up either. There have been a few close calls though. Once I heard he was coming to the Lion with Linden, so I went and hid in James’s office for an hour, pretending to work on something. All very mature, I know, but at the moment I care so much about keeping my heart alive that I’m shielding it from everything in sight.I just want to stop feeling this deep, cold hole inside me when I wake up and realize I’m alone. I want to stop imagining what it’s like to have Bram hold me in his arms when I’m sad or run his hands over my body when I’m not. I want to pretend I never had that connection with a man who made me feel wild and free and full of life. I want so much that I can’t have.And so, I trudge onward, that hero in the story, even though I haven’t done anything brave. I’m just another broken-souled person on this planet, waiting for time to pass. I don’t feel that undercurrent of “everything will be all right.” I don’t see how I can possibly have a Happily Ever After, that would mean things have to go back to the way they were and how can I ever forget the pain that follows me everywhere?“Cheer up, buttercup,” Steph says to me. I can’t help but wince at the word. It reminds me too much of that damn yellow couch.We’re sitting in a booth at the Lion. Ava is across from us and coloring away in a coloring book. Lisa called in sick and I had to work, so I had no choice but to bring Ava in. Luckily James is pretty good about that and she usually just hangs out in the back office with me. Steph is on her lunch break and wanted to have a drink. Lately I’d been leaning on my friend a lot, so I figured I owed her one.“Sorry,” I apologize to her.“Don’t be sorry,” she says, peeling the label off her beer. “I just hate seeing you look so sad. You know, now. And all the time.”“I’m fine,” I tell her, and watch as she takes the label all the way off then starts picking at the sticky bits that remain. “You and Linden having problems?”She stops and looks up at me. “Huh?”“Sexual frustration,” I say, nodding at the bottle. “It’s why you’re peeling off the label.”“Oh,” she says. She pushes her beer away, looking at it in surprise. “No. No, Linden is Linden, you know? If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s – ”I raise my hand. “Please. Just stop.”She shrugs and then picks up her coaster, starts twirling it around. And around. And around.“Are you okay?” I ask her, noticing her foot is tapping on the floor as well.“Hmmm?” She looks at me. She says it rather absently but it’s a little too absently.“You’re acting like a nervous wreck.”“Mommy,” Ava says in a lilting voice. “I drew you a bugosaur.”She proudly displays her coloring book. She hasn’t even colored in the pictures that she’s supposed to, she’s just drawn green and brown blobs in all the white space. Blobs with legs. Bugosaurs, I guess.“Thank you, sweetie,” I tell her and she goes back at it, tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth.“Nicola,” Steph says uneasily.I give her a look. “What is it?”“Are you still in love with Bram?”Where the hell did that come from? I can feel my face go white as I wonder if I was speaking all my thoughts out loud earlier. “What?” I can’t help but gasp. I look over at Ava and she’s watching me, frowning and pouting a little at the mere mention of his name.“Do you love him?”I blink at her. My heart thuds against my ribs, as if to remind me that it’s still beating.“Oh, Steph,” I start to say, searching for words, for a way to deflect. “It’s not that simple.”“It is that simple,” she says, her eyes boring holes into mine. “It’s the simplest of questions. You either love him. Or you don’t. There are no maybes in love.”Whoa. Steph is being deep. I don’t even know what that means. I don’t want to get deep. I don’t want to dive down there and pull out what remains of him from far inside me.“I…”She’s staring at me. Ava is staring at me.And I can’t lie.I sigh, slowly, softly. “Yes. I love him.”Just saying those words makes my heart seem to exhale.“Good,” Steph says, smiling smugly to herself.“Good?” My eyes nearly bug out. “Why is that good? It’s bad. It’s terrible. I don’t want to love him. I want to be free of all that and move on.”She wags her brows at me, that stupid smirk still on her face. “Love is good, my friend, love is good.”“What is wrong with you?” I punch her lightly on the arm. “Why did you ask me that?”She takes a long swig of her beer and says, “Do you know what the worst way to start a sentence is?”“I farted!” Ava yells with a big smile. “That’s the worst way.”Steph nods her approval at Ava and then looks back to me. “Do you know what the second worst way is?”“What?”“Please don’t hate me,” she answers and for a moment her smile fades and she flinches, as if I’m about to punch her in the face next. “And seriously, Nicola, please don’t hate me.”She looks over at the door to the Lion and my eyes follow. There, outside in the sunshine, is the familiar silhouette of a man. He opens the door and steps inside.I feel like I’m sinking and rising at the same time.I feel like I definitely hate Stephanie right now.It’s Bram and he’s walking toward us and I’m gripping the edge of the table so hard, I may actually break it in two.She leans into me, whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry. He had to see you and I knew if I told you, you wouldn’t meet with him.” Then she quickly gets out of the booth, exchanges a quick look with Bram as she walks past him and out the door.“Nicola,” Bram says, his throaty accent jarring me to the core. He stands in a sharp navy suit just a few feet away from the table, hands at his side. His face, that beautiful, handsome face, is the most serious I’ve ever seen on him.“Bram?” Ava says softly and I look to her, her eyes wide with wonderment. “Bram?” she repeats louder.“Hey, little one,” he says, grinning at her and she immediately stands up in her seat, flapping her arms up and down. It would be the cutest thing I have ever seen, if it weren’t for the circumstances. I may have just said that I was still in love with Bram, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him. It didn’t mean that it would change the past. You can love someone and not do anything about it.
But Ava doesn’t care. She runs to the end of the booth and practically throws herself at him. He envelopes her into a big hug, picking her up off the ground and I’m torn between being angry and wanting to break down and cry. There are too many big things inside me, vying for me to make a choice, to pay them all attention and in the end I’m just a giant mess.
Bram carefully places her back on the ground but Ava keeps jumping around, going crazy. She’s smiling so big, her eyes are so wide, her breath so sharp and shallow.
Her breath shouldn’t be like that.
While Bram is now staring at me, I’m staring at Ava in concern, watching her carefully, trying to listen.
“Bram-a-lama…” she starts to sing but she stops and tries to take a deep breath. Her face is going white before my eyes and she rocks on her feet back and forth.
“Oh, shit,” I cry out, getting out of the booth just as she tips toward the ground. Bram is there, catching her in time and I fall down to my knees beside her as he holds her up.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I grab her hand and squeeze it. It’s clammy. Her eyes are unfocused, glazed, and that familiar fruit odor permeates from her breath.
“Oh, fuck, no not now,” I say as she starts to lose consciousness right there in front of me. “Ava!”