Eviction Time

Eviction Time

If only I could fast forward to when he is out of here…

Shit, my stomach hurts. And not that I need to eat something kind of ache; more like I have been kicked in the gut and left to rot kind of pain. I have to get Miles to leave. He is sucking the joy out of me little by little. I can see it in my smile, which hasn't truly reached my eyes in months. “Fake it until you make it”, that’s my daddy’s motto. And I have lived that way for a while now.

But no more. Today is the day. I am going to force Miles to get out. To leave me, let me have my life back. It shouldn’t be this hard. I have been practicing my goodbye speech for weeks now. Hoping every day would be the one. The one where he would leave on his own. I’ve made it pretty much uninhabitable around here. Being mopey and sad. Eating and cooking less for us. I don’t even sleep in bed anymore. On a recliner in the living room. I thought for sure that would be the last straw. The moment he would realize life would be better if he were gone. Yet, nothing has worked. He just keeps hanging on. Leeching the life out of me. Treating me like garbage.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror as I apply makeup to my pale face. The bags under my eyes are noticeable even after the container of concealer I have applied. Why do I look like this? Is it stress? Anxiety? Fear? A mix of all three?

“Think, Bridget,” I say, pinching some tint into my cheeks. “Just tell him the truth. Tell him life is too hard at the moment. Too much pain. And instead of easing it, him being this close with you has made it worse. He will understand. He has to.”

A gut wrenching sob escapes my throat. A tear trickles down my cheek. Oh shit, Colin is in the other room. He can’t know I am melting down. He won’t understand my pain. My need to make this change happen as soon as possible. He will worry or think I might be losing my mind.

“Bridget, are you okay? I thought I heard something in there?” Colin says, knocking on the bedroom door.

“I’m fine,” I reply, holding my fist over my mouth to keep from breaking down. Stay calm, Bridget. You can continue the meltdown once he walks away. I gasp, a sharp twinge in my abdomen has me holding my breath.

Colin ignores my obvious deflection and quickly opens the door. “Bridge, what is going on? You look awful.”

“Thanks Colin, just what I needed to hear from you,” I say, as tears swell in my eyes. I begin taking deep breaths to calm my insides, trying to quell the heaviness invading my chest. This is not a heart attack, I tell myself. This is a panic attack. I have had about five in the past six months.

“What’s going on? Is this about Miles?” Colin asks, burning a hole into my eyes with his intense staring.

“No, just having a moment. Can’t a girl have a moment without it being something more?”

Colin’s face drops. His smile quickly fades and a worry line forms above his brow. “Bridge, everything has been about Miles for months now. The food we eat, how we sleep, what places we go to. He has been consuming our every thought. It is not strange for me to assume the obvious distress you are in is caused by him.” Colin huffs. He walks behind me and I look up at him through the mirror. The worry is sincere. It has been hard on all of us.

“It’s not Miles. I mean it is in the sense, I am pretty sure he is slowly killing me. But it may be my own fault. My own fears. My own feelings. I can’t pin those things on him,” I say, another twinge in my stomach. Deep breath in, exhale out.

Colin turns away from me. His shoulders sag and I think I notice a whimper or two from his side of the room. “Bridget, look at your body. You have bruises all over. Dark circles under your eyes. People probably think someone is attacking you every day. Something has to change.”

A perfect spot to tell him my new plan. He obviously feels it as much as I do. I was starting to worry that he would never agree with me. That this would be my burden to carry alone. In one simple sentence, he has eased all of my doubts. He wants something to change too. We need something to change, so that I may thrive again. I do recall a time not that long ago where I was an actual human. With real thoughts and feelings, not merely a walking incubator for Miles.

“I think it is time to evict Miles. He needs to go. I have been working all morning on my speech to him. Something like, “You know I love you, but you have to go. Now. It is vital to my livelihood that you leave.”

I have another twinge. What did I eat for breakfast? The pain radiates all around my stomach and into my back. Sharp and powerful.

“That sounds great Bridget, but you realize Miles is a baby. He can’t be talked out of you. He decides when he is ready,” Colin laughs, our first real moment of happiness in days.

Breathing in and out, I whimper, “Maybe it will help though, if I ask him nicely. If he doesn’t come on his own tonight, you know what the doctors think. I will have to be induced, because while I joke he is sucking the life out of me, I guess technically in their eyes, he really is. The bruises, the stomach pain, the exhaustion. Even the elevated blood pressure. It is his time to evacuate.”

Colin has gone quiet. I give myself an imaginary pat on the back. Colin was against inducing yesterday, but seems much more agreeable today. Then he laughs, a large belly laugh as I stare at him and his insanity.

“Colin, what the hell is wrong with you?” I yell, annoyed.

“You and your crazy ideas, Bridge. I will talk him out of me,” he airquotes, “and look at you…you did it,” he wheezes out.

What in the world is he talking about, I ask myself. That is when I look down at the ground and the pool of water beneath my vanity chair. A puddle of water, and a warm sensation leaking down my leg. Holy shit, I think. The pain isn’t something I ate, it’s contractions.

“Holy shit,” I yell. I jump out of the chair and leap into Colin’s arms. Luckily he lifts an ungodly amount of weights and can easily catch my fat ass. “My water broke! My water broke! Miles is coming.” I run around the room grabbing my hospital bag and car keys, tears streaming freely down my cheeks. It worked. My crazy, insane idea actually worked.

Colin grabs my hand, slows my movements and looks directly into my puffy eyes. “Time to go see about a baby.”