Loving The Broken You

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One

Beverly lay with her head beneath the covers. It was dark and all that she knew. Everything felt dark in her life. No one understood. How could they? How could they understand the feeling of dread, of hopelessness? How could they know the torments of anxiety and the panic attacks? What about the feelings of wanting to end it all? Beverly had tried everything. She was strong. She’d always been a strong woman. She’d lost her brother eight years ago, he’d been stabbed by a man and no one really gave her family any real answers as to why. That same month, the child she’d been carrying died at sixteen weeks, due to all the stress that had happened in her life. It wasn’t just the death and the baby that had tried to hammer her down, her then husband had decided that it was perfectly okay to sleep with other women outside the marriage. But that hadn’t destroyed her. Beverly had found a way to be strong for the child she did have.

They moved to Leeds to start their own lives, but after a lot of begging and pleading from her then husband, she gave him another chance to hurt her. And a year after he’d moved in with Beverly, he left her for another woman and so much debt she thought she might collapse and die. But that didn’t stop Beverly from rising up again and trying to make it work for herself and her daughter Arizona, picking up the pieces and rebuilding her life!

Beverly was a strong woman! She’d heard the phrase many times before. She was the woman in the cape, she couldn’t let anyone down, or show that she too, was human and sometimes had weak moments but here she was, struggling to get out of bed. Struggling to even think about the next minute.

The door to the bedroom opened, her heart picked up pace. It was Philip. He’d try to get her out of bed today, but she knew she just couldn’t master the strength.

‘Morning honey,’ said her husband of two years. Their first two years had been amazing, but that honeymoon had come crashing down very fast. ‘I brought you a coffee.’

Beverly didn’t move an inch. She’d heard him when he’d got up that morning. It was at the same time every day. At seven o’clock, Philip would get up, have a shower, wake Beverly’s fourteen year old daughter and then head down for a cup of coffee. Arizona would join him in the kitchen, but wouldn’t eat anything. There would be a small debate about breakfast between them, which Philip always lost even though he was right. Teenagers only cared about what they saw as right. After breakfast, he would drop Arizona off at school, which was ten minutes away and then head back home where he usually worked, unless of course he had to go into the office. But with Beverly being the way she was, it was a little impossible to do that most days.

‘Honey. It’s a lovely sunny day outside,’ he pulled back the curtains so the sun could shine through the room and onto the bed. ‘Honey.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and waited. ‘Sweetie, are you going to try and get up today?’

Beverly remained still for a while. She knew what the right thing to do was, but found it hard to do it. Her mind said one thing, but her body said another. She felt like she was disconnected from herself in so many ways. Sometimes if felt like nothing, sometimes it felt like suffocating.

‘Darling, please.’ His voice had gone a little softer as if speaking to a child.

Beverly pulled back the cover and looked up into her husband’s kind grey eyes.

‘That’s better. It’s nice to see your face.’ He smiled.

Beverly’s curly hair was dishevelled, the side of her light brown skin had the pillow creases imbedded into her cheeks.

‘Here, I brought you a coffee.’ He held it up for her to see.

She signed. It was hard. The world was crushing down on her and no one could see it. It hurt. Getting up, even to take a cup of coffee felt like trying to climb Everest.

He waited patiently. Beverly slid up and leaned into the headboard. He handed her the coffee.

‘Thanks.’

They were silent a while. What had happened to his vibrant strong and happy wife? One day she just disappeared under the dark clouds and never came back out.

‘What do you think you’ll do today? Will you try and do some writing?’

She shook her head.

‘You should at least try. You could try that mindfulness app I downloaded for you.’

Beverly began to breathe a little faster. The coffee cup shock slightly in her hand. Every small task suggested frightened her.

‘We could go to the gym? Or take a walk in this lovely sunshine.’

‘Stop it!’ she yelled. ‘Stop it!’ She sent the cup flying across the room. ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ She cried.

Philip dropped his head into his hands and took a deep breath. This was beginning to bring him down too. He wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.

‘Okay. I leave you alone,’ he said about getting up.

‘I don’t want you to go. I’m sorry.’ She wept. ‘I’m sorry I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t get it together. Everything seems hard.’

He knew what she needed to do, but she really had to do it for herself. Everything he’d tried so far had failed.

‘I’ve got work to do.’ He stood up.

‘You don’t want to be with me anymore,’ she cried.

‘I didn’t say that. I just need to do some work. You know I work in the study. You can sit with me if you want to, but I have to work. Especially if we want to keep a roof over our heads and food on our tables.’

‘So this is all my fault?’

‘No honey, you know that’s not what I’m saying.’ He didn’t know how much more he could keep calm. His patience was wearing thin. ‘You seem to be taking things and twisting them.’

‘I’m not twisting them. I just know how I feel. I feel miserable. I feel like I don’t want to live anymore. I want to die. I want to leave this earth!’

‘Oh sweetie, you don’t mean that. It would devastate Arizona.’

She cried uncontrollably. Beverly knew that, she wouldn’t intentionally want to hurt her own child. She was just so exhausted. Nothing seemed to be working and her world was falling apart.

‘You’ll be both happier when I’m not here dragging you down.’

‘Oh nonsense.’ He sat down and took her into his arms. ‘Don’t ever think like that.’

She sobbed on his shoulder until there were no tears left. It was hard to keep focused. She was better than this and she knew it, but it all seemed like a heavy load was on her shoulders. Once the crying had subsided, he pulled back.

‘How about I make you something to eat, and then I’ll have to work. What do you say?’

‘I’m not hungry. I’ll be fine. You go ahead and work.’ She forced a slight smile.

‘You have to eat.’

‘And I will. I will get up and have a shower and make some food.’

‘Really?’ He smiled.

‘Yes.’ She blinked back the tears and smiled.

‘Okay.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll be in the study if you need me.’

She nodded. He picked up the empty cup off the floor. The coffee stained the cream carpet, but that was the least of their worries.  

‘I’ll clean that a little later.’

Beverly said nothing, instead she watched as he left the room. For a while she gazed around the room as if she’d never seen it before. It felt like the very walls were closing in on her. She lifted the covers of the duvet up towards her shoulders for comfort and for a few more minutes she cried. She cried for what was lost. Her joy, her enthusiasm, her zest for life and the fun times. How had it come to this? It had crept up on her like a thief in the night, unannounced and intruding. One minute she was fine, and the next, things were the worst ever. The smallest of things annoyed her, and the she seemed to be crying all the time.

‘Right.’ she said to herself softly. She had to get up and try and have a shower. The last shower had been a day ago.

Beverly threw back the covers and put one foot down onto the carpet. That alone frightened her, but she persevered. Her right foot touched the carpet too and she slid to the edge so she was sitting up straight. It was another few minutes before she stood up and headed for the bathroom. Each step was a struggle and the closer she got to the bathroom, she could feel the panic set in.

With great effort, Beverly finally made it to the bathroom. She grasped onto the sink to stop herself from falling and took in a few deep breaths.  She looked into the mirror and felt even worse. The woman who was once strong had faded away. She’d left that body and had gone somewhere, a place no one could get her back from. Beverley felt as though she’d never be able to get herself back ever again.

After a while, she began to undress and then had a shower. The shower alone was a huge job. It was as if she’d been working an eight hour shift, and all her body wanted to do was get back into bed.

Before the darkness had taken over her life, Beverly spent her time writing. She’d written a few novels that had done well and had provided a comfortable income, but over the months it had begun to dwindle and things became a lot harder. The more she tried to write, the less she could. It became so bad that she stopped writing all together. She stopped putting her thoughts on paper and her life became empty and meaningless.

‘Honey?’ Philip knocked on the door. He had to make sure she was okay. Philip had begun to feel nervous about her a lot. He was too afraid to leave her alone for long periods of time. He worried that one day he’d find her hanging, or her wrists slit. The thought kept him bound with fear. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said as she opened the door.

‘Just making sure.’ He smiled.

Beverley walked past him and straight for the bedroom. He’d been working on a project for a company, but could work from home to keep an eye on his wife. He followed her into the bedroom.

‘You don’t have to follow me.’

‘I know, I just worry about you.’

‘Don’t. I’m up.’ She began to moisturise her body.

Philp waited a moment then walked over towards her and put his hand gently on her bare shoulders. She froze. He ran his hand down her back and her stomach tightened.

‘I can’t,’ she said.

He dropped his hand a bit frustrated. Feeling guilty