Author: ISLANDGIRL5
Disclaimer: I don’t own a thing. Roswell belongs to its’ writers and creators. Although….I tried to get Kyle’s ownership papers once, but….
Category: Kyle/Isabel, brief mention of M/M, M/L and A/T.
Rating: Teen
Summary: Kyle remembers a lost love.
Author’s Note: Got the idea from the song Miss Me Baby, by Chris Cagle. It’s a country song, but if you’ve never heard it, you’re missing out. The man is just as much fun to watch sing as he is to listen to him sing. He’s beautiful!
Thanks to stargazing101 for the banner.
Thanks to Jenny, who loves Kyle almost as much as I do, I said almost.
, for being my lovely beta. 
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*</center>
I watch you with him, and I know what it feels like.
I know what it’s like to have you in my arms. To know that you fit into them perfectly. I know how my chest tingles and burns with an aching sweetness right beneath where your head hits it when I hold you against me. I’ve felt what it was like to come home at the end of the day, and be wrapped in a pair of arms that made everything better. Those arms used to be made for me.
I’ve been there, when you had your head thrown back in joy, laughing at something I’ve said, or at something we’ve done that was fun. I’ve watched you, lying next to you in our bed while you stared at your computer screen, your eyes narrowed in concentration. I’ve laughed at you, watching how you stick your tongue out to the side of your mouth when you have a great idea that’s just beginning to formulate. I’ve seen you play with your nieces and I’ve watched as your eyes sparkled with thoughts and dreams of having children of your own…those dreams used to include me.
I’ve listened, when you cried at night, over something that hurt you, or frustrated you, or just made you angry. I’ve wiped away your tears, and watched in fascination as your frustration and disappointment turned into something kinder, softer, passionate. Those looks used to be reserved for me.
I’ve spent the night in your arms, touching you, watching you, loving you. I’ve spent hours being loved so completely and deeply by the one woman in the world I thought would never leave me. I’ve spent my days hurrying through work, and files, and clients, so I could rush out at 5:00 to be back home with you as soon as possible. I’ve spent my evenings listening and sharing my thoughts, then listening and learning yours. Those special talks used to be saved for me.
I remember the day we met. In that little café outside of Las Cruces. When you spilled my cappuccino in my lap, and I asked for your number. You were so embarrassed, and I was so captivated by you that I didn’t care. I spent the entire day walking around with a brown stain across the front of my pants, but I didn’t care. Because in my pocket was a napkin with your name and number on it. I remember how nervous I was when I called to ask you out. I remember how excited I was when you accepted.
Do you remember what it was like? The day we got married? I do. I remember every word that was said, every smile that we shared, every word that was spoken between us.
I remember watching you walk down that aisle. You were gorgeous. I’d known since the day we met that you were beautiful. But the day I watched you walk down the aisle, I knew that no words could have ever done you justice. You looked like an angel. This priceless piece of perfection that God had sent to Earth, that I’d somehow been lucky enough to find. You smiled at me that day, and winked your eye, and we laughed when I was so intent on watching you that I didn’t hear the minister call my name. Remember our vows? The ones we wrote ourselves? I remember every word of them. I’ve loved you since before I knew what you looked like, when I just knew that you, my soulmate, existed. I’ll love you with every breath I take, every word I utter, every choice I make, every smile I share until I have no more words, can’t take any more breaths, are unable to make any more choices, and have smiled my last smile. I’ll love you until I die, and my body is sleeping. Even then, my soul will love you still.
I kept them, Isabel. I kept those vows. I took those words to my heart, and I cherished them almost as much as I cherished you.
I don’t understand what happened. I don’t know when your eyes stopped sparkling for me, or when you quit sharing your private smiles, or when you no longer whispered your words of love in my ear. I suppose that I blanked it out of my mind the day you left me. That was a horrible, horrible day for me. I fell asleep watching you in the dim light of the moon shining through our bedroom window. I don’t know why I stayed awake so long that night, watching you. I couldn’t take my eyes away from your peaceful face, your serene expression. I memorized the way you breathed, the seconds it took for you to exhale, inhale. I burned into my brain the image of your head on the pillow, your eyes closed, and your beautiful golden blonde hair fanned out beneath you.
Then I woke up to a sunny spring morning that proved to be the darkest day of my life. I thought you’d gone for a run, and you’d be back. Then I saw your car was gone. Your favorite coat was gone from the hanger in the hallway. And when I went to the bathroom to take a shower so I could look for you, I nearly died right there. I saw your wedding rings. The engagement ring I’d surprised you with on our third Christmas as boyfriend and girlfriend, and the wedding ring we’d picked out together. They were on the bathroom sink, right next to the flower vase that still held the flowers I’d given you two days earlier, because I had wanted so badly to see you smile.
I looked down the hallway then, and knew what I had to do. It took me what seemed like forever to make it back to the bedroom. My head knew what my heart was fighting, and I think my legs joined in the battle. It was like I was walking through quicksand, and I couldn’t get my body to move faster.
I walked into the bedroom, and opened the closet door, then fell to my knees. Your clothes were gone. Your shoe shelves were empty. There were things scattered across the floor, but the one thing that I remember, the one image that will never leave my mind is the one thing you left hanging. The one thing you didn’t take with you.
It was your wedding dress. Hanging alone, on your side of the closet. It was elegant, and gorgeous, and sparkling. And it was mocking me.
I called Liz and Max. They were shocked, and upset, and confused. They came right over, and we spent the entire day on the phone. Calling friends, calling family, even calling people we’d merely been acquaintances with. No one had talked to you. No one had seen you. And certainly, no one knew where you’d gone.
Michael and Maria came over later on, and by the end of the night Tess and Alex were there. The girls were frantic. Tess and Liz kept crying, and Maria was trying to reassure them. Tess and Liz were confused and hurt, and Maria was trying to calm them down, and be a voice of reason. Max, Michael and Alex talked amongst themselves all day. Every once in a while one of them would take a call on their cell phone. They’d pick it up, hopeful and anxious, and I could tell when they looked in my direction that it was someone else saying they hadn’t heard from or seen you.
I sat by myself that night. Sat in the corner, in the chair that we picked out ourselves, looking past the window curtains that you hung, into the street where we used to park our cars side by side. I cried, as my tears flowed from the eyes that you used to gaze into with a look of pure love and utter devotion. I couldn’t even begin to guess why you’d gone. I racked my brain, but couldn’t think of one good reason, or even one bad reason that would have caused you to walk out on the life we’d made for ourselves.
Every little thing we’d done since we’d been married played itself out in my memory. The good things, the bad things, the arguments, the making up. I remembered the argument we had when I refused to go to the mall with you because the football game was on. I remember the argument we had when you sold my baseball cards to the flea market down the street. I remember how we laughed when you spilled your cereal in your lap on a Sunday morning….and I remember how we both climbed into the shower to clean you up. I remember how you cried when we went to watch a midnight showing of An Affair To Remember, and how you suddenly wanted to take a trip to New York. And I remember that trip to New York. When we spent more time in our hotel room, and in each other’s arms than we did touring the city.
I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t remember, couldn’t recall, couldn’t put my finger on one little thing that would have turned you away. We had our good times, like anyone else. We had our bad times, like anyone else. We laughed, we cried, we learned, we grew together. As one, as a unit. As a family.
I quietly excused myself to the bathroom. I couldn’t take it. Their sympathetic looks. Their wondering, worrying glances. They were trying to help, and I love them for it. But it was killing me. We were all there, looking for you, and we were all hurting. But they had their other halves. Liz had Max. Maria had Michael, and Tess had Alex. I couldn’t stand seeing them in that moment. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, and locked the door. I leaned back against the bathroom door, and slid all the way down it until I hit the ground. I sat like that, for several minutes, until my leg started to tingle. I stretched out my feet, and that’s when my right foot hit the trashcan and knocked it over.
For the umpteenth time that day, my heart stopped. I knew what it was. I knew what that small white stick was that had fallen out of the can. I picked it up and looked closer at it. A plus sign.
You were pregnant.
That’s when I felt my chest tighten up even more. I had to gasp for air. Pregnant. I remember the day we went to the clinic. We’d been trying, for over a year, to have a child, and it wasn’t working. We tried everything we could, short of actually seeing someone. We finally broke down and went. That was when the doctor told us that we couldn’t have children. Because I couldn’t have children.
I was so upset that day, that I ran from the doctor’s office all the way home. It was only on the next block, but by the time I walked in our front door, my chest was burning, my eyes were swollen, and my legs were throbbing.
All our dreams were falling down around me. Because I was going to be the one to keep them from coming true. I was going to be the one that kept us from having children, from becoming parents, from building our family. It was my fault that we’d never have our family.
You swore to me that it didn’t matter. You came in the door that day, frantic and crying. You’d run after me, worried, and upset. You found me that day, do you remember? I was on the stairs. I hadn’t been able to make it up them, so I just collapsed there, on the bottom step and cried. I was still crying when you walked in the door. I looked at you, and you didn’t say a word. You sat down next to me, and cradled my head in your lap while I sobbed like a baby. I hadn’t cried in years, but that day, I cried for hours. After a while, you started speaking to me. You’d let me rant, you’d let me get it all out. Then you started your soothing whispers and comforting words. You healed me with your voice, your compassion, your love. And you swore to me it didn’t matter. That you loved me, not our dreams, and that there were other ways to build a family.
I was so foolish to believe you.
I wondered, sitting in our bathroom floor, staring at a positive sign on a home pregnancy test, how I couldn’t have seen the other signs. The hushed telephone conversations. The late nights at work. The sudden meetings after a mystery phone call. The prolonged business trips. The flowers you’d bring home, explaining that you’d stopped on the way home to pick them up. The sappy smiles for no reason I’d see on your face.
I believed you, you know. When you said that it didn’t matter. That we could still have our dreams, we’d just go about getting them another way. I believed you when you said you didn’t mind adopting.
I was so naïve. I believed every single word that came tumbling from the lips that once loved to kiss me. I had lost all faith, all hope the minute the doctor told us the news. But I found that faith and that hope again in your whispered words and comforting embrace. But the minute I saw the real reason you left me laying in our bathroom floor, you trampled on everything I’d ever believed…felt…loved. I let you build up my faith, and my hope, and I was left to bear the pain alone when you ripped them down and caused my world to crumble at my feet.
The mere thought of you, spending time in his arms while you still shared my name brings me to my knees. I’ll never understand why you didn’t just break it off with me right away. I wonder if you noticed the gleam of your engagement ring, the glow of your wedding band on your left hand as your fingers touched his skin, much like you once touched mine.
I’ve tried to hate you. I’ve tried to make you someone I used to know. Someone I used to love. But I can’t. Even with all the pain and heartache you put me through, I can’t bring myself to hate the one person in this world I swore to love forever.
Our friends were my saving grace. On the days I had drunk myself into a stupor, it was Max, Michael and Alex that dragged me from some random bar and threw me into a cold shower. Then it was Liz, Maria, and Tess that nursed my hangover and cried with me and my broken heart. Michael I suppose, surprised me the most. When the hurt, and confusion turned to anger and resentment for the girls and the other guys, it didn’t for Michael. When they took out their pain in harsh words against you and what you had done, Michael kept his mouth shut. He’d come over, and we’d sit on the couch, watching Jeopardy and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air reruns. Sometimes, I think he missed you almost as much as I did. He couldn’t believe that his sister, a woman that shared his blood, had left her family, her life, her husband high and dry. We never talked about you, me and Michael. There was no need to. We just sat in silence, calling out our answers to the television screen, and laughing at Will and Carlton.
It was Michael who made me see that there is life after love. Did you hear about Maria? She died at the young age of 24. Caught in a store robbery gone bad. She was in the right place at the wrong time. She was buying soda, because we had all ordered pizza and were meeting back at hers and Michael’s apartment. She never showed up, and a few hours later, we found out why. That one almost broke us. You had left of your own will. You knew what you were doing. Maria was taken away from us far too soon. Michael shut himself in their apartment for almost a week. Then one night, he came to the door, and I opened it. We watched Jeopardy. Then, as the credits for the Fresh Prince were rolling, and Will was getting out his cab on the tv screen, Michael said something I’ll never forget.
“Don’t grieve for what you never had,” he said. “Remember and cherish what it was you were lucky enough to have.”
That was the last we ever spoke of it, but that was how Michael and I healed each other. With tv game shows and sitcom reruns. We’d both felt it, had it, and lost it. We both still hurt, but it helped to know that someone else could feel our pain.
It still hurts. Maybe it’s not as fresh, and maybe the sting of your betrayal isn’t as shocking, but it still hurts. I can watch sappy movies now, without a bitter taste in my mouth. Tess and Liz make me watch them at least once a week. They say, “Just watch, Kyle. It will keep your hope alive. There is someone out there for you.” They’re right you know, there is someone out there for me. But she’s raising another man’s child, and has another man’s last name.
It’s been two years since Maria died, and a few months more since you left. Michael has a date this weekend. Her name is Courtney, and she’s really nice. She’s smart, and fun, and witty, just like Maria. It took him two years, but he’s finally moving on. We all know he’ll never find again what he had with Maria…but at least he’s trying to find something. I can’t move on, though. What happened to Maria was a tragedy. Something no one could control. But me? I can’t get over the fact that what happened to me was planned…calculated…done by someone I thought I could trust. I’m not sure I’ll ever move on.
I still miss you every minute of every day. I think of you when I smell your perfume on a stranger, when I hear your favorite song, when I eat your favorite foods. I wonder, sometimes, late at night, if you miss me too. If you ever lay your head down and think of me. And wonder what I’m doing…or if I’m happy…or if I still miss you. And I wonder if you ever miss what we had. If you ever miss the passion, the magic, the overwhelming innocence of the first love we shared.
After all this time, my last thought before I go to sleep at night is the same. It’s a prayer. It’s a man begging for mercy. It’s a lost soul, begging to be found. It’s me, the man you once loved begging to be loved again. It’s three simple words that speak more to me than any three words I’ve spoken since the day you left.
Miss me, baby.