Shea & War

Chapter 15

When I Have New Perspectives On Old Assholes I Tend To Get A Little Bitchy

Shea

War has been home for about 5 months now. I still get the chills when I see him, not necessarily good chills, but nauseating stomach rolls along with slivers of nostalgia that morph into anger and disappointment on where he destroyed our relationship.  More often lately though, I just feel that the time of my life that was spent with War, belonged to someone else, not me, I almost don't really remember being the woman I was then.  The ironic thing is that I'm so different from the woman who loved War that she doesn't feel like me, and while I've changed so much, War has morphed back in to the man he was before he turned away from me.  So the people we are today, are totally different from the people we were when we were last together, weird and f-ed up, but then again, so are we.

Sometimes I'll hear his voice, or see him in another room, and I swear my heart stops. I turn into the 18 year old me and I'm tempted to either run into his arms, or slap the hell out of him. Maybe both, definitely both! Whenever he catches me watching him, he gives me a true, gut level smile. Not the knowing cocky smile or the asshole smirk, but the soft and beaming with love smile that has only ever belonged to me.  That smile/smirk gives me goosebumps and a stomach full of rage at the same time.

F him for where we ended up.  F him for trying so hard to support us now, when he was the ghost man when we needed him most.  F him for breaking his own heart and soul when it was so completely unnecessary.  We were strong, we could have worked through any and all problems, even the bitch induced issues.  He messed up by keeping secrets, that then created issues, but he didn't knowingly sleep with her, he was basically raped.  If it had happened to a girl, there'd be no question as to what went on, but because he's a macho asshole, he put those preconceived ugly thoughts in his head.  Not one person in the club blamed him, or thought that it was anything other than assault.  So it was all War and his unwillingness to stay and work things out that ended our marriage, the bitch didn't ruin us, War did.

I say 'ended', but he has yet to sign, I've repeatedly had the papers sent to him, and he returns them with a note that has some form of 'no fucking way will I ever sign off from my life with you, I love you'.  And that's where we are today, still, for now, until I get the energy or the energy to push it further into the courts.

I am still so filled with hurt and anger, but as I see him work with the kids, and getting involved with the club, my more wounded feelings seem to be dissipating a bit. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's slowly integrating into our lives, into the routine of our new daily lives, and that right there, makes me angry.  I'm a mixed up mess of emotions.  One moment I'm rageful, the next I'm apathetic, and then here comes sweet nostalgia, f me.

When the kids and I first moved into this house, I tried to set up our own rules, schedules, anything to make a routine and comfort for the kids. This included trying to have all our dinners together, or at least as many as I can manage. The girls set the table, the boys clear, depending on what is for dinner, they all help prepare it in some way. From the first night, Claire set my place at one end of the table, and Rock sat at the other end. So placement put us both at the "head" of the table. We laugh and have fun, sometimes we cry and we're sad. But honestly, we're moving forward in a good and positive way, we are trying to recover from our loss. I don't think we'll ever be "healed" but we are learning to live with the grief, and work through it. We will always have a hole in our lives where Rocky, Jax, Kay and Suze were, but they're forever in our hearts and minds.

War started helping the boys with Tellers truck a few weeks after he came back home. I don't know how they reconnected, but now there doesn't seem to be any lingering anger or stress between my boys and War. My brothers taught War all about cars, and now he's teaching the boys all that he knows, it's an unbelievably beautiful, but so very painful circle.  Sometimes I stand outside the garage and listen to the three of them, I takes me back to when I was a child, and I would read and play in the garage while my brothers worked on the cars, laughing and joking around.  I miss my brothers so much, the sounds of their voices, the quiet strength they gave me, the humor and love that showed in the way they lived their lives, such a freaking loss to the world.  My brothers and their wives were everything.  I know I'm lucky I have such sweet, sweet memories.