You Can Run, But You Can Not Hide If I Want to Find You

 My life was going to get very complicated. Killer and Michael had started a silent war over Cindy Marie.  I had started to enjoy the fun that Michael and I were having and we liked spending time together.  He was a year older than Killer, but he was nothing like Killer.

He was divorced with a fourteen year old daughter who lived in Rochester Hills.  He had a very amicable divorce.  His former wife had remarried. He loved to have fun. He was an excellent dancer. He was Italian and his whole family danced well,as his Mother had been a professional dancer in her day and she made sure her children could feel the rhythm in their shoes, legs and soul. 

He liked nice things.  He had  bought a condo in East Lansing when he took his job at MHA and he had remodeled it.  It was beautiful inside.  Very tasteful.  He loved to cook.  He loved nice cars and he kept them immaculate. He dressed impeccable. Whether in jeans or a suit, he always looked sharp. He loved to play board games, put puzzles together and go to movies.  He loved to travel and he liked to do things even if he had done them before and didn't like it, he wanted me to experience it.

He taught me how to have fun again. He taught me how to dance as his partner so we looked like we were contestants on Dancing with the Stars long before it was even thought of.  He taught me the calmness crossword puzzles can bring to you on a rainy day. He made me try foods that I would have never eaten. Like Killer, he came from a generation of men who opened doors for you and treated you like a woman.  He allowed me to order for myself. He allowed me to sit in a restaurant without worrying whether his back was toward the door. He taught me fun can be found in a game of scrabble on a snowy night in front of the fireplace. 

He taught  me to live for the moment, savor each second that you had.  We didn't sit still and watch life go by, we grabbed it by the tail and rode it for all it was worth. But it came at a price.
A very hefty price.

In late October, I had been spending a lot of time with Michael and now Killer was in the picture again. One of the reasons I had moved out was to be alone, to do what I wanted  to do when I wanted to do it.  But I was having so much fun with Michael. I had lost over twenty pounds that I did not have to lose but separation will do that to me.

I needed time for me and it wasn't there.  I agreed to  have dinner with Killer after he called me with the results of the dossier.  I had to face him again and convince him he needed to move on.  I was so torn.  I still had feelings for him, but I was loving this new freedom.  I often wished that I could be two persons, one to stay with Killer and one to move on, but that was impossible.

We met for dinner and we talked about every thing.  He wanted to show me all he had done at the house so that I would come back. We went to Bill Knapp's, it was Friday of course and that is where we always went.  It was tearing my heart out and he knew it. He had been calling my home phone every day and filling my answering machine up with messages of how much he loved me and how he wanted me to come back. You could hear the loneliness in his voice. It would pull at my heart every time.  

Michael might be able to get a message in there to tell me how much he had enjoyed some thing we had done or to say he was looking forward to seeing me or missing me.  I just wanted to be left alone.  I was torn between what to do and I thought I had that all figured out in my head until Killer had that private eye follow me and found where I was living and what I was doing,

He had gone to my parent's home at Houghton Lake in September of 1986.  They never told me what he said until close to twenty five years later. He told them how much he loved me and that I was his one and only true love.  He shared all the things he missed about me.  He told them that I had lost my mind and he would wait for fifteen years if he had to for me to come back.  He'd take me back in a minute and never hold a thing against me.  He was just so in love with his Beadie. My Mother bought it hook, line and sinker.

He gave them a shoe box to give to me when they saw me the next time. He knew my weaknesses.  But by the time my parents were able to deliver this box of heart wrenching trinkets to me, reminders of a time that I too was deeply in love with  Killer, I twisted the knife in his heart one more time and he exploded.

He told me  I had to STOP seeing Michael.  He was bad for me.  I needed to get my head on straight and come to my senses.  He wasn't going to be around forever while I played out this immature game of jealousy. He had women who were interested in him and I had better come back before he took them up on their offers to bed him.  

He didn't know me.  I don't have a jealous bone in my body.  You want to throw down that some one else has eyes for you and you are the hottest ticket on their dance card, knock yourself out getting in line to ride that bucking bronco cause I refused to play the jealous woman. I almost welcomed it as it would give him someone else to control. But it was only a card he played to see how I would respond.  He thought I would pack up my nest and fly home to be by his side the rest of our lives.

I didn't.  Michael on the other hand was jealous.  Very jealous. I was upfront with him. I am separated. I am wounded and hurt and I am in no condition to be in a relationship one on one with anyone.  I just wanted to enjoy life, no strings attached, no commitment, no control, just having fun.

The two were ringing my phone off the hook and leaving messages of their wants and desires.  They were driving by my apartment to see if the other one was there. Sitting in the parking lot watching my every move.

I had taken to spending time at Michael's so that Killer would stop dropping in unexpectedly. I had no privacy with him.  He  still felt that since I was his wife, he controlled me.  Who I saw, when I saw them and where I was.

One evening in November, Michael and I laid in his bed talking about the day and our plans to get away.  His bedroom was in the front of  his condo, over the garage, facing the parking area.  I could hear the rumble of the BMW in the distance.  I sensed it was approaching Burcham Hills Retirement Center and within seconds, it'd be there, in the parking lot.  I was not wrong.