Mistakes (A Poem From Adalyn's POV + New Scene From RED)

Another week, another poem and scene from RED. Being that it's New Year's Eve, I think a poem about making mistakes and trying to learn and get better from them will be appropriate. We all have something we want to work out for the New Year. This poem is from Adalyn's point of view. It's called Mistakes. If you missed the poem from last week you can view it here.

Mistakes are lessons

Mistakes are certain

But it's always ugly revealing what's behind the curtain

He wasn't ready for it

Neither was I

But I caused it and left us to die

Mistakes are normal

Mistakes cause heartache

But I didn't mean for his heart to break

He was never there

And I was lonely

In my heart, he's my one and only

I did something that I can't take back

 There's no way of erasing the facts

But where's forgiveness when you need it?

I wait by the phone and I sit and sit

Mistakes are things we all must make

Mistakes are the things that raises the stakes

They test you when things are low

They make sure things are never the same

Mistakes cause you to remember you're the one to blame

I'm tired of pointing fingers

I just want us to be us again

But the trials from my mistake won't ever end

You left me all alone

And I may deserve it

But let's not act like you were perfect

You dreamed about her while you were awake

I was second best and that's what I can't take

You put me last when I should've been first

You buried me with her in the dirt

Now I'm done with pointing fingers

I just want to make you see

That I wasn't the only one who did something ugly

You raised her from the dead

While I was alive

So I made a mistake...that I can't deny

Here's the scene from RED that inspired Mistakes. Remember RED will be out this Valentine's Day.

“Adalyn, what’s going on?” he says frantically.

“I don’t know what happened but Lila said-”  I began to speak in my weak voice before he interrupts.

“Where were you when this happened? Why don’t you know what happened?” He raises his voice.

“Um, Mason I know you’re upset but you may want to tone it down a little,” Peyton warns as she touches his shoulder.

He takes a deep breath and I decide it’s a safe time to speak.

“Look Mason, I know that you’re upset and you have so many reasons to be right now. It was a lapse in judgment on my part and-”

“Yeah, Adalyn you’ve been having a lot of those lately, haven’t you?” he snaps at me.

I look at Peyton whose face tells me how sorry she is for everything. I don’t know what to say to him. Everything I say to him is going to be wrong.

“I’ll stay here just in case someone comes out with news on Ryan. I’ll let the nurse know that I’m here with you guys. You two should head outside and talk this out,” she offers in the kindest way possible.

Mason seems hesitant about her suggestion but eventually obliges. I follow behind him like a lost puppy and can’t help but think how much I’ve missed him.

“Now will you let me explain?” I ask the moment we reached outside the hospital’s entrance.

“Go ahead,” he responds coldly.

“I let the kids play outside for a while so I could get a few things together around the house. I had no one there to watch them so I told Lila to look out for her brothers being that she’s the oldest. Everything was fine. After I finished cleaning up and making sure everything was in order I looked at the time and saw that it was time for them to eat lunch. Before I went to the kitchen I went to the backyard to check on them and told them that it was time for them to come inside. I only left for a few minutes. I honestly don’t know what happened in that short time span but I heard screaming from the kitchen so I ran as fast as I could and-” I try to hold back my tears but I’m not strong enough.

My words strangle me causing my voice to become inaudible. I swallow harshly and struggle to finish my sentence. Mason shows no signs of sympathy.

“That’s when I saw it. Ryan was floating face down in the pool. I immediately pulled him out and started CPR. Lila said she wasn’t paying attention and he and Nick were running around the pool. Nick said they wanted to see who could make the biggest splash by diving in and Ryan went first. Nick said it took him a while to come up and when he did he wasn’t moving. They know they can’t swim, I just don’t understand why they would do something like this,” I finish while wiping my tears away from my eyes.

“I know why. Because they’re kids Adalyn! That’s why you should be watching them at all times! Why would you let them play outside by themselves? Especially the backyard! You know we never let them back there alone! How could you be so God damn stupid and careless?”

“You know what, Mason? Maybe if I had some help this wouldn’t have happened! Maybe if you’d come home sometime I wouldn’t have to deal with things like this! I made a mistake and I’m so sorry! It won’t happen again!” I shout back.

“You’re damn right it won’t happen again Adalyn because I’m getting custody of my children! I didn’t want life to change for them too drastically but this stunt that you pulled leaves me no choice at all. I’m calling my lawyer first thing in the morning!”

Something comes over me. I’m not sure what it is but it takes over my entire body. I’ve never felt anger rise inside of me so quickly. He wants to challenge me for my children. This is what we’ve come to.

I draw my hand back and smack him harder than I thought I could. The left side of his face turns red in an instant. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel sorry.

“What the fuck?!” he shouts loud enough for the entire parking lot to hear.

“If you think that you’re going to take my children away from me and I won’t fight you, you have another thing coming to you, Mason! I made one mistake by cheating on you but you don’t get to take it out on them! What happened today could have happened if either one of us was watching them. Don’t try to make me sound like a bad parent when I was the one who practically raised them while you were always away working somewhere or obsessing over your dead ex-wife!” I state pointing my index finger at him as if I’m reprimanding a child.

“You have no right to talk to me this way, Adalyn,” he says in a much deeper tone.

Mason can be scary when he’s angry but I don’t let it bother me. I have to show him that I’m capable of being stronger than him.

“You’re an asshole, Mason! You want to know why I’ve been so side tracked lately? It’s because of you. It’s because you won’t talk to me or even look at me! It’s because you’re not even man enough to confront what happened between us. Instead you want to run away as if that’s going to fix things. Well it’s not! You ran away from Taylor, you ran away from Peyton, and now you’re running away from your family. Stop running and learn to deal with the cards given to you! Whether you like it or not you need to come back home so we can settle things like adults. You can keep your new fancy condo just in case you decide we can’t make it. I really don’t give a damn about the decisions you make anymore, Mason, but at least respect your family enough to decide together. You may not want me right now and it’s completely okay with me because at this moment I’m not sure if I want to be with you either!”

Before he can speak another word Peyton comes out to tell us that the doctor would like to see us. I don’t wait for Mason to make a move. Instead I quickly walk back into the entrance of the hospital ignoring everything else around me. Mason can rot in hell for all I care. He’s not going to get away with trying to take my babies away from me. They are all I have left.

 

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive?: Theme From RED

"I closed the bedroom door behind me. I could feel her crying herself to sleep but I had no time for feeling sorry. She betrayed me and that wasn’t something I could easily forgive her for. I needed time to myself."-Mason (RED)

Forgiveness is a touchy subject but it's the topic I said I would talk about this week. Last week I talked about dropping your ego to become someone new and make a better life for yourself, and the week before that I talked about making mistakes and learning from them. These are all major themes in RED but forgiveness is probably one of the biggest.

As I mentioned before, my characters are far from perfect and they make tons of mistakes (maybe even more than the average person) which causes for a lot of forgiveness to take place. From the moment the novel starts, Peyton struggles with forgiving her mother for leaving her the way she did (readers of A Tragic Heart knows exactly what I mean). Mason and Adalyn has some obstacles to overcome within their marriage which means they both have to learn to forgive if they want to move on with their lives for themselves and for their family. Jackson (Peyton's uncle and Mason's ex-brother in law) also finds himself in the middle of a situation that requires forgiveness in order to move on. The same goes for Ronan.  

Forgiveness is something we all have  to learn. The truth is I'm not sure if forgiving is part of human nature. Our first instinct is never to forgive the person who wronged us or show grace towards them. When we feel betrayed our first instinct is to express anger and plot revenge. We have to train ourselves to forgive and love that person in spite of whatever it is they've done. The characters in RED struggle with the same issue.  Some of the issues seem unforgivable while others are a bit lighter to digest. 

“That’s not stupid, it’s called being young! You and Marcus had a hurtful history and it’s normal to want to find comfort in a person who caused you so much pain. Alex was a complete mistake and you have to forgive yourself for it. That’s the hardest part…forgiving yourself. Once you learn how to do that, you’ll be happy.”-Adalyn (RED)

Forgiving isn't always an action you have to show someone else. Sometimes we have to learn to forgive ourselves just as much as we have to learn to forgive another.  Forgiving ourselves sometimes mean we have to forget whatever it is that we've done and move on. It's not easy but we can't spend our entire lives dwelling on something that's in the past. After a while you're going to have to learn to pick yourself up and say "I forgive you" and keep it moving. Even if the person you wronged hasn't forgiven you yet, still, forgive yourself. You deserve it. This is something Peyton, Adalyn, and Mason must learn. As humans, we can do some pretty horrible things but that doesn't mean we have to punish ourselves forever. Forever is a long time and you deserve to be happy and guilt free for whatever remaining time you have left here. 

"She didn’t only humiliate me. She publicly humiliated me. How am I supposed to get past this? How am I supposed to forgive her? But mostly, how am I supposed to forget this?"-Ronan (RED) 

Some acts of betrayal are so terrible that we convince ourselves that there's no way we can ever forgive that person for doing what they did to us but the honest truth is that it isn't true at all. No matter how horrible the act or how much that person humiliated you, you can get over it and learn to forgive them. It doesn't  mean you have to be best friends again, it just means that you're no longer letting what they did consume your life or thoughts. You have better things to think about. Sometimes it feels impossible to forgive if you can't forget what happened but it gets easier with every day that goes by. It all takes time. We can't expect to be forgiven when we do something wrong if we can't forgive others when they wrong us. 

So today, I hope that you learn that whatever happened to you (or what you did to yourself) isn't the end of the world. Get up, forgive yourself or whoever turned their back on you, and move on. It's not the end of the world and life goes on whether you like or not, so why not make it a little more peaceful? Learn from your mistakes, drop your ego, and forgive so that you can start over. Start over...that sounds like a great topic for next week, eh?  

Here's a song that teaches us all about forgiveness...and love!

Our Favorite Mistakes:Theme From RED

"I kissed him intensely and at the moment I didn’t care if I was making a mistake."-Peyton Hayley Giordano (RED)

Starting today, I'm going to write blog posts based on the many themes of my upcoming novel, RED. I think sometimes people get so caught up in a story that they forget to take lessons out of them. I'm going to make it easier for you all to pick out the lessons and themes from the book. You'll understand more once you read it. 

 

As most of you all know (hopefully all of you), no one is perfect...not one of us. Therefore, it only makes sense for characters in books to not be perfect. They need flaws like everyone else. RED is full of characters with flaws (some major, some minor). The topic of today's post is mistakes. We all make them and we're all guilty of them. 

 

The problem with mistakes is that we usually know beforehand when we're making one. In fact, a lot of mistakes are premeditated but something inside of us pushes us to do it or "give it a try" anyway. We tend to count these things as mistakes but are they really? I like to believe that we all have our favorite mistakes...the ones we keep making over and over again. Eventually we learn but it takes times, even years!

 

What is it about us that we have to keep doing the same things over and over before we learn? Are we just wired that way? Is it human nature? Are we all just a little "crazy"? I think in a way we're all martyrs because that need for drama or hurt is what feeds us (all of the writers/artists out there know what I'm talking about). In my opinion, characters should be no different. 

 

There are plenty of moments in the novel where readers may hate the main character or call her "stupid" or even just get plain tired of her but again, that's the point. It's realistic. Have you ever met a teenager who didn't continuously make the same mistakes while trying to find who they are? Again, we're all guilty of it. The act of making mistakes is a vicious cycle and it sometimes takes more than once for us to get it and change our ways. 

 

Another funny thing about mistakes is that we tend to make the same mistakes our parents or siblings made. Sometimes we learn from their mishaps but other times we find ourselves in the same place they once were. How frustrating is that?! 

 

That's another concept you'll see a lot in RED; Peyton making  a lot of the same mistakes her mother and father already made...except most of the time she doesn't even know she's making them. Some are bothersome to read and others are a little easier to digest (but they're all frustrating). 

 

At the end of the day it's important to remember that we're all just human and making mistakes is part of being just that. We don't always learn the first time and sometimes even the second or third, but it's okay as long as we do learn eventually. There's no time span on how long it takes. Some mistakes are bigger than others but that doesn't mean that they can't be made right. Whether your favorite mistake is cheating, pushing people away, rebellion, or finding yourself in some less than desirable situation...it's okay. It all can turn around if you just drop your ego, let go, and learn. Ego...that sounds like a good topic/theme to talk about next. 

 

Here's a song all about making the same mistakes over and over: