Hello girls :D Now, where were we? Oh yeah, topic moment :P Sorry to keep you waiting. Been deadly busy and trying to nail this. But here you go...three chaps in a row ;) and then don't tell me you didn't miss me :D Hope you like this, did my very best with it *blushes* Wait for more...& sweet dreams ;)
..................................................
Previously on D/D
She looked up “Hugh please…”
But then one of his hands leant against the wall and she felt like dying once again, ‘cause she simply couldn’t be that close to him. She tried to fiddle “HUGH! I’m begging you…”
He started to raise his voice, unable to keep up with it anymore “No, I AM THE ONE who’s begging you Lisa!!! If you’re not in love with him, then what!?”
She almost wriggled out of his arms this time “I’m leaving…”
And on that very moment he just lost it.
He couldn’t last out any longer.
And then they were at it once again, as he was back pinning her against the wall and her eyes flashed up at him just like before, full of heart-wrenching hatred.
“GET YOUR HANDS..."
His face flushed up in anger too "I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU!"
"THEN BACK THE F..."
"NO" he cried over her voice "I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE AND YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, WE STAY RIGHT HERE....”
"DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME...”
“I DO DARE!!! UNTIL YOU TELL ME….”
“I HAVE TOLD YOU WHATEV…”
He started gesticulating, “YOU HAVEN’T! YOU HAVEN’T TELL ME...."
"I'VE NOTHING...."
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE LIKE THIS!" he yelled at her.
"LIKE WHAT?!" she gaped "WHAT ELSE..."
His heart leapt again, as if some part of him was simply drowning "EVERYTHING!!!" He was towering over her, now, face to face, blood flushing through their veins "EXCPET THAT YOU'RE SIMPLY FUCKING LEAVING!!!”
She yelled back at him with all the strength she had left then “WHAT ELSE SHOULD I TELL YOU MORE!!!"
He said it then, right there, without warning “THAT YOU FEEL NOTHING FOR ME!!!!”
And then a new unexpected, sudden yell covered his words “YOU CAN’T HAVE US BOTH! DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!!!I CAN'T HAVE HALF OF YOU!!!”
It had just ripped out of her mouth.
Just like that.
Just as much as it had ripped out of his.
And if everything had to leap out at them in that very moment, so be it.
They both stood there, panting away for a moment, their lips inches away from each others', simply staring, hearts hammering, blood pounding against their temples, heads spinning round...
Until Hugh began to back off, looking at her differently. Something in her stomach withered and coiled as she realised what had she just said.
Then, after several long moments, he furrowed.
The words blew out of his lips softly in a little breathless whisper “Is this about Jo?”
.................................................
Chapter 30 - Part 1
Lisa didn’t answer.
Her round, large and bright grey eyes simply kept staring at him, without saying a word. And he stood there too just looking into, still panting, until something like a pale, dark veil started to cloud them. A painful shade, making him get the awful sensation of having just barely unveiled the top of the iceberg….
An eyelash bat. It was all it took.
And then it struck him right on his face, like a gust of icy wind whipping at it that she might be meaning exactly what she had said.
He can’t have them both…
End of the story.
He can’t have them both as in…he couldn’t drag her into his mess.
Period.
It had nothing to do with Jo.
She was just calling herself out of it….
Plain and clear. She had been all day long.
He looked down at her flabbergasted, just wondering how she had come to know before he got to talk to her.
But he couldn’t ask her. He couldn’t find the words.
All he managed was standing there, still, with this new breathtaking hammering inside his chest that now had the sound of some midnight strokes calling the final hour.
End-game.
Lisa, on her behalf….she couldn’t just believe to have done it.
Let him get through and said it out loud.
Laid it all bare….just like that.
She felt her face flushing hot, a burning feeling beneath the skin throughout her whole body; a lot of blood suddenly rushing about in her ears along with faint sense of dizziness, as if now, more than ever, that light blue glow moving hurriedly up and down her face felt unbearable.
She should have left. She knew it.
Just as much as she knew since the very beginning that - one way or another - she would end up telling him. She hadn’t had the courage, the promptness….or maybe just the real will to do it. And now it was over.
But what for? What did she expect him to do? Aside from staying there as he was, taken aback and speechless, incapable of even just adlibbing something, what could he tell her? Aside from wearing that very same stunned expression or having that panicked look in his eye….what was she expecting him to tell her?
It was the death blow.
The ultimate proof of what she’d rather never hear, or just know for sure. But rage was fading and she was feeling worked out now. Too tuckered up and drained to keep going like that and being so mad at him.
She wondered whether she had ever truly been. Whether this was the word for this weird kind of melancholy and overtiredness she was feeling falling upon her now. ‘Cause her very thoughts had the heaviness of exhaustion at this point, as if some part of her just wanted to get it over with.
Work everything off and get it all out of her chest. Simply face him, whatever the consequences.
Yet an acrid tang got stuck into her mouth, before she spoke, tasting bitterly like too many tears that were yet to be cried.
“You really thought…you could keep up with it?”
She let the words roll off her back. Speaking calmly. Sounding in control at first. Watching carefully for the rhythm of her words to not betray her.
Pretending….just pretending to herself that at every word she said another bit of her didn’t feel like being torn to shreds.
Shattered.
And for moment, she almost believed it herself. Like it actually might feel relieving taking this huge, suffocating load off her chest.
Almost. ‘Cause then her question remained unanswered.
It echoed at first; in the deep, blue quiet of the night, barely scratching its darkness. Then silence.
As if the words had gotten lost into space or had simply vanished, faded out or rarefied in the air. As if they had never even been spoken….
It hurt her more than the all the rest.
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him, “You really have nothing to say?”
But Hugh simply didn’t know what he should.
He felt bowled over and he wasn’t even sure this last question was any admission to anything yet. But that stare in eyes…
It made him feel like he had let her down, terribly this time and there seem to be no way back from where she was standing.
The words suddenly swooped down back on him: ‘I want out’ she had said.
And so she managed to snake to one side, away from him before he could find the courage to stop her.
She tucked round, trying to hold back her sense of astonishment “Just…how could you lie to me like this? At least tell me this….”
Now she truly sounded disbelieving.
Hurt, resentful and disbelieving. Like she couldn’t believe her eyes.
God the way he was looking at him…
He felt blood draining away from his face.
No.
She had to listen to him.
He didn’t know which was the extent of what she had found out, but she had to list…
“Like you could simply keep it…” she made a little shrug, looking at him wide-eyed “…I don’t know…under wraps?”
He moistened his lips, and went take a little step forward, lifting up his hands. They were sweating “Lisa, wait. Listen. I…I didn’t…I didn’t lie to you I…” he had to get his breath, and took another wary step, “I can explain…”
She shook her head, looking away and lifted up a finger to stop him. “Explain…” she said “what could you possibly explain….”
She wished she could truly be in control for this. Instead every single word he spoke kept getting to her, more than it should have and it got tangled inside her with everything she felt and shouldn’t and still wanted to say and…
“Liz…”
His tone was pleading. She shook her head, firmly. Too much, “No…I don’t wanna hear a word from you….”
The words flustered inside her head, though, worthless. As if some part of her knew perfectly well they were just words.
Empty.
Like the sound of the wind that might have blown away their sound, if only he had asked her.
She brought a hand to her mouth, and turned her back on him.
Hugh took another step to one side, searching for her gaze “Liz, I’m begging you…just let me…..just let me explain…”
But she limited herself to cup her hands before her mouth and went back walking herself up and down the room. Her pace was quieter this time; but there was something twitchy about it, like she was struggling to hold herself back.
He heaved a sigh “Liz, please….sit down. I swear it’s not…I have no idea what have you heard, but I meant…I meant to tell you….and…and it’s not…”
He paused, his heart thudding, clouding his thoughts.
“Yes I know, it does affect…”
She stopped abruptly, sighing heavily, simply silencing him. Then stuck her hands inside the back pockets of her jeans shaking her head and drop it backwards, eyes resting upon the ceiling, tiredly this time.
For a very long time.
For an excruciatingly long time.
“Liz…listen to me…”
She gulped, cutting him off “Just tell me. How could you?”
There was something unspeakable about her voice.
Something that made his voice go out faintest than ever “Liz, I didn’t…of course I would tell you…”
She licked her lips, “How could you ever think I would not find out…”
His eyes clouded “I didn’t think that. I WAS planning to tell you. I swear. That’s what I have been trying to talk to you about all day long….I didn’t mean to drag you into this not even for a second….not without asking you first…”
But she wasn’t listening to him. And so his voice quite simply died.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy making it all fit together: what he wanted to tell now, what he had planned to, the way he felt. Whatever kept agitating restlessly inside him, making his breath away: the faintest hope that not everything might be lost.
Them, at least. One way or another…
Friends, at least.
He couldn’t even bare the sound of the word as it bounced about in his head anymore.
He squeezed his eyes to overcome the sense of frustration. Or maybe just chase away the thought.
Lisa kept staring to the ceiling.
“…of course I would tell you” he muttered, tiredly “It’s something that affects you just as much….”
She dropped her head down and shut her eyes close, tightly, rubbing her eyelids.
“….of course I would. You get to believe me. When I talk to…”
“….what was the deal then?” she asked him flatly.
Hugh’s heart leapt.
She dropped her hands and managed to watch him coldly for a second.
His voice quivered, “Well…I…I…well, actually I…”
She got closer to the couch avoiding his stare now “…keep going back and forth between the two of us?”
He goggled “No Liz, of course not…I haven’t even met ….”
She started to lift up all her stuff nervously, desperate to keep it down. But it was mounting again “What is it then now? Shall we…I don’t know…” she pinched her voice higher, flaring up “shall we call a match? US VS UK and see how it goes?!”
“No Liz …” he started, but then he stopped, frowning “What? What does UK have to…”
She rubbed her lips together, as her fingers fiddled with the fabric of the couch distractedly, “I mean, my bad of course…” she said shaking a bit, cutting him off.
She felt something hot starting forming at the corner of her eyes. She pushed it back.
“I just…” she gulped, “I just never thought I could feel so horribly….”
She stalled over the word.
“Betrayed…” she said at last “Just betrayed. Bitter or disappointed. And then for something so…”
The lump in her throat went back tightening. Her voice cracked “And how are we supposed to work this out to you min, huh?”
He had no answers to this. Nothing he managed to tell her.
No solution whatsoever to this press mess they were heading to.
She got her breath and jogged to the window, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared out through the shutters. A sad smile breathed across her face “I mean it’s nothing new after all….You’ll keep having a wife, what’s the spoiler?”
He stared down at his feet, a deep discomfort flooding him.
He felt stuck.
Yes.
That was the word.
Just stuck.
But they were talking of two different things….
He let himself drop backwards against the back of the couch, just staring down at his feet “Liz…let’s be honest for a moment…”
She felt something writhing at the pit of her stomach “I know….I don’t even have a right to feel like this….” she closed her eyes “…and yet, really, I can’t help feeling like you truly betrayed me….”
He looked up at her from over his eyelashes, sad-eyed “I didn’t mean to…”
She leaned against the window on her forehead, “I know…” The feeling of the cold, glass fabric felt vaguely refreshing, and it helped chilling her out, “I simply should have known better….”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said…” she sighed
But she had to say it out loud.
She was still too dangerously close to send herself to hell and asked herself to be content with what he could offer to her.
She had to say it out loud.
She took a deep breath, “Just that whatever we have…apparently isn’t enough…never had been…”
The words misted up the glass, getting lost in space.
Valueless to her, just as usual.
Hugh straighten up a bit to this, frowning “Wait Liz….who said…who said what we had isn’t…isn’t enough? That’s never been the issue….”
The flicker of another spent smile breathed across her face again. She pressed her lips “The issue….” she scoffed, eloquently.
And he had dropped his stare, feeling suddenly just drained, cause he knew that she was right. That there was nothing he could promise her. Nothing he could offer her, now.
Not if he didn’t want to.
“I wish I could be the person you need…” he muttered, simply.
Several long moments passed. Several long loments of another long excruciating silence.
Until she had to rub her eyes, quickly and she couldn’t keep herself from asking him again “Just…how could you….” her voice was quivering, noticeably this time “I trusted you…”
Hugh sighed, licking his lips staring hard to the ground.
She stared out of the window away from him. And then his silence got her more than his words maybe and she couldn’t help herself again “No really, what’s the deal?” she said pursing her lips into a tight line. Her eyes were starting to burn. She ignored the feeling, keeping on pushing them back
Hugh stared up at her, keeping his head down.
They had no deal yet.
What could he possibly tell...
“Does she stay for the weekend or you two go back home together?”
He suddenly furrowed. “Who?” he asked. The lawyer?
She breathed in, deeply “I mean what kind of an arrangement formula were you wish to forward to me….”
He kept on staring at her, furrowed, his mouthed working silently her words all over again “Arrangement form…”
“I mean when your wife’s town of course…” she added, licking her lips nervously “…that might create some issues…”
He hesitated, “Well I don’t…I don’t think Jo will ever be…I mean I haven’t been hearing fr…”
She shook her head “I thought you were never going to put me in this position again…”
He started to lift himself upright “Which again are you…”
“I thought you cared for me...”
He took a little step “Liz, of course I did I…”
“I thought you would be honest at least when you’re wife would come…”
He stalled “Well if she does and things get…well, difficult…I certainly would tell you…”
She scoffed a laugh which felt heavy with tears, “Right. Present time excluded.
He froze, puzzling “What’s…what’s that supposed to mean? What present time?”
“Forgive me I don’t believe you anymore….”
He furrowed “What?! How many times a bomb like that can be dropped on me?”
She shook her head to this, smiling tauntingly without turning “On you?! Right of course…”
Hugh was starting to lose the thread. He lifted up his hands to his temples “Wait Liz, I can’t…”
“But what about me…?” she said, and then she swallowed whirling to him “What about me when a perfect stranger fills me in the spoiler of the day telling me completely out of the blue that you’re not available ‘cause you went picking up your wife at the airport and I have to make myself content again…what about me?”
This time it was like suddenly finding oneself under an icy water jet.
He dropped his hands
“What?” he asked under his breath.
Lisa remained speechless for a moment. She saw confusion in his eyes, without knowing what to make of it, “What…what?” she stammered.
Hugh stared at her wide-eyed, “What did you say?”
Her voice quivered “About what…? What are you...”
But she didn’t have to answer him.
He dropped his eyes, his memory suddenly jogging.
An eyelash bat.
It was all it took again.
And he could see it now, crystal clear before his very eyes why everything had leapt out at them. Where it all came together…
He looked up at her “You mad ‘cause you think I stood you up…”
Lisa hesitated.
Bur for him it was like the leftover scraps of a puzzle were assembling by themselves.
And so his heart bucked.
“You think I lied to you…just about my wife…” he said, staring into space.
And first it was like the sudden awareness she might have been just jealous could make it up to everything. A little smile barely touched the corner of his lips.
“…you think I was playing with you, that I wasn’t honest to you…”
But then as he processed it, it was like having spotted the light for less than a second, and having fallen back into the dimmest darkness.
“…just about my wife…” he repeated, the start of that smile fading instantly.
Lisa narrowed her eyes, shaking her head “What? You’re making fun of me? Just?!” she couldn’t believe him “What’s that supposed to mean?! Your wife is no just…”
But he wasn’t making fun of her.
No.
He was just stunned. Simply stunned and suddenly even more taken aback and frightened as it was occurring to him that what he would be forced to tell her now, to dig himself out of this mess, was exactly what he had feared might be the reason she was calling herself out of it in first place.
Something he wished he would be able to tell her differently, on a better moment for sure, rather than after all those hours of dreadful arguing. It wasn’t supposed to go like this….
But if she had felt betrayed, hurt and disappointed at him for something so small, so insignificant, as having simply…simply omitted he might have gone picking up his Jo at the airport…how would she react to something like that?
It all had been a misunderstanding.
A twisted trick of fate.
One damn, fucking cigarette smoked on the worst moment ever and the last twenty for hours of his life had been completely fucked up.
And now it was the rendering.
He looked up to meet her eyes, the very same pure light he already knew, the very same candor which normally would have gotten him to cave, ‘cause he just couldn’t stand to let those eyes down.
However, as much as it scared the hell out of him, he did it this time.
He heaved a deep breath and simply decided to jump the shark.
“I haven’ seen or heard anything from Jo since January…” he said in a low whisper.
Lisa stared up at him from across the room, mute.
He walked up to the nearer window now caving lightly under her stare, and leaned at its side. He bent one arm bent against the glass and started hammering his fist against his forehead, pensively.
Tell her everything.
Whatever the consequences.
As he already wanted to.
To which price, though?
His heart thudded.
“I met a lawyer at the airport….” he said.
Lisa didn’t move.
He moistened his lips and turned his stare to her ever so slightly “I’m divorcing…” he said straight out right then.
And he could see her eyes as they searched confusedly inside his, trying to understand.
He tucked his hands inside his pockets staring down, “Well...I was divorcing, until some photos popped out and....”
He had to breathe, just feeling pain, an insufferable feeling of suffocating pain as air filled up his lungs.
He kicked out in the empty space, heaving a sigh “…you might want sit down for this...”
..................................................
Previously on D/D
She looked up “Hugh please…”
But then one of his hands leant against the wall and she felt like dying once again, ‘cause she simply couldn’t be that close to him. She tried to fiddle “HUGH! I’m begging you…”
He started to raise his voice, unable to keep up with it anymore “No, I AM THE ONE who’s begging you Lisa!!! If you’re not in love with him, then what!?”
She almost wriggled out of his arms this time “I’m leaving…”
And on that very moment he just lost it.
He couldn’t last out any longer.
And then they were at it once again, as he was back pinning her against the wall and her eyes flashed up at him just like before, full of heart-wrenching hatred.
“GET YOUR HANDS..."
His face flushed up in anger too "I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU!"
"THEN BACK THE F..."
"NO" he cried over her voice "I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE AND YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, WE STAY RIGHT HERE....”
"DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME...”
“I DO DARE!!! UNTIL YOU TELL ME….”
“I HAVE TOLD YOU WHATEV…”
He started gesticulating, “YOU HAVEN’T! YOU HAVEN’T TELL ME...."
"I'VE NOTHING...."
"YOU CAN'T LEAVE LIKE THIS!" he yelled at her.
"LIKE WHAT?!" she gaped "WHAT ELSE..."
His heart leapt again, as if some part of him was simply drowning "EVERYTHING!!!" He was towering over her, now, face to face, blood flushing through their veins "EXCPET THAT YOU'RE SIMPLY FUCKING LEAVING!!!”
She yelled back at him with all the strength she had left then “WHAT ELSE SHOULD I TELL YOU MORE!!!"
He said it then, right there, without warning “THAT YOU FEEL NOTHING FOR ME!!!!”
And then a new unexpected, sudden yell covered his words “YOU CAN’T HAVE US BOTH! DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!!!I CAN'T HAVE HALF OF YOU!!!”
It had just ripped out of her mouth.
Just like that.
Just as much as it had ripped out of his.
And if everything had to leap out at them in that very moment, so be it.
They both stood there, panting away for a moment, their lips inches away from each others', simply staring, hearts hammering, blood pounding against their temples, heads spinning round...
Until Hugh began to back off, looking at her differently. Something in her stomach withered and coiled as she realised what had she just said.
Then, after several long moments, he furrowed.
The words blew out of his lips softly in a little breathless whisper “Is this about Jo?”
.................................................
Chapter 30 - Part 1
Lisa didn’t answer.
Her round, large and bright grey eyes simply kept staring at him, without saying a word. And he stood there too just looking into, still panting, until something like a pale, dark veil started to cloud them. A painful shade, making him get the awful sensation of having just barely unveiled the top of the iceberg….
An eyelash bat. It was all it took.
And then it struck him right on his face, like a gust of icy wind whipping at it that she might be meaning exactly what she had said.
He can’t have them both…
End of the story.
He can’t have them both as in…he couldn’t drag her into his mess.
Period.
It had nothing to do with Jo.
She was just calling herself out of it….
Plain and clear. She had been all day long.
He looked down at her flabbergasted, just wondering how she had come to know before he got to talk to her.
But he couldn’t ask her. He couldn’t find the words.
All he managed was standing there, still, with this new breathtaking hammering inside his chest that now had the sound of some midnight strokes calling the final hour.
End-game.
Lisa, on her behalf….she couldn’t just believe to have done it.
Let him get through and said it out loud.
Laid it all bare….just like that.
She felt her face flushing hot, a burning feeling beneath the skin throughout her whole body; a lot of blood suddenly rushing about in her ears along with faint sense of dizziness, as if now, more than ever, that light blue glow moving hurriedly up and down her face felt unbearable.
She should have left. She knew it.
Just as much as she knew since the very beginning that - one way or another - she would end up telling him. She hadn’t had the courage, the promptness….or maybe just the real will to do it. And now it was over.
But what for? What did she expect him to do? Aside from staying there as he was, taken aback and speechless, incapable of even just adlibbing something, what could he tell her? Aside from wearing that very same stunned expression or having that panicked look in his eye….what was she expecting him to tell her?
It was the death blow.
The ultimate proof of what she’d rather never hear, or just know for sure. But rage was fading and she was feeling worked out now. Too tuckered up and drained to keep going like that and being so mad at him.
She wondered whether she had ever truly been. Whether this was the word for this weird kind of melancholy and overtiredness she was feeling falling upon her now. ‘Cause her very thoughts had the heaviness of exhaustion at this point, as if some part of her just wanted to get it over with.
Work everything off and get it all out of her chest. Simply face him, whatever the consequences.
Yet an acrid tang got stuck into her mouth, before she spoke, tasting bitterly like too many tears that were yet to be cried.
“You really thought…you could keep up with it?”
She let the words roll off her back. Speaking calmly. Sounding in control at first. Watching carefully for the rhythm of her words to not betray her.
Pretending….just pretending to herself that at every word she said another bit of her didn’t feel like being torn to shreds.
Shattered.
And for moment, she almost believed it herself. Like it actually might feel relieving taking this huge, suffocating load off her chest.
Almost. ‘Cause then her question remained unanswered.
It echoed at first; in the deep, blue quiet of the night, barely scratching its darkness. Then silence.
As if the words had gotten lost into space or had simply vanished, faded out or rarefied in the air. As if they had never even been spoken….
It hurt her more than the all the rest.
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him, “You really have nothing to say?”
But Hugh simply didn’t know what he should.
He felt bowled over and he wasn’t even sure this last question was any admission to anything yet. But that stare in eyes…
It made him feel like he had let her down, terribly this time and there seem to be no way back from where she was standing.
The words suddenly swooped down back on him: ‘I want out’ she had said.
And so she managed to snake to one side, away from him before he could find the courage to stop her.
She tucked round, trying to hold back her sense of astonishment “Just…how could you lie to me like this? At least tell me this….”
Now she truly sounded disbelieving.
Hurt, resentful and disbelieving. Like she couldn’t believe her eyes.
God the way he was looking at him…
He felt blood draining away from his face.
No.
She had to listen to him.
He didn’t know which was the extent of what she had found out, but she had to list…
“Like you could simply keep it…” she made a little shrug, looking at him wide-eyed “…I don’t know…under wraps?”
He moistened his lips, and went take a little step forward, lifting up his hands. They were sweating “Lisa, wait. Listen. I…I didn’t…I didn’t lie to you I…” he had to get his breath, and took another wary step, “I can explain…”
She shook her head, looking away and lifted up a finger to stop him. “Explain…” she said “what could you possibly explain….”
She wished she could truly be in control for this. Instead every single word he spoke kept getting to her, more than it should have and it got tangled inside her with everything she felt and shouldn’t and still wanted to say and…
“Liz…”
His tone was pleading. She shook her head, firmly. Too much, “No…I don’t wanna hear a word from you….”
The words flustered inside her head, though, worthless. As if some part of her knew perfectly well they were just words.
Empty.
Like the sound of the wind that might have blown away their sound, if only he had asked her.
She brought a hand to her mouth, and turned her back on him.
Hugh took another step to one side, searching for her gaze “Liz, I’m begging you…just let me…..just let me explain…”
But she limited herself to cup her hands before her mouth and went back walking herself up and down the room. Her pace was quieter this time; but there was something twitchy about it, like she was struggling to hold herself back.
He heaved a sigh “Liz, please….sit down. I swear it’s not…I have no idea what have you heard, but I meant…I meant to tell you….and…and it’s not…”
He paused, his heart thudding, clouding his thoughts.
“Yes I know, it does affect…”
She stopped abruptly, sighing heavily, simply silencing him. Then stuck her hands inside the back pockets of her jeans shaking her head and drop it backwards, eyes resting upon the ceiling, tiredly this time.
For a very long time.
For an excruciatingly long time.
“Liz…listen to me…”
She gulped, cutting him off “Just tell me. How could you?”
There was something unspeakable about her voice.
Something that made his voice go out faintest than ever “Liz, I didn’t…of course I would tell you…”
She licked her lips, “How could you ever think I would not find out…”
His eyes clouded “I didn’t think that. I WAS planning to tell you. I swear. That’s what I have been trying to talk to you about all day long….I didn’t mean to drag you into this not even for a second….not without asking you first…”
But she wasn’t listening to him. And so his voice quite simply died.
It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy making it all fit together: what he wanted to tell now, what he had planned to, the way he felt. Whatever kept agitating restlessly inside him, making his breath away: the faintest hope that not everything might be lost.
Them, at least. One way or another…
Friends, at least.
He couldn’t even bare the sound of the word as it bounced about in his head anymore.
He squeezed his eyes to overcome the sense of frustration. Or maybe just chase away the thought.
Lisa kept staring to the ceiling.
“…of course I would tell you” he muttered, tiredly “It’s something that affects you just as much….”
She dropped her head down and shut her eyes close, tightly, rubbing her eyelids.
“….of course I would. You get to believe me. When I talk to…”
“….what was the deal then?” she asked him flatly.
Hugh’s heart leapt.
She dropped her hands and managed to watch him coldly for a second.
His voice quivered, “Well…I…I…well, actually I…”
She got closer to the couch avoiding his stare now “…keep going back and forth between the two of us?”
He goggled “No Liz, of course not…I haven’t even met ….”
She started to lift up all her stuff nervously, desperate to keep it down. But it was mounting again “What is it then now? Shall we…I don’t know…” she pinched her voice higher, flaring up “shall we call a match? US VS UK and see how it goes?!”
“No Liz …” he started, but then he stopped, frowning “What? What does UK have to…”
She rubbed her lips together, as her fingers fiddled with the fabric of the couch distractedly, “I mean, my bad of course…” she said shaking a bit, cutting him off.
She felt something hot starting forming at the corner of her eyes. She pushed it back.
“I just…” she gulped, “I just never thought I could feel so horribly….”
She stalled over the word.
“Betrayed…” she said at last “Just betrayed. Bitter or disappointed. And then for something so…”
The lump in her throat went back tightening. Her voice cracked “And how are we supposed to work this out to you min, huh?”
He had no answers to this. Nothing he managed to tell her.
No solution whatsoever to this press mess they were heading to.
She got her breath and jogged to the window, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared out through the shutters. A sad smile breathed across her face “I mean it’s nothing new after all….You’ll keep having a wife, what’s the spoiler?”
He stared down at his feet, a deep discomfort flooding him.
He felt stuck.
Yes.
That was the word.
Just stuck.
But they were talking of two different things….
He let himself drop backwards against the back of the couch, just staring down at his feet “Liz…let’s be honest for a moment…”
She felt something writhing at the pit of her stomach “I know….I don’t even have a right to feel like this….” she closed her eyes “…and yet, really, I can’t help feeling like you truly betrayed me….”
He looked up at her from over his eyelashes, sad-eyed “I didn’t mean to…”
She leaned against the window on her forehead, “I know…” The feeling of the cold, glass fabric felt vaguely refreshing, and it helped chilling her out, “I simply should have known better….”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said…” she sighed
But she had to say it out loud.
She was still too dangerously close to send herself to hell and asked herself to be content with what he could offer to her.
She had to say it out loud.
She took a deep breath, “Just that whatever we have…apparently isn’t enough…never had been…”
The words misted up the glass, getting lost in space.
Valueless to her, just as usual.
Hugh straighten up a bit to this, frowning “Wait Liz….who said…who said what we had isn’t…isn’t enough? That’s never been the issue….”
The flicker of another spent smile breathed across her face again. She pressed her lips “The issue….” she scoffed, eloquently.
And he had dropped his stare, feeling suddenly just drained, cause he knew that she was right. That there was nothing he could promise her. Nothing he could offer her, now.
Not if he didn’t want to.
“I wish I could be the person you need…” he muttered, simply.
Several long moments passed. Several long loments of another long excruciating silence.
Until she had to rub her eyes, quickly and she couldn’t keep herself from asking him again “Just…how could you….” her voice was quivering, noticeably this time “I trusted you…”
Hugh sighed, licking his lips staring hard to the ground.
She stared out of the window away from him. And then his silence got her more than his words maybe and she couldn’t help herself again “No really, what’s the deal?” she said pursing her lips into a tight line. Her eyes were starting to burn. She ignored the feeling, keeping on pushing them back
Hugh stared up at her, keeping his head down.
They had no deal yet.
What could he possibly tell...
“Does she stay for the weekend or you two go back home together?”
He suddenly furrowed. “Who?” he asked. The lawyer?
She breathed in, deeply “I mean what kind of an arrangement formula were you wish to forward to me….”
He kept on staring at her, furrowed, his mouthed working silently her words all over again “Arrangement form…”
“I mean when your wife’s town of course…” she added, licking her lips nervously “…that might create some issues…”
He hesitated, “Well I don’t…I don’t think Jo will ever be…I mean I haven’t been hearing fr…”
She shook her head “I thought you were never going to put me in this position again…”
He started to lift himself upright “Which again are you…”
“I thought you cared for me...”
He took a little step “Liz, of course I did I…”
“I thought you would be honest at least when you’re wife would come…”
He stalled “Well if she does and things get…well, difficult…I certainly would tell you…”
She scoffed a laugh which felt heavy with tears, “Right. Present time excluded.
He froze, puzzling “What’s…what’s that supposed to mean? What present time?”
“Forgive me I don’t believe you anymore….”
He furrowed “What?! How many times a bomb like that can be dropped on me?”
She shook her head to this, smiling tauntingly without turning “On you?! Right of course…”
Hugh was starting to lose the thread. He lifted up his hands to his temples “Wait Liz, I can’t…”
“But what about me…?” she said, and then she swallowed whirling to him “What about me when a perfect stranger fills me in the spoiler of the day telling me completely out of the blue that you’re not available ‘cause you went picking up your wife at the airport and I have to make myself content again…what about me?”
This time it was like suddenly finding oneself under an icy water jet.
He dropped his hands
“What?” he asked under his breath.
Lisa remained speechless for a moment. She saw confusion in his eyes, without knowing what to make of it, “What…what?” she stammered.
Hugh stared at her wide-eyed, “What did you say?”
Her voice quivered “About what…? What are you...”
But she didn’t have to answer him.
He dropped his eyes, his memory suddenly jogging.
An eyelash bat.
It was all it took again.
And he could see it now, crystal clear before his very eyes why everything had leapt out at them. Where it all came together…
He looked up at her “You mad ‘cause you think I stood you up…”
Lisa hesitated.
Bur for him it was like the leftover scraps of a puzzle were assembling by themselves.
And so his heart bucked.
“You think I lied to you…just about my wife…” he said, staring into space.
And first it was like the sudden awareness she might have been just jealous could make it up to everything. A little smile barely touched the corner of his lips.
“…you think I was playing with you, that I wasn’t honest to you…”
But then as he processed it, it was like having spotted the light for less than a second, and having fallen back into the dimmest darkness.
“…just about my wife…” he repeated, the start of that smile fading instantly.
Lisa narrowed her eyes, shaking her head “What? You’re making fun of me? Just?!” she couldn’t believe him “What’s that supposed to mean?! Your wife is no just…”
But he wasn’t making fun of her.
No.
He was just stunned. Simply stunned and suddenly even more taken aback and frightened as it was occurring to him that what he would be forced to tell her now, to dig himself out of this mess, was exactly what he had feared might be the reason she was calling herself out of it in first place.
Something he wished he would be able to tell her differently, on a better moment for sure, rather than after all those hours of dreadful arguing. It wasn’t supposed to go like this….
But if she had felt betrayed, hurt and disappointed at him for something so small, so insignificant, as having simply…simply omitted he might have gone picking up his Jo at the airport…how would she react to something like that?
It all had been a misunderstanding.
A twisted trick of fate.
One damn, fucking cigarette smoked on the worst moment ever and the last twenty for hours of his life had been completely fucked up.
And now it was the rendering.
He looked up to meet her eyes, the very same pure light he already knew, the very same candor which normally would have gotten him to cave, ‘cause he just couldn’t stand to let those eyes down.
However, as much as it scared the hell out of him, he did it this time.
He heaved a deep breath and simply decided to jump the shark.
“I haven’ seen or heard anything from Jo since January…” he said in a low whisper.
Lisa stared up at him from across the room, mute.
He walked up to the nearer window now caving lightly under her stare, and leaned at its side. He bent one arm bent against the glass and started hammering his fist against his forehead, pensively.
Tell her everything.
Whatever the consequences.
As he already wanted to.
To which price, though?
His heart thudded.
“I met a lawyer at the airport….” he said.
Lisa didn’t move.
He moistened his lips and turned his stare to her ever so slightly “I’m divorcing…” he said straight out right then.
And he could see her eyes as they searched confusedly inside his, trying to understand.
He tucked his hands inside his pockets staring down, “Well...I was divorcing, until some photos popped out and....”
He had to breathe, just feeling pain, an insufferable feeling of suffocating pain as air filled up his lungs.
He kicked out in the empty space, heaving a sigh “…you might want sit down for this...”
