Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 8:42 am
Once again, a big thank you to you who have nominated this story for "Best fic based on a challenge" and for the nomination for little Michelle. It truly warms my heart.
Aaaand, there's good news. My lovely b-reader has edited a new chapter for us all which means that I can give you
Chapter 41
Liz had always liked the sound of rain clattering against the roof. It had always given her a sense of comfort and calmness. But when the rain came that morning she didn’t want to hear it. It made her want to cry. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel weak any longer. Was this what life was about? Was this what real love was about? To live with the constant knowledge that your world might fall apart in front of your eyes at any moment, without being able to stop it from happening? The rational part of her brain had always known that the happy Hollywood ending was a rarity, but she had still hoped deep inside of her that maybe, just maybe, someone would convince her of otherwise.
Her heart had been convinced when she had met him.
She had known immediately that he was something different and that he would make a major impact on her life. She never could have known that this was the kind of impact he would have; shattering her heart until she didn’t have the energy to go back and ask for more.
The rain clouds had turned the oncoming day into night, which was one detail she was grateful for. She could hide in the night and maybe forget what had happened. Maybe she could close her eyes and pretend that yesterday hadn’t happen. Maybe she could go back in time and enjoy those moments of sweetness and innocent flirting with Max.
She pressed her eyes together as if she was trying to squeeze the memories in her brain out through her eyes to be washed away by her tears. But she wouldn’t let herself cry. She wouldn’t cry anymore. As the mantra went through her head she was fighting with everything she had to fulfill it and not let those tears wash down her cheeks.
Taking a deep shuddering breath, she curled up more tightly, unconsciously hugging his pillow to her chest while trying to block everything out. Her thoughts were haunting her. What should she do? Should she go out and try to talk to him again or should she wait for him to come to her? Did she even want to talk to him right now? Should she move out? But even though her own thoughts were causing her a lump of anxiety in the pit of her stomach, there was one thought that kept haunting her to the brink of exhaustion.
Was he still thinking about Tess?
She quickly pushed the thought to the side because she hated to think of herself as being jealous of a woman who was dead and, ironically, was the reason she was alive right now. Nevertheless, she couldn’t refute the fact that she was scared. She was frightened to death that he was still comparing her to Tess, that she was competing every day with a dead woman. If it had been someone alive, she might have been able to handle it, but she couldn’t touch Tess. She couldn’t speak to her and she couldn’t stop Max from having those memories of Tess.
She didn’t want to stop him either.
Tess had been his wife. Of course he had loved her. Liz just hoped that he had started to view his memories in a more realistic way, which he had told her earlier that he had. Maybe he was going backwards again. Maybe them taking this huge step had caused him to backpedal and he was now, yet again, going through every happy memory he had of Tess.
The thought made her shudder. She hated this. She hated being so helpless and just waiting for Max to make a decision. She hated that she knew deep down that she wasn’t completely helpless and that she had a choice, because she couldn’t choose.
Should she stay or should she leave?
With a deep sigh, she rose from the bed, feeling as if she needed to get away. Find refuge somewhere. One of the best places to be left alone and cry was the shower. The water would drown the sound and wash away your tears, cleansing you. So she stood up, picked up the closest shirt, not realizing until it was on that it was one of Max’s T-shirts, swallowed deeply and walked out of the room towards the bathroom, hoping that she wouldn’t bump into him.
<center>--------------------------------------</center>
He had done something terribly wrong. He knew that. He hadn’t been able to handle all the emotions flooding him at the same time and so he had run, and he had given her the signal that he had been regretting last night. He buried his face in his hands, taking another deep breath, one among thousands already taken that early morning. He hadn’t thought about Tess for at least two weeks and then suddenly she was just there in his head, trying to put doubts into his mind about what Liz and he had just experienced. But she couldn’t. The memory of her might not be fading, but the feelings and emotions he had hung on to so tightly were. There had only been one person in his head last night and her brown eyes had warmed the deepest coldest parts of his soul, where no one had been able to reach since the accident.
He had felt so many things last night. Too many feelings to be put into words or even to be put into separate feelings. They all mixed together and formed this hot wave that filled up his body from the inside. He had actually needed to check several times if his skin was glowing, but the light in his inside wasn’t breaking through his skin. Nevertheless, he had seen it reflecting in her eyes.
He loved her so much. More than he could understand himself.
So when he had laid there, thanking whatever force had put this amazing woman in his proximity, watching her sleep, he had been surprised when thoughts of Tess had started sipping through to his consciousness.
And he freaked out.
Tess hadn’t been there for so long and he had started to feel normal again. He could put his energy on Liz and trying to deal with his feelings of losing Joshua instead of watching his every step in order to avoid anxiety and remorse. Liz and he had taken a big step tonight, but even though Liz had insinuated that it might’ve been too soon he had been absolutely certain that he wanted it. That he wanted Liz in every way possible.
So why had this happened? How could they have gone from eternal bliss to acidic emotional pain in the matter of just a few hours?
A tortured moan passed over his lips as his head fell into his hands. He wanted it all to go away. He wished that he could just snap his fingers and make everything perfect. If he had that power he would be back in his bed right now, with Liz by his side. He would be floating in contentment and happiness. He would be the happiest person alive.
But it was dark all around him. The wind was howling outside, getting caught in the corners of the house, and the rain was beating heavily against the roof. It could have been sunny outside with a blue sky and birds creating beautiful music, but it would be the same darkness for him. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, feeling like you were about to fall, but feeling sad about falling. He felt like he needed to fall, he needed the complete rest of sinking into himself, but the thought of leaving Liz and the life he had tried to rebuild the last couple of weeks, clenched painfully around his heart and he began to struggle with what to do.
Should he stay or should he leave?
Then he heard a door opening upstairs and his eyes flew in the direction of the stairs in anticipation. But he was left hanging when the stairs remained deserted. He heard another door open and close and then a couple of seconds later he heard the water running. He leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes and drinking in the sound. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t. She was a part of him now and leaving her would be like cutting off his arm or his leg.
He made a decision that night, a decision that would change his whole view on life, his life in particular. He wouldn’t let Tess destroy him anymore. He would cherish the memory of Tess and keep her safe in his mind, but she would only exist as a memory of someone that had meant a lot to him once. She quietly moved away from the dominant part of his mind to settle in her new role. She wouldn’t decide anything for him anymore. She wouldn’t interfere with his thoughts. It was all left up to him.
<center>--------------------------------------------------------</center>
At first she didn’t hear the knocks. The water falling down around her was drowning everything, making reality fade away. Reality pushed through the curtain of warm denial, rubbing roughly against her naked skin as the sound of the knocking was carried through the room.
“I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” she mumbled to herself. She wanted him to go away. She couldn’t deal with him right now. Her heart was still aching and she felt like she would possibly throw up if she were to lay her eyes on him right now. She felt like an old towel being thrown to the side, being used over and over again until finally it was disposed in the bin.
“Liz?”
She squeezed her closed eyes even tighter together, willing the world to stop spinning around her.
“We need to talk.”
Why wouldn’t her body let her be rational about this? Why was it, that even after the pain he had caused her she still felt the very strong urge to run out of the shower and open the door for him? Sometimes love is cruel. It takes away your choices. Her fists and jaw tightened in a futile attempt to stop herself from crying.
“Can I just, please, can I just talk to you? Liz?”
His voice was begging now, with a tinge of desperation, making her legs go weak. Sometimes she hated her sense of compassion and empathy. Sometimes she hated to be able to see another person’s point of view. Because on some level she could understand why he had been acting the way he had, and since she could understand it she felt sympathy. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t hurt.
“Go away,” she cried, her weak sobbing voice being drowned in the rushing sound of the water.
But he heard her. There was silence for so long that she thought he had left until his voice one last time drifted through the door.
“She’s gone, Liz. She’s gone.”
Ten minutes later she was still standing in the same position, her mouth half-open with the water washing over her bottom lip and her eyes staring at the wall with the water weighing down her eyelashes, with his words ringing in her ears. Had he meant what she thought he meant?
So she moved out of the shower, grabbed the closest towel and wrapped it tightly around her to fight off the chill of the surrounding air. Her hands were shaking when she turned the key in the door, but the trembles were not due to the coldness of the air. The soles of her feet were still slightly wet as she stepped out of the bathroom, looking to the right and left as if she was about to cross a busy road. The hallway was dark and the silence rudely invaded her every limb, crawling into the core of her body. She quickly ducked for the guestroom, where all her clothes still were, and she closed the door behind her. Her eyes made a rapid scan of the room before rushing over to the wardrobe to pull out some warm clothes. The coldness was seeping into her bones and she was pretty sure the hard edge to the chilliness was not only due to the outside environment.
After pulling on some clothes, she crept under the comforter and closed her eyes, feeling how her wet hair had already gone cold and was transferring the water to the pillow. She told herself that she should sleep. She tried to sink into the oblivion of unconsciousness. But of course, that was easier said than done. Her overactive imagination wouldn’t let her brain rest for anything. She was torturing herself with everything that had happened and everything that might happen – both good and bad – if she stayed. The darkness closed around her. She could feel it pressing against her eyelids and she took a deep breath and turned her head to the other side, as if that would shake the thoughts out of her mind.
Three hours later
She opened her eyes with a sigh, realizing that yet another hour had gone by since she checked the time last, and she still hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Her mind was trying to tell her something. Or she just loved to torture herself. Either way, she pulled the comforter away from her body and rose from the bed. She needed to find Max.
TBC...
Aaaand, there's good news. My lovely b-reader has edited a new chapter for us all which means that I can give you
Chapter 41
Liz had always liked the sound of rain clattering against the roof. It had always given her a sense of comfort and calmness. But when the rain came that morning she didn’t want to hear it. It made her want to cry. She didn’t want to cry anymore. She didn’t want to feel weak any longer. Was this what life was about? Was this what real love was about? To live with the constant knowledge that your world might fall apart in front of your eyes at any moment, without being able to stop it from happening? The rational part of her brain had always known that the happy Hollywood ending was a rarity, but she had still hoped deep inside of her that maybe, just maybe, someone would convince her of otherwise.
Her heart had been convinced when she had met him.
She had known immediately that he was something different and that he would make a major impact on her life. She never could have known that this was the kind of impact he would have; shattering her heart until she didn’t have the energy to go back and ask for more.
The rain clouds had turned the oncoming day into night, which was one detail she was grateful for. She could hide in the night and maybe forget what had happened. Maybe she could close her eyes and pretend that yesterday hadn’t happen. Maybe she could go back in time and enjoy those moments of sweetness and innocent flirting with Max.
She pressed her eyes together as if she was trying to squeeze the memories in her brain out through her eyes to be washed away by her tears. But she wouldn’t let herself cry. She wouldn’t cry anymore. As the mantra went through her head she was fighting with everything she had to fulfill it and not let those tears wash down her cheeks.
Taking a deep shuddering breath, she curled up more tightly, unconsciously hugging his pillow to her chest while trying to block everything out. Her thoughts were haunting her. What should she do? Should she go out and try to talk to him again or should she wait for him to come to her? Did she even want to talk to him right now? Should she move out? But even though her own thoughts were causing her a lump of anxiety in the pit of her stomach, there was one thought that kept haunting her to the brink of exhaustion.
Was he still thinking about Tess?
She quickly pushed the thought to the side because she hated to think of herself as being jealous of a woman who was dead and, ironically, was the reason she was alive right now. Nevertheless, she couldn’t refute the fact that she was scared. She was frightened to death that he was still comparing her to Tess, that she was competing every day with a dead woman. If it had been someone alive, she might have been able to handle it, but she couldn’t touch Tess. She couldn’t speak to her and she couldn’t stop Max from having those memories of Tess.
She didn’t want to stop him either.
Tess had been his wife. Of course he had loved her. Liz just hoped that he had started to view his memories in a more realistic way, which he had told her earlier that he had. Maybe he was going backwards again. Maybe them taking this huge step had caused him to backpedal and he was now, yet again, going through every happy memory he had of Tess.
The thought made her shudder. She hated this. She hated being so helpless and just waiting for Max to make a decision. She hated that she knew deep down that she wasn’t completely helpless and that she had a choice, because she couldn’t choose.
Should she stay or should she leave?
With a deep sigh, she rose from the bed, feeling as if she needed to get away. Find refuge somewhere. One of the best places to be left alone and cry was the shower. The water would drown the sound and wash away your tears, cleansing you. So she stood up, picked up the closest shirt, not realizing until it was on that it was one of Max’s T-shirts, swallowed deeply and walked out of the room towards the bathroom, hoping that she wouldn’t bump into him.
<center>--------------------------------------</center>
He had done something terribly wrong. He knew that. He hadn’t been able to handle all the emotions flooding him at the same time and so he had run, and he had given her the signal that he had been regretting last night. He buried his face in his hands, taking another deep breath, one among thousands already taken that early morning. He hadn’t thought about Tess for at least two weeks and then suddenly she was just there in his head, trying to put doubts into his mind about what Liz and he had just experienced. But she couldn’t. The memory of her might not be fading, but the feelings and emotions he had hung on to so tightly were. There had only been one person in his head last night and her brown eyes had warmed the deepest coldest parts of his soul, where no one had been able to reach since the accident.
He had felt so many things last night. Too many feelings to be put into words or even to be put into separate feelings. They all mixed together and formed this hot wave that filled up his body from the inside. He had actually needed to check several times if his skin was glowing, but the light in his inside wasn’t breaking through his skin. Nevertheless, he had seen it reflecting in her eyes.
He loved her so much. More than he could understand himself.
So when he had laid there, thanking whatever force had put this amazing woman in his proximity, watching her sleep, he had been surprised when thoughts of Tess had started sipping through to his consciousness.
And he freaked out.
Tess hadn’t been there for so long and he had started to feel normal again. He could put his energy on Liz and trying to deal with his feelings of losing Joshua instead of watching his every step in order to avoid anxiety and remorse. Liz and he had taken a big step tonight, but even though Liz had insinuated that it might’ve been too soon he had been absolutely certain that he wanted it. That he wanted Liz in every way possible.
So why had this happened? How could they have gone from eternal bliss to acidic emotional pain in the matter of just a few hours?
A tortured moan passed over his lips as his head fell into his hands. He wanted it all to go away. He wished that he could just snap his fingers and make everything perfect. If he had that power he would be back in his bed right now, with Liz by his side. He would be floating in contentment and happiness. He would be the happiest person alive.
But it was dark all around him. The wind was howling outside, getting caught in the corners of the house, and the rain was beating heavily against the roof. It could have been sunny outside with a blue sky and birds creating beautiful music, but it would be the same darkness for him. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, feeling like you were about to fall, but feeling sad about falling. He felt like he needed to fall, he needed the complete rest of sinking into himself, but the thought of leaving Liz and the life he had tried to rebuild the last couple of weeks, clenched painfully around his heart and he began to struggle with what to do.
Should he stay or should he leave?
Then he heard a door opening upstairs and his eyes flew in the direction of the stairs in anticipation. But he was left hanging when the stairs remained deserted. He heard another door open and close and then a couple of seconds later he heard the water running. He leaned back in the couch, closing his eyes and drinking in the sound. He couldn’t leave. He couldn’t. She was a part of him now and leaving her would be like cutting off his arm or his leg.
He made a decision that night, a decision that would change his whole view on life, his life in particular. He wouldn’t let Tess destroy him anymore. He would cherish the memory of Tess and keep her safe in his mind, but she would only exist as a memory of someone that had meant a lot to him once. She quietly moved away from the dominant part of his mind to settle in her new role. She wouldn’t decide anything for him anymore. She wouldn’t interfere with his thoughts. It was all left up to him.
<center>--------------------------------------------------------</center>
At first she didn’t hear the knocks. The water falling down around her was drowning everything, making reality fade away. Reality pushed through the curtain of warm denial, rubbing roughly against her naked skin as the sound of the knocking was carried through the room.
“I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” she mumbled to herself. She wanted him to go away. She couldn’t deal with him right now. Her heart was still aching and she felt like she would possibly throw up if she were to lay her eyes on him right now. She felt like an old towel being thrown to the side, being used over and over again until finally it was disposed in the bin.
“Liz?”
She squeezed her closed eyes even tighter together, willing the world to stop spinning around her.
“We need to talk.”
Why wouldn’t her body let her be rational about this? Why was it, that even after the pain he had caused her she still felt the very strong urge to run out of the shower and open the door for him? Sometimes love is cruel. It takes away your choices. Her fists and jaw tightened in a futile attempt to stop herself from crying.
“Can I just, please, can I just talk to you? Liz?”
His voice was begging now, with a tinge of desperation, making her legs go weak. Sometimes she hated her sense of compassion and empathy. Sometimes she hated to be able to see another person’s point of view. Because on some level she could understand why he had been acting the way he had, and since she could understand it she felt sympathy. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t hurt.
“Go away,” she cried, her weak sobbing voice being drowned in the rushing sound of the water.
But he heard her. There was silence for so long that she thought he had left until his voice one last time drifted through the door.
“She’s gone, Liz. She’s gone.”
Ten minutes later she was still standing in the same position, her mouth half-open with the water washing over her bottom lip and her eyes staring at the wall with the water weighing down her eyelashes, with his words ringing in her ears. Had he meant what she thought he meant?
So she moved out of the shower, grabbed the closest towel and wrapped it tightly around her to fight off the chill of the surrounding air. Her hands were shaking when she turned the key in the door, but the trembles were not due to the coldness of the air. The soles of her feet were still slightly wet as she stepped out of the bathroom, looking to the right and left as if she was about to cross a busy road. The hallway was dark and the silence rudely invaded her every limb, crawling into the core of her body. She quickly ducked for the guestroom, where all her clothes still were, and she closed the door behind her. Her eyes made a rapid scan of the room before rushing over to the wardrobe to pull out some warm clothes. The coldness was seeping into her bones and she was pretty sure the hard edge to the chilliness was not only due to the outside environment.
After pulling on some clothes, she crept under the comforter and closed her eyes, feeling how her wet hair had already gone cold and was transferring the water to the pillow. She told herself that she should sleep. She tried to sink into the oblivion of unconsciousness. But of course, that was easier said than done. Her overactive imagination wouldn’t let her brain rest for anything. She was torturing herself with everything that had happened and everything that might happen – both good and bad – if she stayed. The darkness closed around her. She could feel it pressing against her eyelids and she took a deep breath and turned her head to the other side, as if that would shake the thoughts out of her mind.
Three hours later
She opened her eyes with a sigh, realizing that yet another hour had gone by since she checked the time last, and she still hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Her mind was trying to tell her something. Or she just loved to torture herself. Either way, she pulled the comforter away from her body and rose from the bed. She needed to find Max.
TBC...