Leaving and living
*~*~*~*~*~*
Author: Claire
E-mail: clairinette14@aol.com
Disclaimer: I wish they were mine. Sadly they're not. They belong to these wonderful people, Jason Katims, Melinda Metz, UPN and lots of other that I don't know of. So don't sue, ok? I'm just borrowing them anyway.
Summary: I won't tell. You'll have to read if you want to find out.
Rating: PG, PG-13 maybe. I have a problem with those rating stuff. I never know which one it is.
Author's note: The style is different from what I am used to do, but maybe eventually it will change a bit more in my style. Don't know yet.
~Thoughts of Laura.
~(=Translation of French to English)
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Part 1
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'Don't look back. Do not look back. You mustn't look back. If you look back, it will all be over. Run. Keep running. Run as fast as you can. And never look back.'
"What are you doing?"
'Shit. Keep going. Let him think you didn't noticed him.'
"I said what are you doing?"
'Shit. He won't leave it.'
"Leave me alone."
"No. Tell me what you're doing. Where are you running? What are you running from?"
'You wanna know? Okay, I'm gonna tell you.'
"Leaving. Far away. From… betrayal."
'Right to the point, as always.'
"Betrayal?"
'It hurts.'
"Yes. They betrayed me. They betrayed you, too."
'I said it. But it still hurts.'
"No. I knew it was gonna happen, but I still hoped. So, they really betrayed us, didn't they?"
'Welcome to reality.'
"They did. I'm leaving now."
"No, wait."
'I have to hurry. I don't want them to know me.'
"I have to go."
'They can't know.'
"I'll come with you."
'They betrayed him too. He shouldn't stay with them. I don't want to be alone. We'll help each other, 'till the pain leaves. If it leaves.'
"Okay."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Two years later'I never thought we'd be coming here. I always wanted to come here. Maybe not under those circumstances. We're happy now. Well… it's the closest thing to happiness you can get when your heart is broken.'
"Laura?"
'That's my name now. When we got here, we thought it'd be better to forget if we started everything again. A new life, with new names.'
"Right here, Antoine."
'I like his new name. It's different from… before. From the past. It's sounds more French. Very different from his old name.'
"Oh. I was looking for you."
'I already guessed that.'
"Why?"
"Oh, there's a new restaurant down the street, and since there's nothing in the fridge…"
'Damn. I was the one supposed to-'"No! Don't worry, it's okay! I just guessed we could try it, you know. We don't go out that much lately... so…"
'I wonder how he does this. It's always like he's reading my thoughts… well, maybe he is. I never exactly knew what he could do. He won't tell me. Too much memories here.'
"Oh, okay. I'm really sorry, though. I'll finish this, then we can go, ok?"
"Okay."
'I look back at the screen before me. I'm writing an e-mail. Not to anyone. To one of my friends, back there. I never say the town's name anymore. Not since we left anyway. Neither one of their name. Too painful. Anyway… So I'm writing an e-mail. It's the first time am going to e-mail one of them, to make contact with one of them. I wasn't able to before, before we met Guillaume. I didn't want for them to know where we are, nor that we're there together, for that matter. But Guillaume is a real computer nerd. He's a genius actually. It's him who helped us learn French. So he's a real computer nerd, maybe more than… um… never mind. And he found a way for me to e-mail without any of them knowing where I am. Even better, they can't e-mail me if I have never e-mail them before. I don't know how he managed to do that, but they can only reply to me. They can't wrote whenever they want. They just got one reply for each e-mail I send. That way, I don't got undesirable mail.
I mean, I haven't tried yet, but that's what Guillaume told me it would do. I just have one more thing to do. I look at the screen. I take a deep breath. I haven't told them anything special. Except that I'm safe. And happy. It's true. No, scratch that. It's not true. I'm safe, but not as happy as I could be. Anyway, I don't tell them about our new names, neither that Antoine's here with me. They don't need to now. Antoine doesn't want them to know. He doesn't want anything to do with any of them for that matter. So it's better that way. I take another breath, and I close my eyes. Click. I open my eyes. There's a message on the screen. *message envoyé* (=message sent) I've done it. I let the breath I was holding out.'
"Okay, 'toine, we can go. I'm done."
'But am I really done with that part of my life?'*~*~*~*~*~*
"Salut Laura, Antoine, ça va ? " (=Hey, Laura, Antoine, how are you ?)
'I'm shaking. I'm scared. I just did something I was dying to do for two years. Thanks to you.'
"Oh, ouais, Guillaume, ça va. En fait… Je viens juste d'essayer ton système d'e-mails." (=Oh, Guillaume, we're fine. Actually… I just tried your e-mail system)
"Tu l'as essayé?" (=You tried it?)
"Ouais. Antoine, I'm really sorry, I didn't tell you because you said you didn't want to-"
"No, it's okay Laura. I understand."
"Euh, les gars, ça vous dérangeraient pas de parler français un peu. Je ne comprends rien du tout." (=Um, Guys, could you speak French, coz I don't understand anything.)
"Oh, oui, désolé." (=Oh, yeah, sorry.)
'Poor Guillaume. Sometime when the situation tenses a bit like that, Antoine and I kind of forget to speak French when he's with us. He doesn't speak a word of English. Actually I still wonder how he managed to teach us French when he didn't even speak English. That's weird. Anyway, when we speak English, it's not that we don't want him to know what we're talking about. He knows almost everything about us. Where we're from, why we left, who are our friends etc… It's just that we… forget.'
"C'est pas grave. Alors, ça à marché comme tu voulais ?" (=It's okay. So, it worked out the way you wanted?)
"Je ne sais pas pour l'instant. J'espère. On verra bien de toute façon." (=I don't know yet. I hope. We'll see anyway.)
"Oh, fait Guillaume, on allait au nouveau resto qui vient d'ouvrir. Tu te joins à nous ? C'est Laura qui paye de toute façon." (=By the way Guillaume, we were going to that new restaurant that just opened. Come with us? It's on Laura anyway.)
'Ok, I don't remember saying that. But it's ok. I was going to pay anyway. After all, I owe them both.'
"C'est bien parce que c'est vous, les gars." (=If it weren't for you, guys, I wouldn't do it.)
'And I smile. Lately I've come to realize something. I'm not sure what it means exactly. But Whenever I'm with Guillaume and Antoine, I smile more often; I laugh a whole lot more. In the year and a half we've know Guillaume, he's become our new best friend. He's almost like a brother to us. And since he lives next door, we happen to see each other a lot. I don't know what I would have done if I had left without… without Antoine. I would have never come here in the first place. And I would have never met Guillaume. My life… would be miserable.'
*~*~*~*~*~*
'Again, we had a wonderful time tonight. It's not surprising, thought. We always have a wonderful time when it's the three of us. Although my mind was wandering to the mail I sent earlier. But I almost forget about it when Antoine and I surprised Guillaume drooling over our waitress. We saw he quickly looked away when he noticed he'd been caught staring at her. But it didn't keep us from teasing him for the rest of the night.'
'As I enter my room, I'm tempted to check my mail. But I don't. I don't know why. Maybe I think it's too soon. Maybe I think they didn't get it yet. Maybe… maybe I'm afraid to be disappointed. So I don't check it. I directly change into my pjs and slide under the covers of my bed. And I sleep. Well, at least I try to. But I can't. I just can't sleep. It's too hard. I have to check it. It just hit me. I have to check it. Then maybe I'll be able to sleep. So I get up, and I look at the damned computer. I turn it on. And I wait. And I wait. Damn, it takes like forever for the damn machine to wake up. Finally, it's done. I sit down, and I go online. As soon as the window of my mail account open, my heart skips a beat. There's no mail. But I was so sure that… I'm so disappointed. I look at the time. It's only 10pm. You could say I was bed early but it has become a habit since we moved here. Anyway, it's only 10pm here, which means that it's around 3 or 4pm back there. They might be still working. Or at school. I don't even know what they're doing. But one thing is for sure. I'm starting to hope again. Because I'm almost sure they didn't get my mail, yet. Well, it will probably be a few more hours before I even got a chance for them to read my mail. I might as well go back to sleep. I don't turn the computer off. I don't go off line. It's unlimited anyway. But if I got an e-mail while I'm sleeping, I want to be able to hear the 'you've got mail' Guillaume told me there would be. I feel more relaxed, and I finally drift off to sleep.'
*~*~*~*~*~*
TBC…
So? Did you guessed who're Laura and Antoine? I bet you have! You're all so smart! (ok, that's true, I just said that hoping you would leave feedback. Did it work?)
Please, please review! Feedback is more than welcome.