Tara
The cold night air hit her face like a hard slap as she ran out of the opera house. It was dark, but the lights had come on and she had a good vantage point as her eyes searched the area frantically. Finally, in the distance, she saw him and began running down the steps as she shouted, "Christian! Christian, wait!" When he didn't stop, she ran faster and shouted louder, "Christian, please stop!" He stopped, but she could tell he was torn between whether he should wait for her or keep walking. He turned hesitantly, as though he was unsure of what he should do.
"What do you want Tara?" He wasn't angry exactly, but she could hear the exasperation in his voice. She could feel his eyes on her as she took a moment to catch her breath, trying to think about what she would say so it wouldn't come out wrong. She didn't want to make things worse, but after the conversation they had in the dressing room, he owed her an explanation. She had let him walk away so many times before, but not this time. This time, he was going to talk to her.
"You know what I want. I want to talk to you. We need to talk for real this time, without any interruptions. How could you just leave like that? We weren't done with Sammy's dance! Didn't you even want to see if I had won?" As she spoke these last words, she couldn't keep the pain out of her voice. Couldn't he see how much she still loved him? That despite everything that had happened this year, she missed him so much and wanted nothing more than to be with him?
During their conversation before, she had wanted to tell him how she really felt, but she was afraid. That he didn't feel the same way. That he would reject her again. That he would say something hurtful and make her feel stupid for expecting anything from him anymore. If she waited until she knew how he felt, then she would be able to go on believing that they could be together, that there was a possibility that everything would go back to normal, the way it was supposed to be. But as she had stood in the dressing room holding her breath, waiting for him to say what she was so sure he wanted to say, Abigail had come back and interrupted them, shooing Christian away, causing the moment to be lost. Sure, they had been on better terms towards the end of the year, but it wasn't the same, not like before. There was still a slight awkwardness between them that wouldn't go away, and then he and Kat had broken up… and then Sammy had died… and it seemed like all the progress they had made, all the effort it had taken to get back to some semblance of friendship, had evaporated quicker than she could fathom, and they were back to not knowing how to act around each other.
Standing there now, waiting for him to say something, she suddenly realized how close he was. She could smell him, a scent she couldn't forget if she tried. Natural and clean, it swirled around her and made it hard to concentrate. And his brown eyes were deep and troubled, searching for something he could never find. She could see the hurt behind them, a hurt she knew all too well since Sammy's accident. She wanted to comfort him, hold him, wrap her arms around him and tell him it was going to be okay. But not yet. Not until he explained what was going on. They were all hurting. Losing Sammy had broken all of them, but that didn't mean he could just leave. It didn't mean that he could shut her out without any explanation. No, he was going to talk to her, whether he wanted to or not. She needed to know what he was thinking.
"Please Christian, talk to me. I know we haven't exactly been best friends lately, but I hate to see you in pain. You can't keep it all bottled up, you need to talk about it. I'm here for you, no matter what. You can talk to me." She stopped because she didn't know what else she could say. So she left it at that and hoped it was enough to get him to open up, to trust her again. Before she knew what she was doing, she reached out, took his hand in hers and squeezed gently. As she looked down to enjoy the sight of something that she had been missing for so long- the feeling of his skin on hers, the steady warmth of his hand- she couldn't help but smile. After everything that had happened, everything they had been through, it still felt right, natural, perfect.
"So did you?" His sudden question pulled her out of her reverie. She looked up, meeting his intense, penetrating stare. It caught her off-guard.
"Did I what?" She asked, not sure what his question meant.
"Did you win?"
Oh, that's what he meant. The Prix. The finals. She looked down at her watch. Her solo already seemed so long ago that it was hard to wrap her head around the fact that it had barely been an hour since she had broken down on stage in front of the entire audience.
"No, I didn't," she answered, looking away. Admitting it hurt more than she thought it would. "Grace did." Even though she had gotten a near perfect score for her Red Shoes variation, her low contemporary score had left the door wide open.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. She could feel him squeeze her hand, his warmth spreading through her whole body, but she couldn't look him in the eye. She could feel the tears coming and she knew if she looked up, she wouldn't be able to hold them in.
"Hey, it's okay. You can cry if you want. I hear keeping things bottled up isn't good." She could hear the teasing in his voice, could picture the smirk on his face, but she knew he was being sincere. It wouldn't be the first time she had cried in front of him. It was comforting, and she couldn't help but laugh because he knew her so well. He knew what she was going through, how much the Prix had meant to her, how much she had wanted to win. So she laughed, and then before she could stop herself, she was crying, tears rolling freely down her cheeks.
"It's so unfair!" She yelled angrily. "I worked so hard all year and Grace barely even tried and she won! She's the Prix champion and she doesn't even care! She only did it so I wouldn't win! Not because it meant something to her! I went through so much this year between her drama, Saskia breaking my back…" She hesitated, afraid to say more, but knowing she had to... "You breaking up with me. Everything was falling apart! I wanted to tell you about what Saskia had done but you just pushed me away! When I called you about my scan and you agreed to come, I finally thought we were going to work things out between us but you were so cold and distant. Maybe I shouldn't have kissed you, but I was scared and I didn't know what else to do! I didn't know what was going to happen and I was so happy that you were there with me."
She took a deep breath in. She knew she was ranting, but she had to get it out, to let him know how she truly felt. Maybe then he would do the same. Not talking, staying silent, was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place and she was sick of it. She couldn't take it anymore. Before he could derail her train of thought, she kept going.
"You should have told me about Kat and how you felt about her!" She shouted, letting go of his hand. "I deserved to hear the truth from you, not through a walkie-talkie! Do you have any idea what it felt like? After everything we had been through! You broke my heart and pushed me aside as if what we had didn't mean anything! You never came to talk to me, to see if I was okay! You didn't call me after I got expelled! You were the only person I wanted to talk to! No one else! The others called and called, but not you. You abandoned me and left me all alone! It killed me Christian and I've been trying to put myself back together ever since!"
Her words rang out loudly as she finished and she couldn't help feeling proud of herself for finally saying what she had wanted to say all year. She was breathing heavily as she waited for him to respond, to give her some kind of idea of how he felt. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, reaching out to take hold of her hand again. The silence stretched between them and just when she thought he wasn't going to answer her, he did.
"Tara, I am so sorry for everything that happened this year." His voice was filled with pain and regret, making her anger evaporate instantly. She hated seeing him like this. "It all got so out of control. When you told me you had found my dad, I panicked. I was so angry at you for going behind my back. I pushed you away because I didn't want you to be involved in that part of my life. I didn't want you to know how broken I was, how much I hated my dad for what he did to my mom. He broke her heart and I didn't want anything to do with him. I should have talked to you about it, explained why I felt the way I did but you were the only good thing in my life and I didn't want my past to get in the way of it. I was so ashamed and I thought you wouldn't want to be with me if you knew the truth."
He stopped, and Tara knew he had been holding all that in for a very long time. "And what truth is that?" Tara asked, her words full of concern. When he didn't answer, she said, "Christian, what is it? What are you so afraid of?" Looking into his eyes, she tried to convey to him that he could tell her anything. That nothing he could say would ever be too much for her to handle. Whatever it was, it couldn't be worse than what had already happened. So he had baggage, who didn't? No one was perfect. She didn't understand why he thought so little of himself. When she looked at him, all she saw was someone who could do anything, be anything. The possibilities were endless. And all he saw was someone who had nothing. She had to figure out a way to show him how special he was.
Christian looked down and closed his eyes. Letting go of her hand, he looked up at her and clasped his hands around her shoulders. Then, as if he were fighting a battle within himself, he said, "What if I'm just like my dad? What if, no matter how hard I try, I keep messing it all up? From my mom getting sick, to robbing the server with Aaron, my brother refusing to help me after I got arrested, everything I put you through. Thinking that being with Kat would solve all my problems, using her, hoping that it would make me forget how much I loved you. Sammy… dying," his voice trembled a little when he mentioned their friend. "I keep letting everyone down. What if I can't change? I'm sick of hurting the people I care about, losing the people I love." He paused before adding, "I'm afraid of ending up alone."