Broken Whispers

I don't know how long I sat there. Minutes really, but it felt like hours. Hours that distanced me farther from her, farther from her heart, the place, where if she'd let me, I would spend everyday for the rest of my life. Finding the key to her soul was like looking for a bullet in an elephant. Nearly impossible, and yet, I had somehow found it, or so I thought. Slowly, I picked myself up from the icy step and contemplated my next move. Of course everything in me wanted to run up the steps, barge through the door and bring her towards me. I wanted to hug the fear, the defeat and the loneliness out of every fiber of her being, and yet I couldn't. I sometimes wonder if that's the hardest part of all of this. Feeling like I can't even rescue the princess from her own castle of self-deprecation. Or sometimes I wonder if the hardest part is never knowing where I fit, where I stand in all the chaos that swirls around her. And its now I realize, she's never been the tornado more.

I twist the knob nervously, and I wonder how my hands manage to be so sweaty, despite the frigid temperatures around me. I'm not giving up on her this easily, not without a fight. She's the best thing in my life and I'm not going to let the perfect smoke stand in the way of that. As I walk through the lobby the air is warm and smells faintly of chocolate chip cookies. Apartments buildings are such funny places, I think to myself. A collection of so many people, so many families, celebrations, hurts, regrets, sickness, life. All jammed into one place, yet at the same time so divided. Every wall with its own story to tell. The stairs creak as I approach her floor. There is a thud that comes from somewhere, but at this moment I can't tell if its someone's obnoxious stereo or my own heartbeat. I tremble as I knock on the door. One knock, and then another. Her words echo in my head as I wait.

You know, I don't really want to talk about this because it's ruining my perfect smoke.

Is that all its ruining Abby? I think its ruining so much more than that...I think its ruining you slowly, deliberately. Let me in and let me carry some of that weight with you. Its too heavy for one person. Let's get an apartment together, figure out what's best for Eric. Don't shut me out. I need you, and I know you need me too.

I'm done. I'm done with the both of them. I'm done with all of it.

I know you want to be done. But you don't know how to be done with what you love, Abby. You try to be so sure of yourself, to put up the façade of self-reliance. But, I know inside you're still a little girl, scared and wanting someone bigger than yourself to love you. You don't always want to be the one in charge, you want to be taken care of. Let me take care of you, Abby. Please. All these thoughts course through my mind in a matter of seconds. The seconds it takes for her to get to the door. I hear her feet softly padding towards the door and a second later she's staring at me.

"Hey...so I, uh, thought about it, and I've decided that grinches don't get off that easily. It's going to take a lot more than that to cancel Christmas," I say as I lean up against the door, faking a nervous laugh. I find myself searching her eyes for what I should say next.

"What are you doing here, Carter? Trust me, you don't want your night to end with me. The "boy falls for tragic, self-depricating girl with screwed up family" scenario has run its course, ok? You're off the hook." she says as she bites her lower lip tenitively. Willing me to leave, yet begging me to stay.

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?" I say, staring at her for a moment.

"So are you gonna let me in?" I realize now that I'm scared to death she'll say no. And then I'll stumble home, unsure of everything I've ever known.

"You don't give up easily do you?" she says, her eyes sweeping the floor as if to look for an answer in the floorboards.

With that I know, at least for tonight, that I've succeeded in breaking through the surface of her pain.

"I want you to talk to me Abby, I want to help you through this." I plead with her, I want her to hear all I'm saying, and at the same time all I'm not, and I want her to come to me, but I know its too early for that.

"What's there to figure out Carter? Eric and Maggie think they know all the answers, and besides being the only non-member of the Bi-Polar club doesn't have its benefits...apparently." she adds, wryly.

Its times like these that I can tell she's trying to cool the moment with humor. Its all she knows sometimes. Her only defense to the pain that seems to shovel its way inside faster than she can get it out. I let the comment slide as I reply.

"You..." I stammer. "We could go back to the hotel, talk to them, sort things out. I want to do this with you. Maybe if I'm there with you..."

"Carter, I told you, they don't want me! All I've ever done is try to love my baby brother and survive my mother, and I've failed at both, ok?! Can't you just accept that? I have."

She says this in anger but I know its not at me, in fact its at everything but me, but in this moment you'd never know it. I go to her now, each step a feeble attempt at bridging the chasm between us. My hand extends to her forearm and slowly caresses the skin. I feel her tense up and she tries to pull away from me. I pull her even more towards me and I envelope her in my arms. I find myself squeezing her tight, wanting so badly to take away what she feels. If only I could.

"John..." she whispers, like a little girl lost in a department store, looking for someone. Anyone she knows. Who knows her. My name falls out of her lips, half statement, half question.

I pull her away from me, for a second, so I can look into her eyes. I brush a strand of hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. Her beauty makes me want to cry sometimes, the way she looks at me, as if looking for something in her. It's now I realize that she called me John, and its amazing how I can hear my name all day long, but when she says it, its like coming home. I know it's a moment of intimacy for her, she rarely calls me John, and now I know I would want her to call me nothing else.

"Yes, Abby?" I say softly, gently, faintly.

"I'm scared, I'm so scared that I'm going to lose my baby brother. It's funny, you know, because..." She pauses.

"Because I know he needs me, but I need him too. I need him to need me, I don't know how to do this on my own. I'm so used to taking care of people, and he wanted me to take care of him. We relied on each other, you know? He never knew I needed him as much as he needed me. And now...now he doesn't even want me in his life, let alone his heart."

She stops and I look at her in amazement. I watch as the smallest trail of tears burn themselves into her skin. She makes no attempt to wipe at them, and neither do I. I know we've just reached another moment in our relationship where she's not afraid to cry in front of me, and I'm not afraid to let her, not afraid to let the tears fall off her face and to the floor without wiping them. I stare at her still as I realize all of this just came spilling out of her tiny frame, and I didn't even know how to make it better. Here I am a doctor and I couldn't close her wound. Never have I felt more helpless.

"I know, Abby, I know, we're going to get through this. I promise you."

"I just...you shouldn't...you shouldn't have to stay with me, so uncertain of how everyday is going to unfold, uncertain of what my family is going to do, what they're going to say. It would be better if you just cut your losses now. Save yourself the hurt, because now, its like you're just waiting for the ball to drop. And trust me, you don't want to be in the wake of my wreakage."

She says this to give me one last out, one last chance for freedom from these bars she thinks she keeps me in. But what she doesn't know is that I would stay in this prison forever, if that's what loving her meant. But I know now, more than I know anything, that she wants me, wants me to love her forever, but she doesn't know how to keep me, or so she thinks. So afraid I'll run, because that's what everyone else has done with her, use her and then leave her. In fact she's gotten so good at this game, that now she pushes them away before they have the chance to leave her. If only I had the words to show her that won't be me, that I won't leave her or let her push me away...if only.

"Abby, I don't know how to express this to you...I want you. I want you." I say it again, making sure her eyes are on mine, reading them. "You're all I want...All I've ever wanted...sick, healthy, broken, whole. I don't care. I'm in this forever...whether that's two days or twenty thousand, I never want to stop loving you. Let me love you Abby..."

I'm done, and my body is suddenly exhausted, but I remember that I'm still holding both of us up as I hold her in my arms.

"I want you too, John. I do. I want you." she says, he voice barely audible, and I wonder if its her heart I hear speaking to mine, rather than her voice.

And then as suddenly as it came, the emotional train wreck of the days events is unleashed, and sobs begin to rack her small body. I pull her to me and rub her back with my hand. And though, in this moment I wish I could take it all away, I know for the first time today she's being real, being honest with me, and herself. And for that, I let her cry as I sooth her weary body with mine. As I close my eyes and rock her in the foyer of her apartment, I kiss the top of her head gently, and its in that moment that I know we're okay. In fact, in our broken, weary, tear-stained state, we've never been better.