Say Something

Author's Note: These stories posted here were (and will be) written with a song looping in the background. The song for this chapter is "Say Something" by A Great Big World. It would probably put you in the right mood to play that as you read, as that was my intention. I'm working through writer's block on another story I'm writing, and this came more easily. Unfortunately, it's a little depressing...

Disclaimer: Not mine.

He watched the surprise spark in her eyes when she saw him standing at her doorstep. A plethora of differing emotions were caught in her immobile countenance, all flowing through two windows the color of a pale ocean. He smiled at her for what might be the last time, awash with the long-dormant feeling of coming home.

"Red." His name was laced with confusion and a hint of fear. He'd been out of her life for a year now. He understood that she might find his arrival portentous. He hated the forced association.

She didn't move out of the threshold of the doorway to invite him inside. Her hand clutched the doorknob, moving restlessly against the cool metal, unconsciously rubbing her old scar. His smile softened into a yearnful fondness, thinking that nothing had changed even while hoping that everything would. "Don't be alarmed, Lizzie; I'm only here for a moment."

The tense set of her shoulders didn't lessen, but something flashed briefly in her expression - the same look that he'd imagined on her face the last they'd spoken, at a phone booth with her thick, hopeful voice asking if he was her father. His Lizzie... so desperate for a connection. He'd be anything she needed him to be, if only she'd ask: a father to fill the void left by Sam, a loyal confidante with whom to share her concerns, or a doting lover to warm her bed. Anything at all, just to be near her.

"Why?" she asked, the brief longing absent from her query. "Why now?"

Ignoring her question, he asked, "Where's Tom?"

Her lips twitched into an angry grimace before smoothing out again. She paused. He watched her decide how to proceed with this touchy line of conversation. "He's at work. He teaches high school english now."

He tried to keep the disappointment out of his tone and almost succeeded. "You're still with him."

She didn't bother to mask her anger this time. She stepped in front of the door, arms crossed - defensively or defiantly, he couldn't determine. In this circumstance, he supposed the difference was inconsequential. "He's my husband, Red." A disgusted shake of her head. "Of course I'm still with him. Despite what you claim, you've given me no proof to doubt him."

And this was the impasse they always reached. No matter how well-informed she knew him to be, she'd never believe him. No matter how many times he proved his devotion to her, he gained no quarter. Without evidence, he was just the lying criminal she'd met in a glass cage. "My word will never be enough, will it?" He let his pain and concern bleed through, feeling his hope die.

She studied him, ire cooled by the only bit of honest emotion she'd ever seen him display. Her gaze crashed over him, a tumultuous ocean. He felt fear as it immersed him, too alive in her presence to feel numb. "I'm sorry."

Those two words broke him. In truth, the scenario played out how he suspected it might, but it didn't stop the hurt. Still, he would do what he was prepared to do if this was her answer. He couldn't save someone who didn't wish to be saved. His involvement in her life was only a burden to her.

"I would have followed you anywhere, Lizzie." He turned his back on her look of devastation, striding down the sidewalk, hauling the dead weight of his heart away from her door for the last time.