For Sierra-Jae, xJuBee, jilly74, Valentinas, Wemmamazing, Dementedx, PlainJane1 and Secondhand Symphony. Seriously, I can't say it enough, your feedback means SO much to me! (And I totally agree that Will should have more character development on the show, grrr. At least we can give it to him here, right?) Also, of course, for traceit, who saved you guys from being smacked over the head repeatedly by some very heavy-handed repetition in this chapter.

10

The weekend, not to mention the preceding week, had been a kind of emotional rollercoaster, but I felt a sense of restored equilibrium come Monday. Overall, the last two days had been far more good than bad, and I'm not going to lie, the sex was a big part of it. It had been nearly five months since Terri had let me touch her, and even then it hadn't been anything like Friday night, or Saturday morning, or all the fantasies that were now playing endlessly in my mind (which I felt bad about because I try not to think of women as purely sexual objects and didn't want to think that way about Honor either, but it was hard not to when I remembered my hands in her hair, her mouth sliding up and down my length and this is a bad train of thought, I need to refocus). But the confrontation with Terri had also been a kind of highpoint for me. Just knowing that I hadn't let her manipulate or control me made me feel powerful in a way I rarely had before. I'd never walked away from an argument with her believing that I'd won until now, and it was a heady sensation. Between those two factors, my self-esteem was at an all-time high and I was much more relaxed and cheerful than one would expect given all the upheaval in my life. Not like, "the hills are alive with the sound of music" ecstatic, or anything, just relaxed and cheerful considering the circumstances, but I'd take it.

I arrived at school a half-hour early, as usual, and headed to the teacher's lounge in the hopes that someone had brought in donuts or maybe danishes or something. What can I say, I'm an optimist, and in this case it paid off in the form of a coffee cake courtesy of one of the office receptionists. Without consciously choosing to, I hummed Summerview quietly to myself as I cut a piece, smiled as I reflected that the song had so many layers of meaning for me now. It had always been catchy, and then it had been devastating, and now it was a kind of… Lucky charm, or something, I'm not sure, but it had apparently been responsible for one of the best nights of my life, and I realize these are three very different emotions to fit into a single song at the same time, but I'm just explaining how it was, not why.

"Good morning, Will." Emma's soft, sweet voice interrupted my thoughts, and I felt a minor tingle of alarm at the thought of facing her. It's not that I felt guilty, precisely, since we weren't together and I didn't know if we would be, but I worried that she'd somehow be able to read what had happened over the weekend in my expression, because she was good at that kind of thing. In a strange way I felt as though I wanted to protect her from the knowledge of such sordid things as one-night stands and violent sex, because I couldn't imagine her understanding any of it, knew it would shock her to know I could behave that way as much as it had shocked myself.

I turned and smiled at her, a genuine smile, because she was really my only friend, and she was beautiful, and looking at her always made me feel a little lighter. Today was no different; the sight of her with her shining red hair, gentle smile and adorably whimsical sweater set still filled me with warmth, but it was… Before, I'd equated that warmth with desire, a pure kind of non-sexual desire which makes no sense, I know, but again I'm just explaining how it was, not why. The curve of her mouth reminded me of the kiss we'd shared, a kiss I could remember I'd wanted, but now I understood that warmth and heat were two different things. Her lips against mine, my lips against hers, whatever had passed between us, it had felt good. But not anything other than good, if that makes sense. All warmth, no heat, and I didn't know what that meant for us.

"Hello, Emma," I began, offering her my slice of coffee cake. "Would you like some of this? It's the breakfast of champions."

She continued to smile, but eyed the coffee cake warily, clearly uncomfortable with the thought of eating food someone else had brought off of paper plates of dubious cleanliness. "Oh, thank you, but I, um, already ate. At home. Before I came here, you know."

"Ah, right," I responded, moving towards the closest empty table, and she followed, sitting across from me.

"Was that Summerview you were humming just now?" she asked, somewhat randomly. "I never knew you were a Norah Castle fan."

I shrugged. "She's got a great voice. I don't know why, but I've had that song stuck in my head all week."

"It's one of my favorites. It's just funny you were singing it because I've been thinking about her for the last few days," she added, which seemed strange to me.

"You were thinking about her because…?" I prompted when she didn't continue. She was staring at me with a familiar kind of glazed look in her eyes, one whose cause had always been a complete mystery.

"Hm, what?" she murmured before coming back to herself. She blushed a little and hurried to fill the silence. "Oh, well, I know her. Knew her. A little, awhile ago, like… You know, high school. We were friends in high school."

"Wow." I'd known she was from Lima, of course- she was our only hometown celebrity- but I'd never met anyone who actually knew her. "I'm impressed!"

She laughed a little. "Well, it was a long time ago, I haven't spoken to her in years, but I heard some news about her recently that put her in my mind. It's not important."

"What's she like?" I questioned, genuinely curious. After discovering so much in her song, I couldn't help but wonder about the person who'd written it.

Emma tilted her head to the side, considering. "Well, when I knew her, she was… Lonely, I guess. Didn't have many friends. And she was very intense, had this kind of focused energy. I always knew she'd do something special with it."

I nodded, thinking that intense focus was the main prerequisite for achieving the kind of success she had. "So you didn't keep in touch after graduation?"

"No," she murmured, a vaguely worried look on her face. "Actually, she didn't graduate at all. She… Left Lima toward the end of our sophomore year. I really wonder how she is." Her concern was real and touching, but also a little misplaced. It wasn't like she'd disappeared off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again.

"Well, I think I read that her last album sold 900,000 copies its first week, so she's probably doing just fine," I pointed out, and she smiled.

"I hope so." And then she looked at me with what I thought of as her Guide And Counsel face, very serious and sympathetic. "But enough about that. How are you?"

I knew she wasn't asking in the polite small-talk kind of way, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, unsure of how much to tell her. But I knew I had to say something. When she'd last seen me on Friday afternoon, I'd clearly been a mess, and it was obvious something had changed… Not that I'd tell her what… Not that I even knew what, really.

"I'm doing… Better," I said, and it was true. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I'm starting to just feel a little better about the whole situation."

"Have you… Decided what you're going to do?" she probed delicately. "About, you know, if you're going to… Get a divorce or… Not?"

"Yes," I answered definitively. "I'm going to file as soon as I figure out how." And now that I thought about it, that, more than anything, was the reason for my lightheartedness. I'd made a choice without being dictated to, and it was such a relief to not have all the uncertainty, to feel a sense of closure. Still, it was a depressing choice to have to make.

She looked at me with compassion in her expression, nodded sadly (and this was one of Emma's best traits, her ability to put the feelings of others before her own, because I know that somewhere inside she must have been pleased to hear this news but she never showed it, only worried about how I was feeling). "I'm so sorry, Will. I know this is hard for you."

"Thanks." I met her warm brown eyes with mine and felt soothed by the empathy I saw there. Aside from Honor, she was the only one to have said those words. "There just… Isn't anything else I can do. What we had is too broken to repair, even if I wanted to."

"What do you think her reaction will be, once you file?" she asked, and I shrugged helplessly. I'd been wondering that myself.

"She... Won't be pleased. But I don't think she'll be surprised. She came by the apartment yesterday, and we had a discussion about the situation. I told her what I was feeling. I don't know if she understood it," I added, because honestly I didn't think she had, wasn't sure if Terri was even capable of understanding what I'd explained to her.

"You must be very angry with her," Emma stated.

"I am," I admitted. "But sometimes I think I'm angrier with myself. I was willfully blind, and I'm not blameless, you know?"

"Don't say that," she chastised, gaze never wavering from mine. "You have to remember that you're one of the kindest people I know. Everyone's relationships have problems, but you didn't intentionally cause yours."

"I know," I sighed. "But I have to blame myself somewhat anyway." And it was funny, because I appreciated the way Emma always tried to build me up, of course I did, but there was also… Knowing that she thought I needed to have my ego stroked made me feel diminished, somehow, coddled? I don't know if that's the word I want; maybe I could find it more easily in Spanish (um, maybe not). I just mean that she was always saying things like this because she believed I lacked confidence, and I'm not saying that wasn't true. But it made me feel weak, to know that she saw me as someone who needed her reassurances to shore up my self-worth. Besides, she was my friend, and had other feelings for me, and as such wasn't exactly unbiased. Despite knowing she meant everything she said, it was impossible not to think that she had to mean it because of what I was to her.

I couldn't help doing the ungentlemanly thing then, couldn't help mentally comparing Emma's compliments to Honor's. The thing about Honor that made me feel so good wasn't just what she said, it was the way she said it. When she told me I was impressive, for example, she hadn't been trying to make me feel good about myself. She'd said it the same way she'd have said that the sky was blue, as though it was obvious, as though anyone could look at me and see it, as though I must know it. It had been the same way when we'd had sex. Before, during, after, she hadn't showered me with praise, extolled the (questionable) virtues of my body or my (questionable) technique. Instead she'd simply said I want you inside me (and just thinking about it… oh god) and then let me know by her responses that she loved what I was doing to her. At the end of the night when she'd said it had been amazing, she hadn't said it to reassure me; she'd made it a statement of fact, because she already knew I knew.

"…so really you can't blame yourself," Emma finished, and I realized I'd barely heard a single word she'd said. I couldn't help but feel a little guilty about my distraction, but I comprehended the basics of what she was telling me. The fact that she could truly believe I shouldn't blame myself reminded me that she was strangely innocent for her age.

Looking at her, I found myself wondering exactly what I felt for her. Friendship, certainly, a kind of wistful longing, perhaps, but for the first time it occurred to me that as much as I cared about her, it was possible any romantic inclination I'd had towards her was due more to her being there when everything was falling apart at home than anything else. My marriage hadn't been happy for a long time, and Emma had always been a ray of sunshine in my sometimes dreary life. But had I developed feelings for her just because she so clearly had feelings for me, just because I knew she wouldn't reject me, just because her admiration soothed the hurt of Terri's neglect? We had grown to be so different, Terri and I, and Emma was so much like me, but was that really a good basis for a relationship? What could I bring to her world that she didn't already have? These thoughts filled my mind in a rush, nearly overwhelming me, but I promised myself I'd think about it later and tried to focus my attention.

"Maybe not," I answered in reference to her insistence that I not blame myself, just to reassure her. "But I'll let you know what happens... I'm planning to call a few firms later today, that seems like the best place to start." Really, I had no idea how one went about obtaining a divorce, but surely finding an attorney was the first step.

"Just let me know if you need anything," Emma murmured. "I'm happy to help in any way I can." I knew she didn't just mean this as a friend, and given my most recent thoughts it made me uncomfortable.

"Thank you," I responded sincerely, because I was grateful, of course I was. "I'd better get going, Em, I have a few things to go over before first period. See you at lunch?"

She smiled at me. "Of course. But Will, honestly… Don't let this upset you too badly. You're better than all of it."

Still. Again. It felt good. Just good, not anything other than.

TBC