Chapter 14

He wasn't sure if the churning in his stomach was due to nerves or excitement, but either way, when the buzzer rang, he thought he might throw up. On instinct, he glanced to a window in the living room and considered making a run for it, but finally took a deep breath and buzzed her in. When she rang the door bell, he took one last look around the living room to make sure it was still clean and opened the door.

She stood there, wearing loose-fitting jeans and a pink shirt under a partially buttoned leather jacket, looking down at her hands, which she was fiddling with, her hair down and just a little make-up on, and he wondered for a second if he could skip the serious discussion and just make love to her like he'd dreamt about doing for four years. She looked up then, almost as if she could hear his thoughts and smiled hesitantly at him and he found that he had to grip the door tighter just to keep from reaching out to her.

They both stood there for several awkward seconds, staring at each other, waiting for the other to speak first, and when he realized it wasn't going to be her, he took another deep breath and said hello.

She looked back down for a second before looking up and meeting his eyes. "Hi." It was quiet after that again, and finally she looked over his shoulder and into the living room. "Can I…" she trailed off, still looking into the townhouse.

"Oh," he said, taking a step back to let her in and feeling like a complete idiot. "I'm sorry. Please… come in."

She walked past him into the room, but stood in the entryway going no farther. "Thanks," she said quietly.

"Can I…" he motioned towards her jacket and she looked at his face in confusion until she finally looked down and saw what he meant.

"Oh," she said, fumbling with the buttons on the jacket and then starting to pull it off. He did reach for her then, standing behind her and pulling it gently off her shoulders. "Thanks," she said softly, looking over her shoulder at him.

Her face was too close to him and he feared he'd slip and kiss her, which was unbelievably tempting, so he smiled at her and took a quick step back with the jacket, turning and hanging it on the coat rack next to the door. His own jacket hung next to it and he thought they looked right hanging there together.

He shook his head clear and turned back to her then. "Would you, uh…" he rubbed his hand over his face. "…like something to drink, maybe?"

She looked in towards the living room and past it into the kitchen. "Sure. Water?" He nodded and walked past her into the kitchen, leaving her standing next to the door.

When he walked out a minute later with a glass of water, he looked around the living room and didn't see her, and he had to literally remind himself not to jump to conclusions. He sat the water down on a coaster on the coffee table and steeled himself up to look up towards the door. When he did, she was still standing next to it, looking down towards her shoes and he smiled. She was as nervous as he was and for some reason, knowing he wasn't the only one made him feel better. "Donna… come in."

She looked up then and caught his smile. "Sorry, I didn't know if…sorry." She took a few hesitant steps towards him before finding her confidence and moving to the couch. She sat down in front of the water and he watched her for a few seconds before moving to the chair at the end of the couch and sitting as well.

"How have you been?" he asked her a minute later when the silence had grown as long as he was able to let it.

She looked at him and plastered a smile on her face. "Good. You?"

He nodded. "Good."

"Good," she said before looking back at the coffee table and picking up her water. She stared inside it at the few ice cubes and he hung his head. He'd already lied to her.

"I saw Donna yesterday. It was an accident."

"You don't have to defend yourself to me."

"It was."

"Ok. Were you glad to see her?"

"Yes and no."

"Which feeling won out?"

"I asked her to come to my place tomorrow to talk."

"I see."

"Is it too soon?"

"I can't answer that for you."

"You're really no help at all."

"I know."

"Funny."

"You've got to be honest with her Josh. You have to be. If you're willing to be honest, it's not too soon."


"Horrible," he said abruptly, breaking the silence once again.

She jerked her face up to look at him. "What?"

"I said 'horrible.' I've been horrible."

Her eyes widened. "Oh."

"I don't want… I can't… lie to you. I need to be honest and the truth is I've had a really hard week."

"Why?"

"A few reasons; reasons I need to tell you about. But mostly because I didn't see you."

She smiled then and looked quickly back into her glass before bringing it up to her lips and taking a small drink. When she brought the glass down, she continued looking inside it. "Well, as long as we're being honest, I've been miserable."

"Yeah?" he asked quietly, his heart breaking just a little at the thought of her unhappiness, soaring just a little at the thought that maybe it was because she missed him half as desperately as he'd missed her.

She looked up at him then and nodded. "I've been really confused, and I've been scared that I wouldn't see you again."

"I've been worried you wouldn't want to."

"I didn't want you to go in the first place," she whispered, looking back at the glass as though it would protect her from the humiliation of saying the words.

"I had to."

"You said that," she said in a way that made him think she wasn't so sure, which in turn made him feel like scum.

He nodded slightly. "I'm sorry it hurt you when I left. That wasn't my intention."

"I know," she whispered, and that time he thought she meant it, which made him feel better.

He looked at her for a few seconds before sitting forward in his chair and resting his elbows on his knees. "I have to tell you something I can't tell you."

Her eyes widened. "How am I supposed to react to that?"

"Tell me I can trust you. Tell me that even if we don't… tell me you won't tell anyone. Anyone at all, no matter what."

A tear slipped from her eye and he watched as it slid down her cheek, and then as she lifted her hand and wiped it away before looking down at her wet finger. "You don't trust me," she whispered as fact.

He took a deep breath. "I want to. Tell me I can."

She looked over at him, meeting his eyes with her wet ones. "You can," came out as nothing more than a breath.

He couldn't stand to see her cry. Watching tears fall from her beautiful eyes was like torture. He stood up, his legs shaking a bit, and walked into the bathroom to get the box of Kleenex his cleaning lady always left. He glanced at himself in the mirror thinking he'd rather die than have the conversation he was about to have, but knowing he'd rather have it than be without her, then picked the Kleenex and walked back into the room where she was still sitting straight up on the couch. He handed her the Kleenex before sitting down, watching her take one and wipe her eyes.

"What if she wants nothing to do with me after I tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"That I'm damaged."

"You're not damaged. You've had things happen in your life and those things cause you to deal with stress differently than most."

"That's mumbo jumbo for damaged. What if she doesn't understand?"

"For someone you claim to love, you certainly aren't giving her much credit."

"I have a thing…" He stopped and wiped his hand over his face and through his hair. "From when I was shot. It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Basically, when things get stressful or hard for me, I tend to re-live the shooting."

She looked down at the tissue in her hand. "Are you ok?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "Most of the time, yes. But since seeing you again, I've been… I've had nightmares, trouble sleeping…" he took a deep breath. "I'm easily angered, easily panicked; I keep waiting for the ball to drop… That's why I left. I didn't want you to have to see me like that."

She looked at him for several seconds before standing up abruptly. "I should go."

"What?" he asked, confusion and hurt obvious in his voice.

She started walking towards the door, crying harder and refusing to look at him. "You're hurt because I came back. I won't do that to you," she said, shaking her head.

He stood up and walked quickly to where she was pulling her jacket off the coat rack, wrapping his hand around her arm and turning her around to face him. "Donna, don't."

"You just said…"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Please don't. I'd never hurt you, I swear it."

"I don't think... I'd never think that, Josh." She looked down at the floor and then up at him adamantly. "But I'm hurting you and I won't do that; not again."

"You want to keep from hurting me? Stay."

She shook her head and whispered, "I can't."

"Admitting this to you… God Donna, it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Do you think I wanted to look at you and tell you that I'm…" He stopped and took a deep breath before continuing quieter. "I tried to keep it all inside, hoping it would just go away, but it won't. So I can either tell you or lose you. I don't want to lose you."

"Josh…"

"If you think I'm some whack-job…"

She cut him off. "I don't think that."

"Then don't go," he pleaded.

She stared at him for what felt like an eternity before nodding so slightly that he wondered for a second if he'd imagined it. He slowly let go of her arm and she walked past him back to the couch, pulling more tissues from the Kleenex box as she sat down. "What do I have to do with the shooting? I wasn't there."

He stood still until he heard her talking, then went quietly back to his chair. "It's just the way I handle stress. You came back and… I'd spent four years trying to hate you for leaving me, and then there you were smiling in a Shell station like nothing had happened. And I…I told myself I had to…" He looked away from her, towards the wall. "Protect myself from you. But you kept showing up and talking and part of me couldn't help wanting what we had back…" He looked back to her then and whispered, "Wanting more."

"Just part of you?" she whispered back.

He couldn't face her, couldn't look at her while he said it. It seemed so foreign to him to even remember it, as though it was a lifetime ago instead of just a few months. He stood up and walked to the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the doorway and looking at his shoes. "Part of me wanted to keep hating you. To… God this is so hard. To blame you for…" He looked at her then. "You broke my heart. I know you didn't know it, but it didn't matter to me. You broke my heart and I needed to hate you to protect myself from letting you do it again."

The tears fell freely down her cheeks by then and he wished she'd wipe her eyes again, wished he could hold her while she cried, wished he could pick her up and carry her to his bed and make love to her, show her how much he didn't hate her. That he never really had, as hard as he'd tried. "And now?" she whispered. "Does part of you want to hate me now?"

He shook his head. "No, but part of me is still waiting for you to leave."

"Because I did before," she said more to herself than to him, but catching his attention all the same.

"No," he said firmly. "You quit your job before. A job you weren't even being paid to do. It's not because of what you did; it's because of how I see what you did."

She put her glass down on the coffee table and sat back, looking down into her lap. "I'm sorry."

He shifted his weight onto one foot and turned to face her, leaning on one shoulder. "For what?"

"Whatever I need to be sorry for to fix this," she said through sobs.

"I'll call her. Tell her I'll put her on payroll."

"Do you think that'll matter?"

"I don't know, Sam! I just, I know I have to fix this. I have to get her back, even if she..."

"Listen to yourself Josh. She left the campaign. She's gone; there's nothing left to fix. You've got to let her live her life."

"Are you sorry you left the campaign?" he asked, not even knowing what answer he hoped to get from her. "Because you're better for it you know."

She put her elbows on her knees then and propped her forehead in her hands, quiet while she tried to control her breathing. "I'm sorry for the way I left. After everything you did for me…" she stopped then and he could hear her take a deep shaky breath.

"It hurt more than you know," he said in a non-accusing voice, surprised at how much better it felt simply to tell her.

She looked up at him then, her eyes glossy and tear streaks on her cheeks. "You won't believe this, but I do know."

He turned his head and looked into the kitchen. "You're right. I don't believe it."

"That's fair," she whispered. "And I am sorry."

He looked back at her. "You shouldn't have to be. You left your job to go back to your boyfriend. Intellectually I know that. I do. But it gets all screwed up emotionally. It feels like you left me for your boyfriend. I can tell myself over and over that you left your job, but it still feels like…"

"I left you," she said quietly.

He nodded. "Yes."

She took a deep breath before looking up at him again. "It feels like that because it's true."

"What?" he asked, confusion lacing his voice.

"Honesty, right?" she asked with a small gut-wrenchingly sad smile on her face.

"Yes," he whispered, feeling as though he were going to vomit.

"I didn't leave my job," she said, shaking her head. "I left you. I just didn't do it for Michael."