Boys Don't Cry
A/N: So this story's almost done - just a few more chapters, which I'm hoping to finish up in the next week. Enjoy!
"You look positively decadent tonight, Love," he says with a sweet British accent that melts me from the inside.
I met Shaun through the company, when he hired us to do some work for his new consulting business. He's handsome, charming, and well-traveled. Smells good, too.
"Thank you," I blush coyly, taking his arm and stepping out of my aparyment. When he called to ask if I'd eaten yet, I didn't hesitate. Why would I? If Mark's moving on, so can I. On any other day, I wouldn't hesitate, why should Gloria make this one any different?
We make it through almost an entire meal before a familiar ring tone catches my ear. I so badly want to ignore it, but Shaun is looking at me as though I'd better answer – it might be important.
With a forced smile, I stand from my seat and make my way out of the restaurant. "Hello?" I answer tentatively when I step into the afternoon breeze.
"Hey," Mark's standard greeting comes through. "Are you busy?"
"Having dinner with a colleague," I answer, well-aware that my tone is curt and cold. I don't care if he calls me on it, either.
But if he realizes he's being rude and interrupting a perfectly good dinner, he doesn't show it. "Gloria said you called earlier," he states, as though I should know better than to try and get anything past him.
Here's the thing – I don't owe him anything. I am not his employee, and I'm certainly not his girlfriend. Anything that he may think I owe him is absolutely incorrect. "I was just calling to tell Maggie that I couldn't make it," I lie. Actually, I was calling to ask what she wanted me to bring her for her birthday, but after hearing Gloria, things changed.
The heavy sigh that he emits is conflicting. I want to be angry at him for even questioning why coming should be a problem. But he doesn't know how I feel. How can he? I never told him. In a way, his frustration with me breaks my heart. "She's gonna be disappointed," he finally says.
I nod slowly and look over the parking lot, my eyes clouded with the pain of reality. It's going to disappoint me, too. I would love to see the girls again, to hear the sound of Maggie's giggle when she opens the gift I picked out especially for her. But it's for the best.
"Don't tell her," I respond finally, blinking back the tears. "Please, Mark, just don't tell her that I called. Tell her the invitation must have gotten lost in the mail and that you know I would be there if I had known." It seems like a logical response. It's a lie, but she doesn't have to know that. Sometimes it has to be okay to lie, to protect an innocent heart that never asked to be broken. It has to be, or I'm the worst kind of sinner, bound for an especially horrible place in hell.
He grunts and I can almost see him shaking his head in my mind. "I'm not gonna lie to her just so you feel better, Dahlia," he nearly spits, and it's the first time that I've heard any actual contempt in his voice. I so badly wanted to believe that he was okay with letting me walk away, but the tone in his voice says something else entirely.
"Then just don't tell her anything, Mark," I shoot back. I'm angry that he's angry with me. Stuck in this horrifying cycle of love and hate, I'm not sure if it ever ends or if I'll ever be okay without them. I hate that he can still make me feel that way, when I was so sure that I was beyond it.
I hear voices on the other end and he sighs again. Maybe I'm imagining things, but I'm not sure I've heard him sound so tired, so completely burnt out, since the months immediately following Kara's death. I'd like to believe that I helped curb that pain, but I can't really trust my own ears anymore. Not with my over-active imagination playing tricks on me all the time.
"Can you do me a favor?" he asks finally, his voice sounded tired and drained, as though he's reached the end of his rope. "Can you try? For the girls? Just try to be here?"
He's never asked anything of me. Well, nothing beyond basic household chores. Even when I lived there, Mark never asked me to do anything I didn't want to do. If he knew that it was something I was uncomfortable with, he let it go. I'm no more used to hearing him ask than he is to asking.
Even though everything inside of me rages and kicks against it, and even though I would rather swallow my own arm than see Gloria again, I hear the words "I'll think about it," escape my lips.
When the call is disconnected, I return to the restaurant and try to put my best face forward. Shaun is looking at the dessert menu, and smiles softly when I sit.
"Everything okay, Love?" he asks, setting his menu to the side and reaching for my hand over the table.
I barely feel his fingers brushing mine as I nod. Nothing is okay, but in that moment, I convince myself that the only way I'm going to truly let it go is to head back to Houston and face up to everything I ran away from. I can tell myself that I need to see them happy to move on. I can tell myself that once I know they're all doing okay, then I'll be okay, too. But the truth is obvious in this unexpected moment of clarity.
I run from my problems. While I'm sure that's not a shock to you, it hits me like a bolt of lightning at the table. Shaun is ordering dessert, and all I can think is that I need to stop. I'm too tired to continue. I've run until my legs feel numb, and the only way I will be allowed to get over Mark is to stop running.
When he drops me off at home, Shaun kisses my cheek and asks if he can see me again next weekend. I would love to spend the weekend in some beautiful restaurant, listening to the lilt of his sophisticated accent. But I can't. I can't make excuses anymore. "I'll be in Houston next weekend."