Chapter 37
Uncas shot a glance at Ali from time to time as they drove to the hospital and every glance made worry constrict in his chest like a snake. He took in the considerably thinner lines of her face, the obvious fact that she had lost weight (there hadn't been much there to lose in the first place) and her much more solemn demeanor. The mental image he had retained of her was like a dream compared to the girl who was sitting next to him now.
She was no less lovely, he would never claim that. She still had the same ethereal beauty, with a doll-like face and delicate features but something was different about her. She was melancholy and lost sitting there in his truck, not like someone who had just danced their way across Europe. He wanted to ask how she was holding up but he felt like he didn't have that right anymore. It was frustrating to be in the car with her and have nothing but awkward silence between them.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked for lack of anything better to say. "I can turn up the heat if you want."
"Oh, no thank you," Ali replied, flashing him a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "I'm fine."
No, you're not, Uncas thought to himself. Out loud he gave only a quiet 'ok' in response. Again there was that god awful silence. Think Uncas, he commanded himself as they pulled to a stop at a red light. Talk to her, you've been waiting for this moment for two years, don't sit here like a doofus!
"How was Europe?" he tried, hoping that he didn't sound as desperate to make conversation as he felt. Ali looked over at him, surprised at the question. For a minute he wondered if he had asked something he shouldn't have but she took a deep breath as she searched for a way to describe it.
"Um, it was...good," she began slowly, "Crazy at first. We were jumping from country to country so often that they all began to blur together after a while."
"I'm sure there must have been something you found interesting?" he prodded as the light changed. He had to really push on the accelerator to get the truck moving again. Thank god no one else was stupid enough to try and drive in this mess. He wouldn't even have been out in it if it hadn't been for Paul's panicked phone call in the wee hours of the morning. Looking over at Ali sitting in his passenger seat, he was glad he had answered that call.
"A few Castles in Germany," she listed, counting off on her fingers as she spoke, " we took a tour through Madrid and that was phenomenal but I didn't have as much time for sightseeing as I would have liked. Our dancing schedule was always pretty tight." She trailed off and her face became wistful.
"I wish I had seen more of it now." she added softly. She opened her mouth like she was going to say more, then shook her head and looked away, hiding whatever she was feeling from him.
"I uh...heard about your knee," he said carefully, "I'm sorry."
"Yeah," she replied tightly, still looking away from him, "me too."
Uncas gripped the wheel and tried not to groan in frustration. He had no idea how to handle any of this. Obviously she was struggling with the whole knee situation and there was nothing he could say or do to make it better. Cora had filled him in on a little bit of it; mostly that Ali had injured herself during a performance and was coming home. Beyond that he knew nothing and it was making it really hard for him to talk to her.
"I uh inherited a house." He blurted out. Ok, so it wasn't the most elegant segue but it was better than making her talk about things she obviously didn't care to talk about.
"Really," she replied, clearing her throat, "from whom?" Crap, he was afraid that she was trying to suppress tears over there. He had to fight the urge to reach across the seat and pull her into his arms.
"Our great aunt, the one you met at the cookout. She passed away last spring and left me her house."
"Oh, so you're not living at the cabin anymore?" Ali ran her fingers under her eyes as though she were rubbing smeared mascara off. When she finally turned her eyes back to his, her lashes were wet. Her eyes always turned the brightest shade of blue when she cried and right now they gleamed a vibrant cornflower back at him.
"No, I moved out once the renovations were complete," he explained as the hospital loomed up in the distance, "There wouldn't have been room for me anymore, not with Nate and Cora starting that fostering thing."
"Cora mentioned the program but not that you had moved out, aren't you lonely all by yourself?"
"Nah, painting keeps me busy enough." he said as he turned the truck into visitor parking, "I don't have time to be lonely." He had his choice of spots since the weather had chased out most everyone except doctors and staff. He found one that was fairly close to the entrance.
After he cut the engine, he sat there for a heartbeat or two, trying to decide if he should just get out of the car or if he should tell her...what? That he still loved her? Yeah, that wouldn't come out as weird or creepy. There were a million things he wanted to say but all of them felt inappropriate or just plain bad timing on his end. Part of him wanted to kiss her and the other wanted to scream at her to talk to him. He wanted to promise her that everything would be okay and he wanted to give her space to open up in her own time. It was so damn complicated that he didn't know what to do or feel.
"Ali…" he started slowly, unsure of what he was going to say. She never gave him the chance, cutting him off before he could say more than her name.
"Don't," she said quietly and flatly, "I'm fine."
"It's just that-"
"Uncas, please," she pled, her oh-so-blue eyes holding his and pleading with him to let the subject drop, "lets just go see Andi. I can't...talk about it right now. All I've done is talk about it and honestly, I'm exhausted. I appreciate your concern but I'm fine, really."
"Ok." he said after a long and pregnant pause, nodding his head and trying not to clench his jaw. He reached for the door handle and added, "yeah, alright," as he opened the door to hop out. He shut it quickly behind him to trap the remaining heat in the car with her then walked briskly around to the truck bed to retrieve her crutches.
"Fine, my ass," he muttered as he pulled the crutches out, "You're anything but."
walking back to the passenger side door with the crutches tucked up under his armpit, Uncas pulled her door open. He offered a hand to help her down but Ali scooted out using her good leg for leverage, ignoring the offered hand as though she were afraid to touch it. For a moment it looked as though she might make it but as soon as her feet touched the ground her heel slid out from under her. She let out a yelp as her legs slid forward.
Uncas caught her midway to the ground, he ended up doubled over with her legs sprawled out between his. He held her suspended a few feet from frozen asphalt. Ali gripped his arms tightly as she stared up into his face. It was like a replay of that night at the lake, when she had tried to show him a pirouette and had almost fallen in the water. He had caught her then too and their faces, once again, were close enough to touch.
"You alright?" he asked breathlessly, the sudden closeness surprising him as much as it did her.
"Ye-yes," Ali stammered, staring back at him with the strangest expression on her face. it was almost awestruck, as though she were looking at him for the first time; Her lips parted just a fraction as she took in a shaky breath of air. She resembled a creature from of a fairy tale with her moonlike hair hanging down behind her and snowflakes sticking to her eyelashes. It flowed like a pale waterfall, having grown long enough to brush the snowy ground underneath her.
"You sure," He asked, glancing at both sides of her for any obvious injury, "You fell pretty hard"
"Yes, I'm ok." she replied and used her good leg to try to push back into an upright position. Uncas straightened up too but kept his arms wrapped around her to keep her from falling again. Ali gripped his coat tightly in her hands, The crutches forgotten on the ground next to them. As he feared, the ice slid her into him once again.
He caught her with his hands pressed into the small of her back. Hers ended up splayed out against his chest. Uncas stared down into that strikingly lovely face and found that he was unable to release her, unable to even breathe properly. She was so tiny against him, all he wanted to do was wrap her in warmth and promise to never let anything, not even life itself, hurt her again. But how could he make a promise like? How would he even follow through, when he didn't know what it was he was promising?
"I-I'm cold." she mumbled, breaking through the fog covering his brain.
"Cold," he repeated lamely, "Cold, yes, let's get inside."
With that he leaned down and picked up the crutches. He handed them over to her for the second time that day. She took them without comment and he helped her to the door with a hand on her elbow. Only when the hospital's double doors swished open did he release her and he did so grudgingly. She adjusted the crutches in the entryway and then she looked over at him, waiting.
"Its this way." Uncas gestured over his shoulder with his thumb.
They didn't speak as they walked to the elevator and waited for it. They didn't speak on the way up. They didn't speak when the doors opened and they were deposited out on Andi's floor. God, this was even worse than the awkward silence in the car. At least at that point they hadn't had a 'moment' yet. Uncas was at even more of a loss as to what to say than he had been before.
"Oh good, you made it back without dying!" Paul's voice called from down the hall. They turned to see him hurrying toward them. "I was sure you would end up buried in a snowdrift somewhere."
"Hey, Paul." Ali greeted warmly as he drew near. Paul ignored Uncas as he pulled Ali off her feet in a bear hug.
"Hey, Odette!" he greeted back and proceeded to crush her to death with the force of his embrace.
"How soon did she start disregarding doctors orders?" Ali asked when Paul sat her back on her feet.
"oh, pretty much within five minutes," Paul replied with an eyeroll and a laugh, "I thought they were going to have to tie her down just to make her rest. I assume Ade here filled you in on what's doing?
"He did," she said, shooting Uncas a conspiratory smile, that smile alone was enough to loosen some of the tightness in his chest, "though I'm under strict orders to play dumb about it."
"Probably a wise choice, the hormones are making her a little…" He made a face and twirled his finger by his head.
"Nutty?" Ali supplied, laughing.
"Hey, you said it, not me!"
Ali and Paul laughed like old friends. She was joking and giggling like the Ali he remembered, showing all her teeth when she laughed. It was refreshing to finally see some of that melancholy rolling off of her. This was the Ali he loved and missed, he just wished he could have been the one to put that kind of joy back in her eyes.
"Can I see her?" Ali asked after some idle chit chat about her flight.
"Be my guest," Paul said, gesturing toward her door, "Maybe talking to you will make her sit still for more than thirty seconds."
Ali smiled and hobbled past Paul to go see her friend, They watched her grin as she peeked through the door and Andi's jubilant 'get your ass in here' rang out of the room. Once she was out of sight, Paul turned to Uncas with a concerned expression.
"ok, how are you holding up?" he asked quietly.
"Honestly, I don't even know, " Uncas replied, groaning as he rubbed the back of his neck, "She's not really talking about anything and I have no idea how to talk to her. The moment she saw you was the most I've seen smile since I picked her up."
"Well that's because I'm cooler than you." his cousin quipped. Uncas gave him a mock glare and flipped him the bird which made Paul laugh.
"Seriously though." the other man continued, glancing over his shoulder toward the room where muffled female voices were emanating, "She looks like she hasn't eaten in a month. She's waaaaay too thin... even for her."
"I know." Uncas agreed worriedly.
"Cora told you what went down in Paris, right?"
"She told me that Ali hurt her knee pretty bad and that she needs to convalesce for a while. Why?"
"Not just for a while, dude," Paul whispered and pulled him a little ways down the hall so that they wouldn't be overheard, " She's done!"
"Wait!" Uncas said, putting up a hand. "What do you mean 'done'?"
"She had to retire, Ade. Her knee is kaput."
Uncas blinked back at his cousin with an expression of bewilderment. Why was he just now hearing this? Cora had told him that Ali injured her knee during a performance and that she had had some surgery. He assumed that this visit was just so that she could rest and that she would fly back to Europe in a month or so. It hadn't occurred to him that she was back because her career was over.
"Oh my god." he breathed out.
"Cora didn't tell you any of this?"
"No, but...I mean, Ali and I aren't together so she doesn't really owe me any explanations." Uncas said as he slid down into a nearby chair. God, it explained so much about Ali's unusual reticence, her inability to talk about what happened. "I wonder if Cora even knows."
"Well, there's not much Ali and my wife don't talk about, that's probably the only reason I know anything," Paul replied as he sat down next to his cousin. Uncas rubbed his forehead with his fingers as Paul added, "Sometimes I think Andi knows what going on with Ali before she does."
"Shit," Uncas swore quietly, " Ballet was her dream, dude! This has to be crushing for her."
"Well, yeah, especially since the guy that dropped her got to stay on with the company." Paul added bitingly.
"Dropped her? Ok, please tell me what the hell happened over there?" Uncas demanded, speaking loudly enough that one of the nurses glared at him as she passed by. Paul looked around and made a quieting motions with his hands.
"Shhhhhhhhh, keep your voice down!" He hissed. "It was that flamey guy, the one that left to join the european circuit with her."
"Gage?" Uncas supplied.
"Yeah, he had some kind of shoulder issue that he never took care of. He dropped her in the middle of a performance. From what Andi told me, it was pretty bad. They had to rush to finish the scene just so they could get her off the stage."
"Sooooooo... what? He gets to stay on after all that and she's kicked to the curb?" Uncas demanded angrily.
"Uh, yeah. pretty much."
"That's horse shit!" He exploded, jumping to his feet as though he were going to race all the way to Paris and kick someones ass. "They can't just fire her!"
"Its a dance company, Ade, and a foreign one at that. They can do whatever they want." Paul pointed out dryly. Uncas' anger continued boiling steadily below the surface.
"That can't just be it!" he shot back angrily. "Her career can't just be over!"
"Apparently, it can." Ali's quiet voice responded from behind him. He whirled around to see her standing in the doorway, her face stoic.
Her voice was flat, as though she were reciting lines from a play. He didn't see anger or sadness or anything in her face at all. That lack of emotion was more frightening to him than the weight loss or the melancholy because it meant she had compartmentalized to the point that she wasn't dealing. From what he remembered, Ali could only maintain that for so long before it all caught up to her. When it did it was going to be ugly.
"I became a, what was the word Phillip used," she continued calmly, " 'Liability,' I believe was the term. He couldn't keep on a ballerina who couldn't dance."
"Ali-"
"Do you want to know what the saddest part of all of this really is," she interjected, her voice catching and shaking just slightly, "I left everything behind for it. I left my home, my sister, you... all to be a Prima Ballerina. Pretty stupid in retrospect, I guess."
"Baby, I- " he stammered as he walked over to take her upper arms in his hands, "I'm so sorry! I didn't know."
"I know." She replied, ducking her head so he couldn't see her face.
"Is there anything-"
"Could you take me home please," she requested quietly, "Andi is asleep and I feel very tired all of a sudden."
Uncas looked down at the top of her head and let out a small puff of air. Then he squeezed her arms and answered "sure, whatever you want." Ali's head gave a brief nod and she pulled away from him, hobbling over to say something he couldn't hear to Paul. Paul patted her arm before walking over to lay a comforting hand on Uncas' shoulder. His cousin didn't say anything, just patted him and walked into the room Ali had just vacated. Ali waited for him patiently by the plastic chairs, looking more forlorn than he had ever seen her.
The car ride back to the reservation was a silent one. Ali leaned her head against the window and looked out at the road. Uncas only looked ahead. He wished he knew what to say to make this better but he knew that there was nothing. She had taken a chance on something that hadn't panned out and now she had to decide how to move forward. As much as he wanted her to move forward with him, that wasn't something he could lay on the table right now.
He spared a glance in her direction and saw that her eyes were shut. Soon the sound of even breathing followed and he knew that she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Probably just as well, it saved them from having to make idle conversation. He was just preparing to make the turn that would take them to the cabin when he saw that someone had put a 'NO ENTRY' sign right in the middle of the road. Craning his head around over the dash, he saw why. The snow there was too heavy to drive through.
"Fuck." he cursed before glancing over at the sleeping girl in his passenger seat.
Her face looked peaceful resting against the window. He reached a hand out to brush some hair out of her face and she made a muffled "Mmm' sound in her sleep, pulling her coat in tighter around her. He placed his hand back on the steering wheel and sighed as he pulled straight instead of turning left like he had planned.
"Guess we're shacking up together after all." He muttered to himself as he drove the car toward his home. He had been joking when he said that to her before, just a feeble attempt to break the ice that had fallen flat. He really thought that they would have the way to Nate and Cora's cleared off by now. Showed what little he knew.
As much as he had hoped and prayed Ali would come home, he wasn't sure he was ready to have her in such close proximity. Especially when he didn't know what they were anymore. And then there was the house! God, it still had traces of her left everywhere. He had managed to change a few things around to make it feel more like his space but there was still quite a bit there that was the same. She was going to think he was a giant weirdo when she saw it.
But what choice did he have? Andi and Paul were going to be at the hospital for at least one more night and he wasn't going to shuffle her off to a hotel. No, it looked like she was coming home with him whether either of them was ready for it or not.
He pulled into the driveway of his new house and cut the engine. He glanced over at the sleeping girl and realized he had two choices before him. He could carry her inside and put her to bed and face the possibility that she would wake up and freak out when she didn't know where she was or he could wake her up now and get the freak out over with. Either way ended with her potentially freaking out. Nice set of choices there.
He decided on option number two would be the lesser of two evils.
"Ali." he said quietly, giving her shoulder a shake. She started and sat up, rubbing her face with her hands.
"Where are we?" she asked sleepily, taking in the ranch style house before her.
"I couldn't get to the cabin because of the snow. you'll have to camp out here tonight. You can take the bedroom, i'll sleep on the couch."
"But-" she looked at him as though the idea were insane, "I can't just put you out of your own room."
"Hey, you're the injured one. One night on the sofa won't kill me."
"Are you sure...because I can get a hotel. It's not-"
"You're not getting a hotel." He told her firmly. "I think we can exist in the same living space for one night without the world imploding."
"Thats...thats not what I was trying to imply. I-"
"Lets just acknowledge the elephant in the room here, ok?" he interrupted, feeling irritated and hurt and altogether just not good. "We haven't seen each other in two years, we dated and now it's awkward to share the same space. It doesn't have to be weird. You take the bedroom, I take the couch, tomorrow you go to your sisters. Done and done."
"Uncas, I-"
"Don't worry about it." He muttered and then escaped the car before she could say anything more. This wasn't how he wanted his reunion with her to go but it looked like no one was getting what they wished for these days. Hopefully, they could get through the evening without any further awkwardness but, seeing how his luck was going with her, that was probably a tall order.
Authors note:
It's been awhile since I updated. A lot has happened in that time. I think it was March when I put the last chapter up. Since March we managed to sell our house back in the midwest, move to another town... and then my best friend died.
It wasn't sudden. She had cancer and we knew it was coming. I didn't get to speak to her before it happened, she went radio silent on me about two weeks beforehand. She chose to withdraw and spend her final days with her immediate family and children.
It took me a while to look at this, or any of my stories, again. Traci was my person. She was my writing partner for 18 years. She loved this story, called it the best thing i've ever written. Maybe that's what made me start looking at it again. The characters, where they're understanding of my grief, never go completely quiet. I thought writing would just break me down...strangely enough it's been cathartic.
Normally, I share something about my writing process with you guys in this section but to be honest, I don't have much to say about it this time. I wrote most of this chapter before she died and then put it down because life got hectic. I was uncertain how I wanted this chapter to go, what I would keep and what I would axe. I actually ended up keeping most of what I wrote intact.
What pushed it forward was that I started editing a story for another friend and sending her earlier chapters of this one. Something about Ali and Uncas story just sucked me right back in. Today, I decided to push the story forward again.
I can't promise quick updates because I don't know where my head is going to be in the coming months. As melodramatic as this is going to sound, I have to relearn how to live in a world where she's gone. She was not the first best friend and she probably won't be the last best friend... but in some ways she was 'it' for me. There will never be another like her and I feel that absence strongly.
I haven't given up on this story. I'm working on it again. And I thank you all for your kind reviews and your patience, it really does mean a lot to me. I know that grief doesn't last forever but, for me, I think it's going to be a long road...