Chapter 37: What is wrong with me?
Here all this time I have been trying to come up with ways to get Carter and Abby back together and what have a done, oh Christ I have sabotaged it, not just a little either, but I might as well taken a drill to the boat and put nothing but tons of little hold cause this was going down faster than the Titanic had. And now I find myself not only dreaming for that relationship with Carter, but in the position where that was exactly what I was going to have. Damn it I wanted this but I didn't want this, what the hell was wrong with me? I was given an impossible task to start out with and rather than trying to make it any easier on all of us, I do this. Oh the powers that be above were not going to be very happy with me and I knew it. Hopefully by kissing Carter I hadn't signed my own death warrant.
That would just be my luck though, I had managed to fight my way back from a life threatening illness and now I go and do a blunder of this proportion. I listen to make sure that I don't hear anyone else in the house right now. The last thing that I need is for someone anyone who might hear me to think that I have gone completely nuts, which is a distinct possibility right now.
"Robert!" I yell out. I am in desperate need of some help here. Oh god, I must really be desperate, dangerously desperate. I am wondering about all of this as I was asking Robert for help, this would be the first time in a long time that I would have actually had to, wait this was the first time that I had asked for his help for him to come to me.
"Hey there buttercup I was wondering when you were going to realize that you were in over your head and ask for some serious help." I hear that oh so obnoxious voice say to me.
He had been here for less than a minute and was already on my nerves. I was really second guessing and regretting my decision. I can't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "Yeah well, if you knew I was in trouble why didn't you just pop or whatever it is that you do down here and smack me upside the head." I find myself retorting back.
"Ah well see buttercup, I'm supposed to just help you out not to it for you. Seems that you have yourself in a little bit of a pickle there now don't ya?"
There is just something about the man that makes it nearly impossible to be anything other than overly sarcastic. Part of that might have been my foul mood.
"You are pretty observant for a, oh what's the word I am looking for," I put my hand under my chin as I pretend to think, "oh yeah that's right dead guy."
"Well for the record let me remind you that talking to dead people doesn't quite score you brownie points in the land of the living." He says back to me.
"Yeah, whatever." I snip back, my patients are not too great right now and what do I have to lose if I insult or piss off a dead man. What's he going to do haunt me? He has already be doing that just be being around in the first place.
"Okay, well so I am here, what is it that you think that you want from me? I hear Robert say.
I cross my arms over my chest sighing heavily before turning so that my back in to him as I kick the ground. "Oh how about a little guidance here." I am almost afraid to admit this to even him. "I mean since I have managed to, well since I have managed to fuck things up big time."
"What do you mean?" He asks.
"What do you mean, what do I mean?" I say knowing that, that makes little sense. "Come on you have to know what I mean."
"You said you messed things up," okay I really didn't expect a dead person to use the sailor language that I had just used.
"Yeah I did."
"How?"
"Okay for being all knowing you sure don't know much." That's me being me.
"I never said that I was all knowing there my dear."
"No but every time I turn around you are in my head, come on I have messed up the mission impossible, now it's really impossible." I find myself saying as my voice speeds up and I am talking faster and faster.
"Now dear I think that you are being a little melodramatic with that one."
"Oh yeah right," I say giving him that look that all women possess when we are upset. "No I really think that I have messed this one up royally."
"Well you are still alive so that says something there now doesn't it."
"I'm still alive," my voice is a lot softer, "that's a reassuring vote of confidence there Robert." I am a literal ball of nerves. "Seriously I need some major help here because I am drowning and I am drowning fast." I fall into the nervous habit of pacing back and forth. "Come on I put this seriously large holes in this ship and it is taking on water." Okay so I am using some really bad analogies right now but I can't help it that's what happens when I am nervous. There was something about talking to a man who was dead that didn't sit all that well with me. Maybe I was starting to go crazy.
"Now, now just take a deep breath and calm down there some woman." He says to me, "I'm sure it's not as bad as you make it out to be. Yes you were giving a seriously difficult task but hey you are only human, a mistake or two is to be expected."
I stop pacing back and sit down on the bed. "Oh," I draw out the word as much as I can as I put my hands around my knees drawing them up to my chest. "I don't think that this qualifies as a simple mistake." I look at him with my baby blues trying to convey to him what I needed to say without words. "Nope, it is a lot bigger than a simple mistake."
"So are you going to make me guess or are you going to come out and tell me what the problem is here buttercup? I'm not much of a mind reader well at least not all of the time. There are some thoughts that you have that even I'm not privy too."
"You are not making me feel any better here." I say.
"That's not my job." He says as he sits down on the bed next to where I am sitting curled up into a little blonde ball. "So come on spill the beans what is this horrible mistake that you think you made so that I can tell you it's not that bad."
"If you can tell me that this isn't all that bad, well then I will take back every bad thing that I have ever said or thought about you." I say honestly to him.
"Well that is sweet of you to say and all there buttercup but now are you going to get to the point darling?"
I was almost shocked that I didn't roll my eyes at him. "I'm getting there." I can't believe that I am telling Robert of all people about this, which is not as easy as I thought it would be. How could I have thought that this would have been easy? "Uh… I… uh…" Come on Anna just spit it out, "I, oh man, I slept with Carter."
There was nothing but silence from Robert now, "oh dear." That was the next thing I heard from him, "boy Anna you really did fuck up."
Okay now I am worried when I have done something that made him talk like a sailor. "It's not like I meant for it to happen, it just happened." I am trying to explain my way out of this one now. "Really I mean it's not like this is what I had planned from the start."
There is silence from him he is just looking at me with a blank stare, which is making me nervous and uneasy that much I know for sure. I don't know if I should be terrified that I have broken some unspoken rule or just what I am supposed to think. I start rocking back and forth a little wondering, waiting to see if he's going to say anything.
"You have one hell of a mess now Anna." He finally breaks the silence that had filled the room, "man you really did that?" There a look of surprise or at least it looks like surprise on his face.
"Okay why would I be saying something like this to you if it hadn't happened?" I say rather exasperated by the entire situation.
"Oh I don't know for sure maybe you were bored and thought that it would be fun to mess with me, are you serious about this though Anna."
"Okay for the second time since I told you, yes I slept with John Carter."
"Holy cow there." He said, "You are supposed to be…"
"Yeah I know putting two couple back together and I really haven't done that now have I." I am extremely frustrated now with him, well okay not so much with him as I am with myself but I have no idea what I am doing anymore. "Look I have no idea what I am doing, things are falling apart fast than I can put them back together. "I screwed up my relationship with Max, okay no I didn't screw that one up he did and I am not taking the blame for that one. He brought me leaving all on himself. But as for sleeping with Carter, sorry but I don't regret it, I just don't know what to do right now!"
"For starters you have to stop doing that."
"Yeah okay let's see just how to propose that I do that, it's not like I can say hey Carter, I have to stop sleeping with you cause I am supposed to be putting you and Abby back together as a couple!"
"Well no you can't do that, but you can't keep having sex with him either."
"Tell me my bright one," I am so sarcastic again it sucks, "just how do I do that."
"You just don't do it."
I growl, "Okay for starters that might have worked with the women you have slept with cause you probably never talked to the more than the one time, let alone slept with any of them more than once. But you can't just stop sleeping with someone out of the blue like that. My god we live together, we have been living together for a while. I can't just say oops made a mistake and I can't do this anymore. Not if I want him to keep talking to me."
"You do have a point there buttercup, well about needing him to keep talking to you."
"If I could slap you I would there Robert, so far you have been more frustration than help."
"Hey now, I am not the one who let my hormones get completely out of control there buttercup you did that one all yourself. It is sticky that's for sure."
"Now," I say looking back up, "I didn't do this on purpose. It just happened. I didn't start out on some nut path to screw over my own mission."
"Yeah so okay I have really gotten that point loud and clear but you have to think of something. I am sure that the powers that be upstairs and not too happy with you right now." There is a seriousness that I had never seen before in his eyes. It just compounded the feeling of helplessness that reached down to my soul.
"That's why you are here, are you not supposed to help me when I need it?"
"To put it as simply as I possibly can buttercup you are beyond help."
"Oh no, don't you dare say that I am beyond help." I get this feeling that he is giving up. "Surely this has to be fixable without making anyone else upset." I am really getting worried right now about all of this. "Come on Robert toss me some kind of bone."
"If I could kiddo I would but I don't know what to honestly tell you, other than to knock it off."
"Knock it off such wise words from you there Robert, are you saying that I need to figure this one out on my own, that you are here to help me but only when it's something simple?"
"Well that's basically the plan, but this one I am going to have to think about and get back to you on."
"Get back to me?" That wasn't the answer that I was expecting. And he just didn't seem to be helping the situation or making anything any clearer. "Not be to a smartass here but it's not like you can just pick up the phone and call me when you have some kind of plan."
"Well no but I can pop in when I have thought of something."
"That might be a tad bit dangerous. I mean what if you come popping back in here and I am in the middle of something."
"Don't be doing that!"
"I didn't mean that!" I about yell now, "I meant more along the lines of working on if there were other people around because if you think that I am going to be carrying on this conversation while other's are around you are nuts. I can't be talking to a dead guy in the middle of my shift."
"You worry too much I can be discrete when it serves another purpose. Just go take a chill pill and let me think on this."
"Yeah whatever Robert. Just don't take all damn day because god only knows how long I have now that I have gone and done this."
"You got that right God only knows honey."
With that phrase the room was once again empty and I curled up on my side trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I had managed to make a mess of the whole thing and I'm not sure what I am going to do to straighten it up now.