OWEN
I don't feel anything, while I kiss Beth I feel absolutely nothing. I expected to feel at least a spark, something that stirred me inside, but I don't feel a quarter of the forceful whirlwind of emotions I felt inside when I kissed Teddy.
"Beth, I'm sorry." I apologize to her, stepping back.
She looks at me bemused. "Why? It's fine." She tries to kiss me again, but I push her away gently.
"No it's not. I don't love you, Beth."
"Why?! Then why did you kiss me?!" She is upset and rightly so. I shouldn't have kissed her. I shouldn't have left my actions be handled by my irrational mood.
"I… I just wanted… I wanted to see what I feel for you. But—"
"Don't! Don't say it. Is she, isn't it?"
I nod a little bit pained because she doesn't deserve this. I should've left things clear from the beginning.
"But... you and I, these days... we can go past this!" She insists in denial.
"Beth, don't do this more—"
I can't say anything else when she pounces on me and kisses me. The door of the house swings open and we jump apart. I look at Teddy standing there watching us, then she closes the door slamming it with a loud bang.
I go after her, when I enter the last thing I can see is her figure climbing up the stairs. I run to reach her, but she is faster than me, she manages to enter her room and lock the door before I can even say anything.
"Teddy, please open the door!" I bang the door.
"What's going on?!" My mother and Megan ask me, shocked.
"Teddy saw Beth and I kissing." I confess.
"What?! What the fuck, Owen?!" Megan screams.
"It's not how it sounds, I swear, I have an explanation!" I justify myself. I bang the door again. "Teddy please, let me in!"
Megan, my mother and I are outside the room for a good twenty minutes, begging her to open the door. I can't hear much noise coming from inside. I'm about to knock the door down when Teddy opens it. Her eyes are red and swollen, and in her hand she brings a suitcase.
"I will send to pick up the rest of my things later."
"What?! You can't go!" I protest. "Please, just let me explain what you saw!"
"I don't want any explanation, Owen! What I saw is enough."
"What you saw is not what it seems!"
"I think you two should speak alone. Come on Megan." My mother and Megan leave, giving Teddy and me privacy.
"There's nothing to talk about." Teddy insists firmly. Tries to get out of my way, but I block it.
"Please, just give me five minutes. I implore you."
I can see the fight in her eyes. The sadness and the fury. Why was I such an idiot? She says nothing, turns around and sits on the bed. I interpret that as she has accepted, so I close the door of the room behind me.
"We have nothing to talk about, Owen. It's over, you and I have no future, it will be better for everyone to continue their life, although apparently you are already doing it."
I drag the chair from her vanity and sit in front of her. "Just listen to me, please. What you saw was… it was not exactly as it seems… I… I kissed Beth, yes, I did. But I wanted to try if I felt something for her, if I felt the same as I feel for you every time I see you, every time I think of you, the same I felt that couple of times I kissed you."
"So you did kiss her?!" She grumbles.
"Yes." I can't even look her in the face. "But I felt absolutely nothing, it-it was… so empty. Nothing I feel with you."
"Oh, then I should feel flattered or what?! If you say you don't feel anything you shouldn't have kissed her in the first place!"
"I know, I know!" I apologize. "And I did wrong, I recognize it. But I immediately wanted to fix it, I told Beth the truth, that I felt nothing for her, that it was useless, that I love you, but she didn't want to understand and pounced on me to kiss me again and that was what you saw!"
Teddy seems to analyze my words. Tears roll down her pink cheeks and I want to clean them with kisses, it breaks my heart to know that I am the reason for her sadness when it's at this moment when I should make her feel more peaceful and happy than ever.
She looks down at her belly and gently rubs it, sighs heavily and gets up from the bed, walking towards the window, facing the street, turning her back on me.
"I'm so tired, Owen." She mutters, almost to herself, but the silence in the room is such that I can hear her words loud and clear, as if she were telling them in my ear.
"Just don't give up on us." I beg her.
She puffs apathetic and turns to me. "I'm not giving up!" She swallows the lump in her throat. "God knows that I never gave up, but I'm tired! Tired to wait for you to…"
"That is giving up." I argue. She can't blame me for this, she can't imply that this is my entire fault, that I wanted this. "I asked you for patience, now you cannot come to tell me that you are tired. That is giving up!"
She eyes me perplex, her face completely contorted in disbelief. "Patience?!" She sneers. "I've had all the damn patience in the world. But how do you want me to keep having it when you hang out so happy with Beth instead of making the slightest attempt to remember who I am, what we are!"
"And I try every damn day!" I snap. Now we are both yelling. "I try until I feel my head is going to explode from thinking so much, from trying so hard! I try, but I can't and you can't blame me for that, you can't blame me for something that isn't in my control. I didn't want this, it wasn't my decision!"
"But it was your decision to be an idiot! It was your decision to choose her to support you in this process, you chose to be with her instead of trying to be with me!" She cries, I can feel the pain and the force of her words like bricks being thrown at me.
She runs her hands through her hair and sits on the other end of the bed. Silence falls overwhelmingly heavy on us. It is almost suffocating.
I exhale in frustration. "You said it was useless, that we are complicated… well, I don't think so, I don't think we are useless or complicated. The only complicated thing here is to try to remember when nobody tells me anything, when everyone treats me like a stupid child with whom they then get mad for not doing things well. I need to know what I forgot!"
Again the oppressive silence. I'm afraid to break it. We remain like this for several minutes, as if standing still in time. I'm starting to give up too.
"You forgot you loved me." Teddy's soft and defeated voice startles me. "You forgot that you chose me... that you wanted a life with me and no one else... you forgot that I was the love of your life."
"I did… but I still feel it." I get close to her. She is crying in silence. I take her in my arms tight, tight, tight and she collapses in tears.
"Forgive me." I beg, my emotions taking hold of me. I kneel on the floor in front of her and take her trembling hands kissing them again and again and lay my head there. "Forgive me for forgetting you, for forgetting what we were, what we are." I look at her, my eyes reflecting hers, both overflowed with feelings. "I swear on our daughter that I try every single day... I spend my time watching photos, videos... but nothing happens. I don't know if one day I will remember you again and that tears me apart... I don't remember you, that's it. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life having you as a stranger… I want to spend the rest of my life knowing you… I want to spend the rest of my life falling in love with you again, just… don't give up on us. For us, for our daughter, because I will never do it." I pour my whole heart into Teddy, hoping that my words will touch her.
Tears stream rapidly down her cheeks, even wetting the neck of her sweater. Her hands shake. Her jaw shakes. Her lips however tell me nothing, but her eyes tell me everything.
She cups my face, gently brushing my cheeks with her thumbs, then leans her forehead against mine. "I never gave up and never will." She whispers and then catches my lips with hers.
I bring her closer with my hands on her waist, I can feel her whole being shiver under my fingers. Her lips are warm and the power of her kiss rumbles everything inside me and fades all my fears away.
"I won't give up, never, never, never!" She whimpers and runs her soft hands through my face.
"I will fight like crazy to remember you, for you and for our daughter." I kiss her belly and she kisses my head.
"Don't push yourself to remember. I'm sorry I said you don't try, I know it wasn't your fault and you didn't want that, it was me who should've been in that helicopter—"
"No, fate wanted me to be there in the end... otherwise she surely wouldn't be about to be with us." She joins her hands with me and we both smile when we feel our baby girl move.
"I love you so much." She murmurs in a trembling voice.
"And I love you more every day."