CHAPTER 11 - TONIGHT

Loud knocks on my door; that's what jarred me back into consciousness.

Insistent knocks. I was in a weird haze that had me running down a hallway, looking for something — someone — when the pounding started, and it could be anything, anything hitting anything, and the hurried, loud, dull echo of the pounding made my body feel disruptively heavy, my movements seem way too slow, my voice catch in my throat before I even tried to speak.

I was suffocating.

I knew then that I was never reaching my destiny, never saying the words, never doing what I set out to do, never finding whatever or whoever I was looking for.

"Olivia!" came a voice along with the pounding. "Olivia, hey, are you there? Open the door!"

Sunlight broke through my mixture of dream and reality and tore my eyelids open, as much as I tried to fight it with my whole face scrunched.

"Olivia!"

I knew that voice. I couldn't believe my ears, but I knew that voice.

"Coming," I managed, but when I sat up on the bed, my head resumed the pounding, the pain rippling through my muscles, my blood, my skin.

The pounding from outside had stopped, at least, and I figured she'd heard me as she seemed to now be waiting for my appearance at the door. I moved slowly, trying not to make the pain worse. A quick look through the peephole confirmed it was really her.

"Liv, finally!" Kelly said when I removed the layer of wood separating us. She seemed to be feigning energy, but her eyes were red and glassy like someone who had slept as little as me — and they looked me up and down.

I looked down at myself and realized the hotel's robe was all I had on.

"Anything fun happen last night?" she asked with a mischievous smile, now eyeing past me; I followed her gaze to a trail of my clothes, discarded in a straight line that led to the bed.

You tell me, you stupid bitch, I thought in the sincere secrecy of my pounding head.

"Hmm, not really," I forced a grin, then scratched my scalp in genuine confusion. "I'm sorry, Kelly, are we supposed to do something together? I don't remember."

Her head dropped to the side with exaggerated disbelief. "Yes!" she said. "Brunch, then going out to pick our dresses for the parties!"

The parties.

A very foggy memory of having been invited to not one, but two parties started to make acquaintance with my current thoughts as if brought from an unknown netherworld, and I wondered what else hid in there. Had I agreed to anything else besides parties and dresses and brunch? I felt dizzy just toying with the idea of trying to remember things, a clear complaint from my brain or whatever was in charge.

They were dealing with enough damage from the previous night as it was. When had I become this person who got drunk every single night?

"Right," I said, forging confidence that I knew exactly what she was talking about.

As much as I was inclined not to believe anything Kelly ever said, as it turned out, I really had agreed to meet the girls for brunch, after which we would all go choose our outfits for the dinner party and the ball — because of course the resort had a store where you could rent party clothes. It really seemed like its own little world; a weird, expensive diorama I couldn't even pretend I felt like a part of.

Kelly patiently waited while I took a quick shower and put on some clothes — warm ones, she emphasized; according to her, it was colder than ever. She was actually welcome company that morning (well, it was almost noon). Her ability to talk nonstop was pretty useful to fill the awkward silence that would undoubtedly ensue if any conversation depended on me.

I kept checking my phone every few minutes, hoping for news on Elliot, but I got nothing. I was actually dreading the idea of asking Kelly if she knew anything, still scared to confront the possibility he might have gone somewhere else instead of his room the night before.

But then she noticed my anxiety.

"Who are you expecting to hear from?" she flat-out asked one of the times I flipped my phone shut with quite the amount of frustration-fueled vigor.

"Elliot," I sighed, loathing the idea of admitting to her that I had no insight on his whereabouts, but giving in all the same. "I haven't heard from him since we came back last night. We got on different elevators and I never saw him again."

"Oh," was her only reaction, words failing her for once.

Quite out of character, I thought.

"Do you know anything?" I found the nerve to ask, a bit more eager than I would've liked to sound. Fuck it, I thought: I needed information, even if it was bad news.

Her brow furrowed as she wedged a strand of her honey-blonde hair behind her ear. To her credit, after that she looked straight into my eyes. "No," she guaranteed. "Why would I?"

"You were on the same elevator," I justified, cringing at the jealousy I could hear in my own voice. "Did you see where he went?"

The vehemence with which she shook her head gave me relief, but also more reason to worry, since the mystery of where he'd gone remained unsolved.

"I got off before him; I assumed he went to his room," she said, something shifting in her voice as her eyes latched onto me. I knew what was coming next. "Were…you expecting him?"

Even knowing didn't keep the rush of blood from filling up my face with undeserved guilt.

"No!" I laughed nervously. "His room is next to mine, I just thought it was weird I didn't see him, is all."

"Right," she smiled, raising an eyebrow before throwing a more obvious accusation. "You seemed pretty close last night."

"We are close," I hedged, my timeless truth a worthy, albeit kind of weak, alibi. "We're partners."

She saw right through it, too. "Yeah, I'm sure partners hold hands in bars all the time," she mocked. "I was sure something was going on."

I needed no alibi this time, but I wished I had one: the truth was quite embarrassing. "Nothing happened."

"Maybe tonight, huh?" she nudged my shoulder with hers, and it was all I could do to contain the jolt my body wanted to react with when exposed to her touch.

I just shook my head with a grin, because no lies filtered through my teeth. Yes, maybe tonight, was the concealed truth.

Definitely tonight.

I didn't want to do it in front of any of the girls, but in the safety of the fitting room, surrounded by the nicest colors and fabrics, I texted Elliot.

Are you ok?

I flipped the phone shut in my hand — slowly, to avoid the pop that might be heard from outside — then placed it on top of the bench where my coat lay, already abandoned, while I stripped down the rest of my clothes and threw nervous glances at the unlit screen. When I looked away, I heard a buzz, and down to my panties and bra, I checked his reply.

Fine, you? Trying on dresses?

I smiled at the fact that he knew where I was supposed to be better than I did. Before I could answer my own backfired question about being okay, I listened to myself for a minute, realizing that my racing mind had disabled the sound of the rest of my body, just like I'd turned off the cell phone's chiming.

My head is killing me. I'll pick anything just to get the hell out of here.

I hugged a black dress to my body while I held the phone shut, waiting for the vibration for a few quiet seconds. When nothing came, anxiety suggested I should send another question just to force him to reply. In case he wasn't planning to. Not that he'd have a reason to avoid me.

What will you be wearing?

The tip of my index finger cushioned the blow as I remembered too late that I wanted to be careful in my phone-shutting motions. Damn flip phones. I put it back on the bench and turned my back on it to pretend I wasn't listening for its quiet hum, keeping everything else on hold as I clutched my potential party garment.

The black dress — I remembered it existed. I held the beautiful garment in front of me, checking the overall length as I insisted on glancing at the unresponsive phone. I turned around again, unzipping the dress before sliding both legs into it, pulling it up over my body and slipping my arms through the openings. Even for someone as used to handling the lone fastening of my own buttons and the lone zipping of my own zippers, I needed a minute to do the back.

It was worth it: it looked even better on me. The top was fitted, with a boat neckline that showed my collarbone and see-through sides hugging my waist. They were so discreet that you needed a second look to notice, but once you saw them, you could catch a glimpse of the side of my breasts. Below the waist, the pleated fabric opened in an A shape, hanging all the way over my legs, the hem sitting around my feet and making me think about how I would have to pick some pretty high heels. But I just loved it: it was the perfect combination of sexy and elegant.

The phone buzzed, and my heart jumped in the confines of my ribcage, under the black cover of the dress I was definitely going to be wearing on Saturday night.

They took my measurements for a tux and a more casual suit. You probably need a nap.

The sight of him in a tux drained the air from my lungs for quite a few seconds. I looked at myself in the mirror again, imagining him in his tux next to me — goosebumps broke across my skin despite the warmth coming from the vents.

I took off the black dress and put on a navy-blue, flowery, more casual dress. I wasn't originally expecting much from it, but the V neck settled really well between my breasts, in an elegant display of some cleavage while the hem sat a couple inches above my knees. It was intentionally a lot less formal, but still sharp-looking while showing a little skin. Looked like we had another winner.

A nap sounds perfect.

There was absolutely not going to be any replies to that, so I just discarded the phone again as I took off the dress and put on my original clothes; I wasn't even going to try on the other options. When I went for my phone, arms busy with dresses hooked around them, I noticed there was a text. I flipped the phone open as my other hand wrapped around the doorknob.

Knock on my door when you get back.

I was lucky to pick my dresses on my first trip to the fitting room, but the other ladies were a different story. Needless to say that the one who took the longest time to pick two dresses was Kelly; but, to be fair, the other ones took a while too. And as the only one who was no longer looking, I became the person holding the dresses, giving tips, coming up with reviews about each dress on each person.

My aching head and I really wanted that nap. As for my fluttering stomach, it really wanted to knock on Elliot's door.

When I finally made it back to my room, anxious to drop the dresses off to go see him, I was interrupted by a note I found slipped under my door.

Had to go try on and pick up the suits. I'll see you at dinner.

I found out that night that there was another restaurant in the main building of the hotel besides the one where I usually ate breakfast — this one was on the roof. Most of it was covered, considering the region's biggest season was winter, with huge windows all around, giving you a view of the whole compound and even a nice angle on the mountain. But still, since it was a terrace, there was an outdoor section, with a few tables and heaters around them. It was very cold, like Kelly had anticipated in the morning, so nobody was out there, but for a moment I wished we could sit there; it was so pretty, and the night was beautiful.

This was going to be a special weekend: the resort was celebrating the opening of the skiing season, and that was the reason behind that Friday night's dinner party, a less formal function, and tomorrow's ball, the more traditional event. I was wearing the blue floral dress I had picked last that morning, and Elliot was wearing the less formal suit they had fitted for him.

We ended up only seeing each other again on the roof, as suggested by his note. When I got there, he was already sitting with some of the guys around the table that Allie and Greg had reserved for our party, and I watched him for a moment, first acknowledging how much I'd missed him during the day, and then contemplating just how unattainable he seemed right now.

He was sitting just a feet away from me, but I was hit with the sudden awareness of this huge gap between that moment in the shuttle, when I'd had my hand on his thigh and a certainty that we were going to spend the night together and now, almost an entire day later, watching him sit there so blatantly alone, like nothing was missing, like there was nothing he was expecting, wishing, like his life wasn't hanging on the balance, depending on the outcome of the attempt to close that gap like mine was.

But I told myself that was just my mind trying to work out the catastrophic thoughts that anxiety kept hitting it with. It seemed like such a huge battle to be fought out there, but things already seemed very much out of reach inside of me.

I needed to get a grip.

I gave a beautiful woman who received me with the biggest smile my coat and watched it as she hung it on this coat rack near the door to the open space. As she did that, a couple walked by her, getting their coats and stepping out into the cold air, lighting up cigarettes and sliding the door closed again behind them.

I wanted to get my coat back and follow them, suddenly not in the mood for the major gathering of people, but it was too late; Allie had caught sight of me at the door and she now called my name, enthusiastically cheering me on as I took those last few steps toward them like it was the most difficult distance to cross.

My eyes insisted on getting caught on people's feet, weighing with the guilt of what I was preparing to do. Part of me wanted to just give up on the whole endeavor and sit there, with those people, have a drink and pretend there wasn't a care in the world like I'd been doing thus far, but I couldn't.

There was a care in the world. There were several; but in that limited pocket of time and space, there was this one, very urgent concern that needed to be addressed, something I could no longer live with — or without —, so I couldn't simply go on pretending like nothing else mattered, because things mattered, and there was a very real life waiting on the sidelines of all this make-believe, and I could no longer reconcile the overwhelming gap between them and the things that could fall in the precipice whenever the time came to cross it.

This fabricated reality had brought Elliot that much closer to me, but it was all so fleeting that I felt like it might just as well take him away, everything and nothing suddenly within my reach, but depending on some sort of action on my part, some sort of change that I needed to set into motion.

I wasn't any closer to knowing the difference between dream and reality than I had been that morning when Kelly had woken me up with insistent knocks on my door — I wasn't any closer to figuring out the answer to this puzzle, but the only thing I could do in that very specific moment was lift my eyes to Elliot's, so I did.

A smile started to appear, but never finished reaching every nook and cranny of his expression as his eyes traveled down my legs and back up again, embarrassedly looking away when caught in the act, and even though he had clearly checked me out, the spotlight of his gaze had stripped me of my confidence, and I could no longer remember the feeling of looking great in that outfit and hairdo and makeup that I'd left behind in my room.

I couldn't hear people's voices or my own blabbering making small talk while I tried to assess the atmosphere between him and me, very aware that our glances repelling each other was not a good start. I took a seat across from him at the table, and with not overly effusive movements, he offered to pour some of the wine he was already drinking from into the glass sitting in front of me, which I accepted with a timid nod.

Where was his stern-looking, forehead-kissing intensity talking about him and me? Where was my thigh-grabbing boldness in response?

I took a deep breath and tried to stay in the moment, whatever the moment was.

It wasn't working.

For a less formal event, the dinner party was pretty formal, at least until after the waiters were done serving all the courses. The food was delicious, but I could only try a bite of each thing; the conversations were nice, but I could only force a smile here. My body wanted to be sick while my mind was on overdrive with only one thought through all the chatter and laughter around me.

Tonight. I was making a move tonight.

Nothing had changed. I was going to find my way back to my thigh-grabbing boldness, and I was going to sift through all the veils hiding his raw intensity. We were going to find our way to each other, take the exit we had missed the night before.

Flirting wasn't something I put a lot of effort into normally. In fact, I was used to pretty much attracting male attention as a given, and then using flirting as more of a delaying tactic, to prolong the pre-sexual interaction for as long as I wanted it to be, than anything else.

But this was different. This was Elliot, and nothing was a given. How was I supposed to flirt with Elliot? This mostly -innocent banter we had been engaging in for the whole week wasn't compromising enough for my goal tonight: I wanted something that left no room for doubt.

Doubt was killing me, so I needed to kill it first. Something was bound to die tonight.

I kept looking for signs of any special attention to me, but didn't exactly get any. This was a more silent place than the Brazilian bar, and the level of alcohol among the people around the table was also much lower, which made it impossible for us to slip into our private world like we had done the previous night. It seemed so far away now, as far away as the original Brazil.

Elliot seemed comfortable, I assessed. He was eating, talking, drinking his wine. Throwing me the occasional look, yes, but only sideways glances, no close-range shots right between my eyes. No noteworthy interactions.

That was what drove me insane about all this: one minute, he would be all over me, holding my hand, staring at me, kissing my forehead. The next, he would be all nonchalant, like we were barely even close friends outside of work.

Which, frankly, we had never really had a chance to be.

I watched him. I retreated to my own little world, my own head, where thoughts were wreaking havoc, coming up with completely opposite theories and answers and explanations for everything and for nothing. It seemed that the quieter I was, the less he noticed I was even there, fully entertained as he was in his conversations with all those friends we had made that he had initially not even wanted to meet and that now seemed so much more interesting than me.

What the hell was happening to me? I didn't usually get this insecure. Especially over a man.

But this was Elliot. This is you and me, he'd told me just the night before, between stern gazes and forehead kisses.

Me and him.

Doubt was getting the best of me. The voice that said that it was all in my head was back with a vengeance — but, just like I did when I had a really strong gut feeling about a case, against all the evidence, I hung onto that part of me that knew there was something.

That I wasn't making it all up in my head.

This is you and me. Me and him. I had been so ready to make a move the night before. I had been so ready to make a move tonight.

I couldn't stall any longer.

All of a sudden, I just stood up, which seemed to attract his attention, finally.

"I'll be right back," I announced to whoever was near me at the table, then walked around it to touch Elliot's shoulder. "Can we talk?" I said softly, and didn't even wait for a response before I went to the rack by the door, got my coat and put it on, then walked out into the open area with no cigarette to light, but ready to start a fire.

Ready to burn it all down to the ground if I had to.

"What's going on, are you alright?" I heard him say right behind me when I leaned on the railing, overlooking the hotel's little version of its own little town, down below.

I took a deep breath. No, I wasn't.

"I am," I turned to face him, forcing a smile. "Just wanted to get some air."

"And talk," he said cautiously, visibly puzzled, his brow furrowed as he watched me closely.

"And talk," I smiled, then chuckled trying to hide my anxiety.

He half-smiled. "So…?" he coaxed gently.

"So," I repeated, sounding like an answer to his question, and we just stared at each other for a moment. I looked away for a second, trying to gather the courage, blinking rapidly as though preparing for an explosion. "What's going on here?" I asked.

Elliot continued to look at me, his face now pure confusion. No, that wasn't good enough. I needed clear answers, so maybe I needed to be more clear. Before he could ask any clarifying questions, I went on.

"This, you and me…" I motioned between us, taking a step closer to him. "What's going on?"

I saw the exact moment that the words landed and made themselves understood beyond a shadow of a doubt in his head, because it was so clear: he simply looked down, like his eyes were anchored on his feet, and never looked up at me again.

He never. Looked up. Again.

And I knew.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elliot deflected, scratching his nose as if he needed a distraction, any distraction.

From the awkwardness.

"What?" was all I could muster, appalled, watching it all burn down slowly.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. A good outcome? Yes, that's what I'd been hoping for. A bad one? Well, yes, I was preparing for one.

But not that bad. Not a cowardly Elliot who couldn't even look at me.

"Liv, I'm married," he said, now with more conviction and raising his glance almost high enough to make eye contact, just never making it past my shoulders.

I moved my lips, but no sounds came out. My brain wasn't behind that reaction. The only thing controlling me in that moment was the mounting heartbreak. I'm married. The refusal was pretty clear.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm married.

It was a not very eloquent, but pretty blatant refusal.

Rejection.

Elliot kept shaking his head and looking everywhere but in my eyes. He seemed almost offended.

"I'm trying really, really hard to fix my marriage," he continued. "I know this place, all this... It's weird, it's different, and things can get...confusing… But I've always tried to keep it strictly professional between us… I've always made sure to keep my distance, to keep from touching you, even hugging you… Because I don't want things to get…" He took a deep breath; apparently, he needed the whole capacity of his lungs' worth of air to get that last word out. "Confusing."

I nodded slowly, watching him squirm in place, his eyes continuing to make a point not to touch mine, just like he was claiming he had always done.

So yes. It was all in my head. I don't want things to get… Confusing. I was confused. That's what he was saying.

There was nothing.

And even worse: he didn't even have the courage to look in my eye as he broke my heart.

When there was nothing left to say, nothing left to do, and certainly nowhere else he could direct his eyes to avoid mine, he turned around and started to move away, leaving behind a lost stare in my overall direction.

"Let's get back inside, it's freezing," he said, then walked away without ever looking back.

And there I stood, left behind all alone in the cold.