Tell Me (Part 4)
Outside in the ambulance bay Abby leaned one foot back against the wall, and balanced all of her weight on her other leg. She was distracted, it would be obvious to anyone who looked her way. She concentrated on the pattern of intricate stitching on the toe of her sneaker. Somehow when the door opened up and three or four people walked out at once she could sense that he was coming and she lifted her head up trying to catch his attention.
Equally distracted, Carter didn't notice her and kept his eyes pointed straight toward the street. He followed the path of a taxicab as it whizzed past Doc Magoo's. She fell in step behind him matching his pace, not ready to startle him out of the haze he seemed to be in. He came to the curb and stopped short just as a bicyclist whizzed past him. Abby hadn't seen him coming to a halt and she went crashing into him, arms flailing as she hit the ground. He turned to see the commotion, and cocked his head to the side at the vision before his eyes. Abby Lockhart, sitting in a puddle. She hardly looked amused. He offered his hand to her and asked,
"Were you following me?"
Testy, she replied, "You said we could talk later, and then you just left the hospital."
He didn't have the patience for this.
"You know it might just be that I have other things to do today, you just might not be my top priority you know."
She looked at him and tilted her head to one side, scrutinizing him. "You know, I think this can wait Carter, I wouldn't want to disturb you when you're in such a stellar mood."
She wiped herself off quickly small droplets of water running off of her fingers and back into the puddle. She turned on her heel and began to walk away from him.
He stalked off in the other direction and started to feel a fresh batch of indignant feelings well up in his stomach. How dare she behave that way, what right did she have expecting that he was at her beck and call whenever she felt like talking? She had avoided him for a month or more, and now suddenly she had something to say so he had to fall all over himself? No. It doesn't work that way Miss Lockhart. Not anymore.
Abby was walking in the opposite direction very perturbed. What was his problem today? He was so testy. They had just discussed that very morning that they were going to talk when they were off, and now he was behaving as if she had no right to speak to him at all. She could not believe how audacious he was sometimes. She actually saw a shadow of a grin on his face as he gave her a hand out of the puddle. This had quickly faded when they started to speak to one another.
Both walked frenzied through the streets lost in their own distractions about the other.
Abby stopped suddenly, turned on her heel and started to walk back in the direction from which she just came. The game stops here she reminded herself. I haven't come this far for nothing, it's time I told him, everything. The stride in her step was confident and she quickly made progress back toward the hospital. She was so busy talking to Carter in her mind that she didn't even notice the rain starting to fall.
Carter quickly wiped his face not realizing that the annoyance was rain. Enough, he thought. I've had enough. He stopped in the middle of the street and set his jaw, thinking she is not going to avoid me anymore. He pounded the pavement retracing his steps, knowing that his long legs would be no match for her petite frame, she couldn't have gotten far.
Crashing into one another in the middle of the street, neither one could hear what the other was saying as the shouting became very heated.
" You're going to drop the attitude, and listen to me, we are not putting this off anymore!"
" You think that you can just drag me along on this amusement park ride that you call your life well you are wrong, I'm not willing anymore, and I've got something to say to you!"
Just then a child slowly pedaling his tricycle on the street passed in the rain. He looked up at them and then back at his mother saying, " Mommy, even though they are outside, I think they sound use their inside voices." The mother looked distracted as she tried to help her child maneuver his way quickly through the downpour. She gave Carter and Abby an unapologetic look, " Yes, I think they should try using their inside voices too Charlie."
Carter looked at the ground and Abby watched the mother and child on their journey up the street. Their eyes met, and slow smiles started to spread across their faces.
"Charlie is right you know, you are acting like a real jerk Carter."
"What? He didn't say that, he said you should stop yelling like a maniac."
"Listen you jerk, I think we need to sit down for a minute and act like grownups, you have the time to sit down in Doc Magoo's?" She wasn't in the mood to create a further scene and she allowed her voice to take on a friendlier tone.
"Yeah I think we've given our audience quite enough." Carter laughed as he titled his head toward the expectant faces staring at them from under the bus stop waiting station.
They bounded up the stairs together shaking rain from their heads and trying to get warm.
"Two black coffee's please, requested Carter.
"Oh and a couple of pieces of apple pie." added Abby.
"So it's going to be that kind of a conversation eh?" he asked her
"You were expecting maybe some fish sticks or something?" she couldn't help laughing at him. She knew she was angry with his earlier behavior, but she just let that go, there were more pressing matters to be dealt with. More important things she wanted to say.
They took their seats at the corner booth and got settled in. Abby started to speak immediately.
"Listen, I have a lot of things that I need to tell you Carter, and I hope you will just listen and wait for me to finish before you interrupt." She looked up at him expectantly and waited for him to agree.
" I will try." He answered her with all sincerity. He knew he would listen to her, but he might just butt in if he felt the need, he could make no promises. His issues with her had been put on the backburner long enough, he didn't know if he would be able to afford her the luxury of not listening to what he had to say for much longer. Even the minutes annoyed him. He was impatient, anticipating his turn.
She began.
"First, I want to say that I am sorry. I should've let you know in some way that I was struggling with the alcohol, but I never found the right chance, scratch that, I never tried to find the right chance. I used your relationship with Susan as an excuse to block you out of my life. I basically gave up on the fact that we might even have a friendship to salvage. I was feeling ignored and neglected in a time where I really could've used your support." She snorted at herself; " I guess I partly brought that on myself, a self-inflicted silence, I remember being so irritated with you when we had that talk by the river about things going on between us. My expectations were so high for where we might be going but then everything came crashing down after that conversation was over. I just got the impression that I had fouled everything up, that you had fouled everything up too. And I was angry for a while. I couldn't face you, or us, or myself, I was tired and bored with all three. Do you understand what I mean?"
He quietly shook his head up and down.
She picked up her coffee cup and took a slow sip before she continued.
"Then it was that day, my birthday, no one remembered it, and Sobricki was brought in."
She hesitantly searched his face for a reaction. She didn't want him to be reminded of those hours but this was necessary. He simply stared back at her, his face not telling her any answers.
"Well when he came back John, I saw him and I thought my legs had failed me I was in complete shock, I didn't know that he would even be alive, let alone allowed to live free, hold a job, have a child.."
She continued and he noted the pain in her voice. " All I wanted to do was to get him out of there. I just did not want you to see him. I managed to dance around the treating physician for hours advising her to get him the hell out of there as soon as possible, but Susan wouldn't listen to me. She followed procedure. She did consider what I said but she didn't compromise the treatment, and I respect her for that, but it was hard to deal with. I guess she just couldn't comprehend the magnitude of terror that all of us who had been there felt."
She took a deep breath and continued. "When you were there in the hallway I tried to grab your attention with any excuse just to keep you from seeing him, to keep you from feeling that same terror that I felt. When my attempts backfired and you looked at me while hearing his voice I thought that I had failed you miserably. Your reaction was just what I expected and I can tell you right now that I would've done anything to keep you from that. I tried John."
She was crying now, angry and indignant tears at the thought of that monster being allowed to live freely when Lucy was dead and her friend forever traumatized by what had happened to him.
"Abby," he started.
"No, let me finish. I tried talking you into going out for coffee and pie but you blew me off. I was affected by his appearance I think more than you'll ever know. I just wanted to talk to you, make sure you'd be okay, as your sponsor I knew this was an event that might lead you backwards in some way that you couldn't control. When you refused me I took it to mean that you felt that I was no more of a help to you, that I had done my job and maybe you had found a permanent sponsor. What I didn't realize that entire time was that you were helping me through my recovery just as equally as I had helped you. Talking and attending meetings with you had kept me from falling back into my old patterns when my mother showed up. I always had that thought in the back of my head that whatever was going on I could handle it, I would call you, or you would call me just to talk it out. The night of Sobricki's return to the E.R. I felt that same sense of he'd be okay we'll talk this out and it will be okay. Then when I went home alone after a completely terrible day I realized just that fact, I was alone and that I just didn't have the willpower to seek another form of relief for myself. I certainly couldn't call you because whatever I was feeling was multiplied a hundred times over by what you had experienced. Maybe it partially had to do with the solitude factor and Luka wasn't in my life at that point either to serve as a distraction. I was offered a beer and conversation and I didn't refuse it. I just started drinking and I didn't care, and I didn't know why.
She stopped here and put her head in her hands. Taking a moment to close her eyes and focus. Did that come out all right?
He watched her. She was exasperated by her own story and he felt that he should tell her that everything she had just told him had kind of knocked him out of his socks. He had never given anyone else's feelings a second thought after he had discovered Sobricki alive and well. She lifted her head and they sat looking at one another in a companionable silence.
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{*Remember, this is a story in parts, to be continued…]
Outside in the ambulance bay Abby leaned one foot back against the wall, and balanced all of her weight on her other leg. She was distracted, it would be obvious to anyone who looked her way. She concentrated on the pattern of intricate stitching on the toe of her sneaker. Somehow when the door opened up and three or four people walked out at once she could sense that he was coming and she lifted her head up trying to catch his attention.
Equally distracted, Carter didn't notice her and kept his eyes pointed straight toward the street. He followed the path of a taxicab as it whizzed past Doc Magoo's. She fell in step behind him matching his pace, not ready to startle him out of the haze he seemed to be in. He came to the curb and stopped short just as a bicyclist whizzed past him. Abby hadn't seen him coming to a halt and she went crashing into him, arms flailing as she hit the ground. He turned to see the commotion, and cocked his head to the side at the vision before his eyes. Abby Lockhart, sitting in a puddle. She hardly looked amused. He offered his hand to her and asked,
"Were you following me?"
Testy, she replied, "You said we could talk later, and then you just left the hospital."
He didn't have the patience for this.
"You know it might just be that I have other things to do today, you just might not be my top priority you know."
She looked at him and tilted her head to one side, scrutinizing him. "You know, I think this can wait Carter, I wouldn't want to disturb you when you're in such a stellar mood."
She wiped herself off quickly small droplets of water running off of her fingers and back into the puddle. She turned on her heel and began to walk away from him.
He stalked off in the other direction and started to feel a fresh batch of indignant feelings well up in his stomach. How dare she behave that way, what right did she have expecting that he was at her beck and call whenever she felt like talking? She had avoided him for a month or more, and now suddenly she had something to say so he had to fall all over himself? No. It doesn't work that way Miss Lockhart. Not anymore.
Abby was walking in the opposite direction very perturbed. What was his problem today? He was so testy. They had just discussed that very morning that they were going to talk when they were off, and now he was behaving as if she had no right to speak to him at all. She could not believe how audacious he was sometimes. She actually saw a shadow of a grin on his face as he gave her a hand out of the puddle. This had quickly faded when they started to speak to one another.
Both walked frenzied through the streets lost in their own distractions about the other.
Abby stopped suddenly, turned on her heel and started to walk back in the direction from which she just came. The game stops here she reminded herself. I haven't come this far for nothing, it's time I told him, everything. The stride in her step was confident and she quickly made progress back toward the hospital. She was so busy talking to Carter in her mind that she didn't even notice the rain starting to fall.
Carter quickly wiped his face not realizing that the annoyance was rain. Enough, he thought. I've had enough. He stopped in the middle of the street and set his jaw, thinking she is not going to avoid me anymore. He pounded the pavement retracing his steps, knowing that his long legs would be no match for her petite frame, she couldn't have gotten far.
Crashing into one another in the middle of the street, neither one could hear what the other was saying as the shouting became very heated.
" You're going to drop the attitude, and listen to me, we are not putting this off anymore!"
" You think that you can just drag me along on this amusement park ride that you call your life well you are wrong, I'm not willing anymore, and I've got something to say to you!"
Just then a child slowly pedaling his tricycle on the street passed in the rain. He looked up at them and then back at his mother saying, " Mommy, even though they are outside, I think they sound use their inside voices." The mother looked distracted as she tried to help her child maneuver his way quickly through the downpour. She gave Carter and Abby an unapologetic look, " Yes, I think they should try using their inside voices too Charlie."
Carter looked at the ground and Abby watched the mother and child on their journey up the street. Their eyes met, and slow smiles started to spread across their faces.
"Charlie is right you know, you are acting like a real jerk Carter."
"What? He didn't say that, he said you should stop yelling like a maniac."
"Listen you jerk, I think we need to sit down for a minute and act like grownups, you have the time to sit down in Doc Magoo's?" She wasn't in the mood to create a further scene and she allowed her voice to take on a friendlier tone.
"Yeah I think we've given our audience quite enough." Carter laughed as he titled his head toward the expectant faces staring at them from under the bus stop waiting station.
They bounded up the stairs together shaking rain from their heads and trying to get warm.
"Two black coffee's please, requested Carter.
"Oh and a couple of pieces of apple pie." added Abby.
"So it's going to be that kind of a conversation eh?" he asked her
"You were expecting maybe some fish sticks or something?" she couldn't help laughing at him. She knew she was angry with his earlier behavior, but she just let that go, there were more pressing matters to be dealt with. More important things she wanted to say.
They took their seats at the corner booth and got settled in. Abby started to speak immediately.
"Listen, I have a lot of things that I need to tell you Carter, and I hope you will just listen and wait for me to finish before you interrupt." She looked up at him expectantly and waited for him to agree.
" I will try." He answered her with all sincerity. He knew he would listen to her, but he might just butt in if he felt the need, he could make no promises. His issues with her had been put on the backburner long enough, he didn't know if he would be able to afford her the luxury of not listening to what he had to say for much longer. Even the minutes annoyed him. He was impatient, anticipating his turn.
She began.
"First, I want to say that I am sorry. I should've let you know in some way that I was struggling with the alcohol, but I never found the right chance, scratch that, I never tried to find the right chance. I used your relationship with Susan as an excuse to block you out of my life. I basically gave up on the fact that we might even have a friendship to salvage. I was feeling ignored and neglected in a time where I really could've used your support." She snorted at herself; " I guess I partly brought that on myself, a self-inflicted silence, I remember being so irritated with you when we had that talk by the river about things going on between us. My expectations were so high for where we might be going but then everything came crashing down after that conversation was over. I just got the impression that I had fouled everything up, that you had fouled everything up too. And I was angry for a while. I couldn't face you, or us, or myself, I was tired and bored with all three. Do you understand what I mean?"
He quietly shook his head up and down.
She picked up her coffee cup and took a slow sip before she continued.
"Then it was that day, my birthday, no one remembered it, and Sobricki was brought in."
She hesitantly searched his face for a reaction. She didn't want him to be reminded of those hours but this was necessary. He simply stared back at her, his face not telling her any answers.
"Well when he came back John, I saw him and I thought my legs had failed me I was in complete shock, I didn't know that he would even be alive, let alone allowed to live free, hold a job, have a child.."
She continued and he noted the pain in her voice. " All I wanted to do was to get him out of there. I just did not want you to see him. I managed to dance around the treating physician for hours advising her to get him the hell out of there as soon as possible, but Susan wouldn't listen to me. She followed procedure. She did consider what I said but she didn't compromise the treatment, and I respect her for that, but it was hard to deal with. I guess she just couldn't comprehend the magnitude of terror that all of us who had been there felt."
She took a deep breath and continued. "When you were there in the hallway I tried to grab your attention with any excuse just to keep you from seeing him, to keep you from feeling that same terror that I felt. When my attempts backfired and you looked at me while hearing his voice I thought that I had failed you miserably. Your reaction was just what I expected and I can tell you right now that I would've done anything to keep you from that. I tried John."
She was crying now, angry and indignant tears at the thought of that monster being allowed to live freely when Lucy was dead and her friend forever traumatized by what had happened to him.
"Abby," he started.
"No, let me finish. I tried talking you into going out for coffee and pie but you blew me off. I was affected by his appearance I think more than you'll ever know. I just wanted to talk to you, make sure you'd be okay, as your sponsor I knew this was an event that might lead you backwards in some way that you couldn't control. When you refused me I took it to mean that you felt that I was no more of a help to you, that I had done my job and maybe you had found a permanent sponsor. What I didn't realize that entire time was that you were helping me through my recovery just as equally as I had helped you. Talking and attending meetings with you had kept me from falling back into my old patterns when my mother showed up. I always had that thought in the back of my head that whatever was going on I could handle it, I would call you, or you would call me just to talk it out. The night of Sobricki's return to the E.R. I felt that same sense of he'd be okay we'll talk this out and it will be okay. Then when I went home alone after a completely terrible day I realized just that fact, I was alone and that I just didn't have the willpower to seek another form of relief for myself. I certainly couldn't call you because whatever I was feeling was multiplied a hundred times over by what you had experienced. Maybe it partially had to do with the solitude factor and Luka wasn't in my life at that point either to serve as a distraction. I was offered a beer and conversation and I didn't refuse it. I just started drinking and I didn't care, and I didn't know why.
She stopped here and put her head in her hands. Taking a moment to close her eyes and focus. Did that come out all right?
He watched her. She was exasperated by her own story and he felt that he should tell her that everything she had just told him had kind of knocked him out of his socks. He had never given anyone else's feelings a second thought after he had discovered Sobricki alive and well. She lifted her head and they sat looking at one another in a companionable silence.
************************************************************************
{*Remember, this is a story in parts, to be continued…]