Caroline and the Unfortunate Circumstance
Chapter Four: Personal Growth
By S. Arallion
Disclaimer: All characters in this story are owned by their respective copyright holders—namely, not myself. Anything you don't recognize is my fault. I make absolutely no profit from my use of these characters. ~~Arallion
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"Well, good morning sleepyhead," Annie's voice came cheerily. Caroline rolled over and smiled. Richard peered at her blearily from under his forearm and groaned.
"Hey, now we know why you never get to work before ten o'clock," the dancer grinned at him. "Wow, scary."
"As I recall, you're not much of a morning person yourself," Richard growled, struggling to sit up on the hard couch. Finally untangling the blanket, he sat up with an expression of pain on his face, rubbing his neck. "Oh, god. I may never recover from this. Caroline, do you think you can handle having Quasimoto as your assistant?"
Caroline laughed, sitting up in the bed. "We could always have Annie's friend give you a massage..." Annie winked at her, still grinning.
"Which friend?" Richard asked, giving them a suspicious look. "On second thought, I think I'll pass."
"You look better this morning," Annie noticed, sitting down in the chair next to Caroline's bed.
"I feel much better," Caroline admitted. "I'm really grateful to have you guys here, though. You know how I hate hospitals, Annie." Her friend shrugged and gripped her hand.
"I know. That's why I'm here-- to help you enjoy being waited on hand and foot by some of these gorgeous male nurses."
Caroline gave her a look. "The only nurses I've seen so far have been matronly ladies. I think they're afraid of scaring me." She sighed. "I am so ready to go home, I can hardly stand to sit here."
Annie grinned sympathetically. "Like having ten moms, huh? Not to mention Richard and Del playing the mother hen.... I don't think you're going to get away from the mothering just by going home."
"Yeah, but I don't have to be polite to them if they drive me nuts," Caroline pointed out. Richard winced.
"All right, I wouldn't want my presence to keep you two from talking about anything," he grumbled, smiling slightly. "I'm going to go check on some things, and try to wake up. I'll check in on you later?"
"See ya, Richie," Annie trilled, batting her eyes at him. He narrowed his eyes at her and made a clawing motion in her direction, which made both her and Caroline laugh.
"'Bye."
Annie giggled a bit more. "So, Caroline."
"What?" the cartoonist smiled.
"Don't do something like this again, if you can help it, okay? I was worried sick."
Caroline grabbed her friend in a strong hug. "I'm so sorry, Annie. I don't know why I was so stupid-- but y'know, he seemed like a nice guy, and-- oh, I don't know what went wrong!" She was crying now, but it felt good to talk about it.
Annie held her, sniffling a little herself. "Oh, Caroline, knock it off. You're not stupid. You just decided to trust Trevor--hey, he looked good-- and he turned out to be a really sneaky jerk! How could you have known? You'd gone out with him lots of times, and he was nice, right?"
"Yes," came the choked response.
"Well, it wasn't your fault then. He should have been smart enough to know when no means no." She snorted. "Boy, if I ever see him again, I'm gonna give him a pas de deux right in the face."
Caroline smiled half-heartedly. "But the thing is, Annie... I think it really was my fault." Her friend looked at her disbelievingly. "No, wait. You know how I was throwing a dinner party for Richard and Julia, and Trevor and I?"
"Yeah, I thought about listening at the door," Annie sniffed. "When you told me, I thought; 'Twilight Zone'...."
Caroline rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I didn't do it just on a whim, though. Did you know that Richard used to be interested in me?"
Annie stared at her, and let out a shout of laughter. "Did I know? Are you kidding? I was using it as blackmail!"
"You knew?" Caroline gasped. "And you didn't tell me?"
"I was going to, Caroline, but he got really weird about it. Actually, I was afraid he'd take off again like when you were going to get married. So I promised not to."
Caroline sighed bitterly. "Well, 'what if's obviously won't help now. Anyway, he told me, about a week ago. We both had other people in our lives, though, so we sort of agreed to put it behind us and go on with our lives. I threw the dinner party to prove to myself that everything was over, I think."
"Ooo, bad move," Annie surmised, patting her friend's shoulder sympathetically.
"No kidding. It was a disaster, and all I ended up proving was that he was over me, but I wasn't over him." Her eyes dropped. "I told him about my message that Julia erased. He asked her about it, and she asked if it would have made any difference. You know the way she is... anyway, he said it wouldn't have. He still would have married her."
Annie had a thoughtful expression on her face. "He said this in front of you?"
"Well, um, no." Caroline blushed. "I wasn't eavedropping, really. I just forgot my purse and went back in to get it, and they were talking. But I was so embarrassed... I guess I just decided that enough was enough, and I was going to have to move on."
"And so what happened?"
"Well…" Caroline's eyes dropped, and her face tightened. "When I went out to the lobby, Trevor was waiting for me. I asked him if he'd like to come over. But somewhere between that point and when we got into my apartment I started having second thoughts. We had a drink and talked for a while, and I remember he was acting a little weird, but I really didn't think about it."
Annie clenched her fist tightly in the blanket as she watched her best friend stubbornly trying to reconstruct the experience, noticing the tears starting to track quietly down her cheeks. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," she mumbled gently, covering Caroline's small hand with her own.
The red hair tossed defiantly. "No, I get this funny feeling that I need to tell someone about it. I'm sorry, if you don't want me to tell you I won't…." Caroline's grey eyes looked up at her suddenly, concerned. Annie snorted, feeling guilty for having given her that idea, and ticked off at herself for not having read all the pamphlets the nurse had given them when they first came into the hospital.
"You can tell me anything, Care, you know that. I'm here for ya. Go on."
"Okay," Caroline sniffled softly. "So, I went upstairs for a few minutes, to sort myself out and change into more comfortable clothes. But when I came out of the closet the lights were off. I remember Trevor saying something about 'waiting all night for this' and he was hanging on to me. I think I must have blurted something out about what happened with Richard, and that I wasn't ready yet, and that's when everything really went berserk. I don't remember much else, besides trying to get away."
Annie had put her arm around Caroline's neck carefully during her outburst, as her friend's sentences became more broken with sobs. "It's okay, Care," she said, feeling helpless. It wasn't okay, but she didn't know what else to say.
Caroline's head popped up abruptly. "I thumped him good on the head with my big vase though," she said vehemently.
"Good!" Annie growled, squeezing Caroline's shoulders comfortingly. There was silence for a moment. Well, I might as well be the one to say it… She cleared her throat awkwardly.
"I think you should blow the whistle on him too, just so you know."
Caroline looked shocked. "But—he'll just say I led him on. I did invite him up."
"So?" The dancer's face grew stern. This was something she knew how to answer. "Look, Care, it doesn't matter. Even if a guy thinks he can expect it, if the woman says no, that should be the end of the discussion. I've had to do that myself a few times." She caught the look Caroline shot her and waved her hands in exasperation. "I have said 'no', no matter what your resident Angel of Doom says."
Caroline didn't seem very convinced, but almost smiled at the defensive comment.
Annie sighed. Taking things slow had always been tough for her. "Anyway, the point is, you do what you feel you have to do now. I just want you to know that whatever you decide, we'll all support you. We think you're the best."
"Thanks," the cartoonist mumbled forlornly, wiping at her face with the blanket.
Annie sighed. "Man, Caroline, I really don't know what to do with you sometimes. Between you and Mr. Misery-Is-My-Middle-Name, I think I have a full-time job."
"What do you mean?" Caroline grabbed the tissue Annie handed her and wiped her eyes, unable to keep from grinning at the nicknames Annie kept coming up with for Richard.
"Look, if you had seen his face the other night--" Annie broke off impatiently. "Let's just say that if You-Know-Who had been dumb enough to put in an appearance, he'd be trying to sort out his teeth right now. Richard left Julia in the middle of the night to come find you, and judging from his appearance, I don't think he's been home since. Take my word, there's more than friendship going on here."
Caroline stared at her, mouth open. "Seriously? He did that for me?"
"Yup," the dancer said smugly.
"So what do you expect me to do, Annie? Ask him?"
"Well?"
"I can't do that! He's married!" Her small hands throttled the bedspread.
"So? Del was married, twice. People make mistakes, especially when they have pushy folk like Julia to contend with."
"But I can't, Annie," Caroline wailed. "I'm just not that kind of person. And, especially now, I'm a mess…"
"Okay, look." Annie grabbed Caroline's arms and stared into her face. "You're a bigger mess without him. Either you can sit across from him at that desk and get more and more depressed every day because you know what you have to do to be happy, but you're too chicken to try, or you can take control of your life."
Caroline blinked, and a puzzled line appeared between her eyebrows. "Annie, you lost me with that one."
"Well, I got it from a soap opera. Never mind." Annie shrugged. "Caroline, do you really think you would be happy with him?" The grey eyes dropped again. "Yeah, you do. And from my perspective-- I can't believe I'm saying this-- I think you two would be great for each other. So take the reins, girl. Stop letting life push you around. Stop letting Julia push you both around, and give her a taste of her own medicine!"
"What... you mean, come on to him?"
"Why not? If the spirit moves you," Annie replied with a pious expression worthy of a Harlem gospel singer. Caroline dropped her head into her hands.
"So you really think he still has feelings for me."
Her friend squeezed her hands comfortingly. "Hey, if you don't believe me, just smile at him real big when he comes in later on, and see what he does."
Slowly, an answering grin spread across Caroline's face, and they sat beaming at each other like contented cats.
"So.... what's going on in the soaps today?"
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Richard opened the door of his apartment cautiously, not sure what to expect as a welcome. There was no flamethrower, no knife launching at him, and consequently no Julia. Sighing, he stepped inside and looked around.
Julia's things were collected in bags and boxes on the bed. The apartment was strangely bare without them, but it had never actually felt like a home anyway. He raised an eyebrow as he realized that even when faced with the physical evidence of Julia's leaving, he wasn't feeling anything. He'd expected to feel something. Fear, perhaps. Or the ever-present feeling of inadequacy… but even that rabid shrieking monster hadn't made an appearance yet. Maybe he was in shock. He grabbed a change of clothing from the closet and headed for the shower.
Julia was waiting for him when he came out. She sat demurely on the bed, appearing as beautiful as she ever had. Like some lovely stone sculpture, easy on the eyes. "Hello, Richard."
"Hello, Julia." He finished buttoning his shirt, staring straight at her. She actually fidgeted. "Are you going somewhere?"
Her hands fluttered vaguely over the packages. "Ah, this. I thought it might be best, considering..."
"You're probably right," he responded coolly. "Considering..."
She folded more quickly than he'd expected. "Oh, my darling, please understand. I was just so angry that she was coming again to disturb us... She is always coming between us. I felt like I was losing you, Richard." Her dark eyes pleaded with him, beguiled him, but he was having none of it.
He sat down beside her on the bed. "I'm sorry, Julia. I know you're used to being the only thing of importance in my life, and you were, once. But when you left the first time, I guess I had to find something else to fill that void." The blue eyes dropped thoughtfully. "I tried very hard not to need anyone in my life before I met you, Julia. You remember that. I suppose that after you, I never had a chance to make it back to that state."
Julia was staring at him curiously. "I'm not sure I understand what you are telling me, caro mia."
He sighed. "What I'm telling you is that I've changed, Julia. Caroline, and Del, and Annie, and even Charlie," he said with a slightly surprised look, "are all very special to me. I've never had friends like this before. I was hoping that somehow you could be part of all this, learn to care for them as I do, but... It just never worked out. And now-- maybe it's a flaw in me, but I can't push all of them aside for you! Especially not in emergencies like the night before last."
She tried to touch his face, but he caught her hand in his instead. The numbness in his heart was being replaced, but only by a strong feeling of pity, and a desire to make her understand. "Listen to me, Julia. The night before last, Caroline was attacked by the fellow she was seeing. It wasn't a scheme to come between us. She came here, frightened and confused, but you didn't even let her come inside to dry off." His tone became deliberate. "That is what you've lost me over. Not any 'feelings' I might have had for Caroline, or my long hours at work, or any other circumstance you might envision. I just can't find it in myself to love someone with such a complete lack of consideration for anyone else."
Slightly shocked at learning the reason for Caroline's visit, Julia's face stiffened in pride. "I would never have done this thing if it weren't for the fact that you are in love with her, and not me. She stole you from me, and I will never forgive her for that." Her head tossed indignantly as she flung the accusation at him.
Richard closed his eyes in sudden pain for a moment. "I can't convince you otherwise."
"Because it is true!"
"Maybe. But if that's so," he said thoughtfully, "then you can't play the martyr. You stole me from her first."
Her face turned white. "I don't have to listen to this, Richard. You are just making excuses."
"Probably," he sighed, releasing her hand. "I really am sorry, Julia. I did love you very much, once."
She rose and stared down at him uncertainly. "I think I shall be going back to Italy now. I will send someone to pick up my things. If you would be so kind...?"
"I'll make sure everything is all right. Good luck."
"Are you absolutely sure about this, caro mia?" she murmured, touching him softly on the cheek. He looked up at her sadly, across the huge gulf of comprehension that lay between them.
"Goodbye, Julia."
She hesitated on the way out the door, and set something on the table. "Goodbye, Richard."
When the door closed, he finally wept.
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To be continued…
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Author's Note: The reviews I've received so far have been wonderful. I hope the story continues to meet your expectations!