parte cinco
I can't keep on living like this. Running away from the one person I run too, regretting something that could technically never have happened... Thinking the unthinkable. How can the unthinkable become the truth? How can you screw yourself over a million times until you're reduced to nothing in just one night? How can you marry the one man you've sworn never to touch, never to hold, never to feel for, never to love. Screw protocol and look where you get. One night in Vegas to change everything. And how am I supposed to look in him eyes every night and tell him everything's ok when everything is NOT fucking ok, that ok is far from how I am feeling right now? How can I lie and oh yes Officer Vaughn you're my friend and you're my allie and godamnit Michael you're my husband! And here I have to prance around like I don't know how damn much I want you. This is driving me insane.
By now all the hard core evidence is in front me spread out on the bed I can't bring myself to sleep on because when I see it all I think of is... There's the pictures; black and white stills along with a few color photos of a grinning couple in a tux and dress that wasn't exactly wedding wasn't exactly casual. There's the happy couple walking down the aisle and the happy couple saying their vows and the happy couple kissing and god damnit there is no happy couple! There's just a girl with a ring in her pocket lying to (Ourselves, Sydney, we have been. I realized that now. So now, Vegas or no Vegas, drink or no drink, I still know that I love you Sydney. I love you so much...) herself and oh god when he proposed in front of Joe's Pastoral Service I knew he was going to but still when he got down on one knee and looked into my eyes... Steady drops fall lightly onto the pictures, and I suddenly pick the polaroids up and hurl them across the room. Happy couple nothing. One night in Vegas can screw you over but it can't kill you... It can't. Really.
And I shouldn't be this dependant on him. Because as soon as I start crying I'll suddenly find myself in an abandoned warehouse with him close by or standing next to me or with his arms around me and then I'll sleep better at night knowing my guardian angel's watching over me. Guardian angel my ass.
I look down at the half dialed number flashing on the gray screen and suddenly my phone finds itself next to the happy couple. Two more lies lying limp on the carpet. The next item in the pile of "how I screwed myself over" was another picture. A color photo of him lying on the bed peacefully. I take out my big box of photos and find one of me in a similar position, one Danny took of me sleeping the night after he proposed. I put both in the back of my wallet. The rest of the photos I pick up and begin to stuff in the bottom of my sock drawer. As I come to the last one I hesitate at the picture of the happy couple after that fatal statement that screwed my life over a thousand times. Our first kiss was when we got hitched. Great. None the less, I stick the picture behind my mother's in the picture frame. There it can be happy to live under Irina's evil glare. Maybe I'll burn the pictures. Maybe then their images will stop drifting in and out of my head, which wasn't always a bad things considering the alternative. Not that the alternative was bad, but god, every time I see him, every time I [i]think[/I] of him I want him more and more I can't live this way forever. I'll have to tell him sometime. It would be so easy. I could just fax him the form lying face down on my bed. Let this kill [i]him[/I] inside, let [i]him[/I] remember slowly, remember piece by piece the activities of that night. Let [i]him[/I] ponder over the happy couple.
The phone rings as I speculate over the last item lying on the bed, that being the simple but beautiful diamond ring. I'm so afraid to even touch it. I walk over to the phone and drop down to my knees and look at the number calling.
I let the phone ring. It's just some damn pizza place with a wrong number. And the ring is calling ominously. I walk over and get a chain from the jewelry box, and, with as much care as possible not to touch the object itself, thread the chain around the diamond and fasten the chain around my neck. I shiver as the metal band brushes against my skin, and quickly tuck it under my shirt. "Sydney..." The fact that I have a voice mailbox kills me and it takes everything in me to walk away from the phone. As the door to my room closes, I hear his faithful words... "Number three, Syd. I need you." I need you, too, Michael. More than you could ever know.
*
I can't keep on living like this. Running away from the one person I run too, regretting something that could technically never have happened... Thinking the unthinkable. How can the unthinkable become the truth? How can you screw yourself over a million times until you're reduced to nothing in just one night? How can you marry the one man you've sworn never to touch, never to hold, never to feel for, never to love. Screw protocol and look where you get. One night in Vegas to change everything. And how am I supposed to look in him eyes every night and tell him everything's ok when everything is NOT fucking ok, that ok is far from how I am feeling right now? How can I lie and oh yes Officer Vaughn you're my friend and you're my allie and godamnit Michael you're my husband! And here I have to prance around like I don't know how damn much I want you. This is driving me insane.
By now all the hard core evidence is in front me spread out on the bed I can't bring myself to sleep on because when I see it all I think of is... There's the pictures; black and white stills along with a few color photos of a grinning couple in a tux and dress that wasn't exactly wedding wasn't exactly casual. There's the happy couple walking down the aisle and the happy couple saying their vows and the happy couple kissing and god damnit there is no happy couple! There's just a girl with a ring in her pocket lying to (Ourselves, Sydney, we have been. I realized that now. So now, Vegas or no Vegas, drink or no drink, I still know that I love you Sydney. I love you so much...) herself and oh god when he proposed in front of Joe's Pastoral Service I knew he was going to but still when he got down on one knee and looked into my eyes... Steady drops fall lightly onto the pictures, and I suddenly pick the polaroids up and hurl them across the room. Happy couple nothing. One night in Vegas can screw you over but it can't kill you... It can't. Really.
And I shouldn't be this dependant on him. Because as soon as I start crying I'll suddenly find myself in an abandoned warehouse with him close by or standing next to me or with his arms around me and then I'll sleep better at night knowing my guardian angel's watching over me. Guardian angel my ass.
I look down at the half dialed number flashing on the gray screen and suddenly my phone finds itself next to the happy couple. Two more lies lying limp on the carpet. The next item in the pile of "how I screwed myself over" was another picture. A color photo of him lying on the bed peacefully. I take out my big box of photos and find one of me in a similar position, one Danny took of me sleeping the night after he proposed. I put both in the back of my wallet. The rest of the photos I pick up and begin to stuff in the bottom of my sock drawer. As I come to the last one I hesitate at the picture of the happy couple after that fatal statement that screwed my life over a thousand times. Our first kiss was when we got hitched. Great. None the less, I stick the picture behind my mother's in the picture frame. There it can be happy to live under Irina's evil glare. Maybe I'll burn the pictures. Maybe then their images will stop drifting in and out of my head, which wasn't always a bad things considering the alternative. Not that the alternative was bad, but god, every time I see him, every time I [i]think[/I] of him I want him more and more I can't live this way forever. I'll have to tell him sometime. It would be so easy. I could just fax him the form lying face down on my bed. Let this kill [i]him[/I] inside, let [i]him[/I] remember slowly, remember piece by piece the activities of that night. Let [i]him[/I] ponder over the happy couple.
The phone rings as I speculate over the last item lying on the bed, that being the simple but beautiful diamond ring. I'm so afraid to even touch it. I walk over to the phone and drop down to my knees and look at the number calling.
I let the phone ring. It's just some damn pizza place with a wrong number. And the ring is calling ominously. I walk over and get a chain from the jewelry box, and, with as much care as possible not to touch the object itself, thread the chain around the diamond and fasten the chain around my neck. I shiver as the metal band brushes against my skin, and quickly tuck it under my shirt. "Sydney..." The fact that I have a voice mailbox kills me and it takes everything in me to walk away from the phone. As the door to my room closes, I hear his faithful words... "Number three, Syd. I need you." I need you, too, Michael. More than you could ever know.
*